the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's

beauty and not

desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

the first men were ‘rough and uncouth … without

culture, without shrines, without a settled home’;
Bartolommeo Scala echoes
Lucretius’ Dialogue of Consolation, 1463

“the body is more than raiment,” yet it was the

conscious release from raiment that made the body
visible. Annebella Pollen,
Utopian Bodies and Anti-Fashion Futures

“The human body is the principal

actor in all utopias.” Michel Foucault

HABEAS
CORPUS
naturism & utopia in the city

compiled by
amma birago
Nudity is a form of dress. -
Ways of Seeing, John Berger

The nude is condemned to never

being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.
Nudity and Dance Art, Suzanne Jaeger

To go naked is the best disguise.

Congreve, The Double Dealer

“There is a purity - a sacredness in our natural nakedness. We

find a marvellous revelation in the beauty and strength of the
naked body, transfigured by godlike purity shining from the
free and open eye which mirrors the whole depth of a noble
and questing soul.
Man and Sunlight
Suren
The spectacle of nakedness has its moral value in teaching us
to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, a lesson which is an
essential part the training for any kind of fine social life.
1

The Spectacle Of Nakedness, Sexual Education And

Page

Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

… "he gave her a dress" means that a man has married a maiden
and not a widow,' while on the island of Tahiti the chief ceremony
in the marriage rite consists in the groom
throwing the bride a piece of cloth.
The Function of Clothing and of Bodily Adornment
The American Journal of Psychology, Jan., 1927,
Herbert C. Sanborn

… All Postlapsarian
nakedness is genital, mean, or shameful, and yet there was
always the paradoxical image of Eden and its perfect nudity.
The Deceit of Dress,
Richard Martin

Naked In Nature:
Nina J. Morris
Like Surén, Thoreau actively sought out sensuous experiences;
nature was 'a living thing, like himself, which he want [ed] to respond
to with his whole being, not just with the sense of sight but
with the other senses as well'.

Fashion in Utopia, Utopia in Fashion

Mila Burcikova
… nudism is not only a social cause that offers a tangible resolution to all that is wrong in the modern world but also
a way of delivering heaven on earth. Perhaps the first to establish this zealous approach was Suren in Man and
Sunlight, a comprehensive “manual of life reform” to be achieved through a rigorous regime of outdoor nudism and
exercise. Suren asserted, “There is a purity - a sacredness in our natural nakedness.

Authenticity and Asceticism:

Discourse and Performance in Nude Culture and Health Reform in Belgium, 1920-1940
Evert Peeters
Modern man needed to relearn what "primitive man" had been capable of doing by instinct. "Primitive man,"
Pascault wrote, "bears, not stoically but passively, many tortures that seem horrible to us." If modern individuals
aimed at reestablishing this innate human ability, they needed only to strengthen their will. Their act of the will
2

aimed at a reframing of their experience through logical appraisal.

Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Naked In Nature:
Naturism, Nature And The Senses In Early 20th Century Britain
Nina J. Morris
… Surén's desire to immerse himself in nature is reminiscent of that expressed by 19th century American naturalist
and 'simple life' advocate Henry Thoreau. Like Surén, Thoreau actively sought out sensuous experiences; nature was
'a living thing, like himself, which he want [ed] to respond to with his whole being, not just with the sense of sight
but with the other senses as well'. Both men viewed going naked in nature as a form of education which could
develop an individual's 'natural' capacity for perception. For example, Thoreau disciplined himself to sense all that
he could and was proud of his ability to witness sights that companions could not, distinguish between (and
anticipate) slight sounds, smell the scent trails left by animals, enjoy simple foods and, detect tiny changes in air
temperature. Whilst Surén commented that his powers of observation, instinct for nature and capacities for insight
had all been marvellously increased since first shedding his clothes and that, when naked, his self-awareness and
senses of touch, smell, hearing and taste became inflamed. When roving naked in the natural environment he stated
that one could feel the breathing of nature; 'every tree and every shrub whisper deep slumbering wisdom into our
souls [it] awakens in us the deep intuitive knowledge of true humanity and all of the transitoryness of our school
learning'. For both Surén and Thoreau such close encounters with nature symbolized 'the antithesis of culture' and
promised to 'provide westerners weary of the sophistry of civilization with what seem [ed] like a welcome retreat
into untutored sensation'.

