http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGQTIlKFkh4

















CHANGING ATTITUDES

This photo of members of the Esyuen (phonetically "Sun") League from the October 1935 issue of ‘The Nudist’ had the original caption,  "Problem? : What's wrong with it?"

Nothing - but the question is a legitimate inquiry that naturists need to answer to themselves, and to society.  The practice of nudity can be viewed in aspects of: "natural" and "deliberate".

Early chroniclers reported that Native Americans by and large found nudity normal, natural, and inoffensive.  French explorer Jean Ribaut commented on Florida tribes living around what is now Jacksonville, "They be all naked ... ," and Champlain noted the Huron often wore no clothes whatsoever.(1)

We also know that early Americans including Benjamin Franklin and John Quincy Adams were skinny-dippers with no secrecy and, as far as we know, no criticism from the public.  Franklin was also known for his "air baths" - opening a window and letting the air wash over his nude body for an hour, which he advocated as a health practice.

This is termed "natural" attitude: the nude human body is intrinsically non-offensive, ie "body acceptance."  This acceptance was surely not universal among Americans of European extraction, but rather subject to place and circumstance.  Perhaps a nude stroller through town might be thrown in jail for a day or two.  (Today, he or she might be charged as a sexual offender in some places, subject to a long prison sentence.)  On the other hand, if you went down to the stream on a hot day, stripped off, and went for a swim, this was apparently considered quire natural and inoffensive.  Surely, if we know that Franklin and Adams were nude swimmers, it seems natural to think that many more mere plebeians of "less consequence" were as well, and that the absence of mention of such activities in the press of the day indicates this was not seen as a major social ill.

Later nineteenth century saw erosion of this "natural" attitude toward nudity in America, paralleling Victorian attitudes in Great Britain. The diary of Rev. Robert Francis Kilvert, a Church of England minister who grew up unselfconsciously swimming nude (like Franklin and Adams in America) provides a documentation of the gradual enforcement of wearing bathing suits in England. His entries include such as these from the 1870s: "There was a delicious feeling of freedom of stripping in the open air and running down naked to the sea .... "  (And which of us having the same experience cannot identify fully with Kilvert's comments!)  "At Seaton .. .I had in my ignorance bathed naked and set at nought the conventionalities of the place ... "  "At Shanklin one has to adopt the detestable custom of bathing in drawers."(2)

Organized nudist movements began as a reaction against such Victorian attitudes, first in Germany, slightly later in England, and eventually coming to America early in the 1930s, at a time when men could be arrested for going topless at many beaches in the U.S., the bare male chest being considered just as offensive as the bare female chest.  There were no American nudist clubs in 1930, but by the end of 1933 there were forty-four affiliated with the new American Sunbathing Association, years later renamed the current American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR).(3)

The term "deliberateness" is characteristic of the change to modern nudism.  The nudist had to deliberately challenge the current “norms” and “correctness”. And there was secrecy: club acquaintances were usually on a first-name-only basis, and the term "Health Club" was often used in preference to "Nudist Club" - not altogether inappropriately, as nudism certainly emphasized health and physical fitness; it was a true "back to nature" movement.

Of course, skinny-dipping had never entirely died out. Older Americans will still remember skinny-dipping in streams and ponds, nude Scout swims, and swimming nude at school.  My father swam nude in the school pool for classes, as was the norm.

But the "Age of Aquarius" in the 1960s began to expand attitudes toward social nudity: Woodstock, John Lennon and Yoko Ono nude on a record cover, hippie communes that accepted nudity; again posing the question: "Problem?  What's wrong with nudity?"

With rising attitudes of gender equality, men, women, and families sought remote beach areas where they could swim and sunbath socially in nature's wholly adequate swimwear.  They were, of course, preceded by others in Germany, in France, and in many other European countries: countries like tiny Holland that today has 160 designated nude beaches!

Certainly, attitudes have changed. Go to any beach in the U.S., and I'd contend that at least 90% of the swimwear would have been considered obscene in 1933.  As the 2006 NEF/Roper poll indicates, in comparison with the 1983 TNS/Gallup poll using the same questions, today’s Americans are more accepting of nudity.(4)  

The American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) openly promotes nude recreation as a legitimate recreation choice through its "Nakation" promotion and through media placements. Members of The Naturist Society, the Naturist Action Committee, and the Naturist Education Foundation proudly present business cards with their names to legislators and community leaders.  Free Beaches advocates meet with legislators as open spokespersons for naturism.

Advocates of naturism and nudism promote the right of safe and responsible clothing-free recreation and continue to inform and exercise their rights to enjoy their freedoms in the sun.

Footnotes:

 1) Francis Parkman: France and England in North America (Volume One), Library of America edition (New York, NY: 1983), pp. 44 and 290; additional references to Native American nudity passim.

 2) Quoted in Cec Cinder: The Nudist Idea, The Ultraviolet Press (Riverside, CA: 1998), pp. 331-333.

 3) Ibid, p. 532.

 4) www.naturisteducation.org

Changing Attitudes toward Nudity
Photo and Excerpts from an article by Michael Kush used with permission
N – The Magazine of Naturist Living
The Naturist Society
Spring, 2009
Feature section, p55