Fig Leaf, Pudica, Nudity, and Other Revealing Concealments

Seymour Howard
One can clearly see a primitivism in Man and sunlight -which,
challenged the racial dialogues which had been circulating in Europe
(as a result of colonial expansion) since the 18th century.

Like Surén, Thoreau actively sought out sensuous experiences; nature

was 'a living thing, like himself, which he want [ed] to respond to with
his whole being, not just with the sense of sight but with the other
senses as well'. Both men viewed going naked in nature as a form of
education which could develop an individual's 'natural' capacity for
perception.
Naked In Nature:
Naturism, Nature And The Senses In Early 20th Century Britain
Nina J. Morris

The Right to be Publicly Naked:

A Defence of Nudism
Bouke de Vries
A peculiar joy in wandering naked through the cool pine woods,
whether by day or by moonlight, which is far superior to airbathing in a
restricted garden (Warren 1933, p. 172).
3

Man and sunlight, without doubt a product of its time, reflects contemporary European-wide debates on urbanism,
Page

nationhood, health and the benefits to be accrued through closer contact with nature. Surén and his fellow naturists

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

believed that an increased intimacy with nature through nudity developed individual character, strength and self-
discipline, which in turn, could restore health, vitality and morality to the nation. By combining the best parts of
'civilization' and the 'primitive' it was assumed that individuals would discover and experience their 'true' selves.
This discovery of one's 'true self would, in turn, necessitate and later sustain, a more harmonious being, balanced in
body and mind.

Naked In Nature:
Nina J. Morris
Like Surén, Thoreau actively sought out sensuous experiences; nature was 'a living thing, like himself, which he
want [ed] to respond to with his whole being, not just with the sense of sight but with the other senses as well'.

J. Lauer, Costume in Antiquity (New York 1964), asserts that primitive

peoples wore clothes around their genitals to protect the organs of
procreation from the "evil eye" and so preserve their fertility. The
absence of this fear among the Greeks, if in fact it ever existed, would
be another mark of their superiority over the barbarians.
Nudity in Greek Athletics
James A. Arieti

Fig Leaf, Pudica, Nudity, and Other Revealing Concealments

Seymour Howard
It is unclear how Surén's views on tanning, and his elevation of darker
skin tones to a position of healthy desirability, fitted into the Aryan
discourses which were beginning to circulate in Germany around this
time. One can clearly see a primitivism in Man and sunlight -which,
challenged the racial dialogues which had been circulating in Europe
(as a result of colonial expansion) since the 18th century.

“There is a purity - a sacredness in our natural nakedness.

We find a marvellous revelation in the beauty and strength
of the naked body, transfigured by godlike purity shining
from the free and open eye which mirrors the whole
depth of a noble and questing soul.
Man and Sunlight
Suren

“The skin of the civilized man, is an atrophied organ” …

4

“it is no less [unreasonable] to expect the delicate skin of

Page

man to keep its health in perpetual darkness”

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Rev. Norwood,
1933, Nudism in England

According Schurtz, this fact throws a flood of light on the psychological significance of clothing, which in many
cases is plainly seen to a symbol of the married state. With some races the expression, "he gave her a dress" means
that a man has married a maiden and not a widow,' while on the island of Tahiti the chief ceremony in the marriage
rite consists in the groom throwing the bride a piece of cloth.
The Function of Clothing and of Bodily Adornment
The American Journal of Psychology, Jan., 1927,
Herbert C. Sanborn

Nudity as a Costume in Classical Art

Larissa Bonfante
The Greeks saw their custom of athletic male nudity as something that set them apart from the barbarians, as well as
from their own past. … Among the innovations of the ancient Greeks that changed our way of seeing the world, one
of the most prominent is a certain kind of public nudity-nudity as a costume.' This is a surprising phenomenon. That
we have not been more surprised by it is due to the fact that we follow in their tradition and take the Greeks as
models, forgetting how often their institutions and attitudes made them the exception, and not the rule, among
ancient peoples.

… “false ideas of modesty should not be engendered

by covering the sexual organs or the breasts.”
H. Robini

“the body is more than raiment,” yet it was the conscious

release from raiment that made the body visible.
Annebella Pollen,
Utopian Bodies and Anti-Fashion Futures

… The Greeks of the Classical world did not forget.

This is a surprising phenomenon. That we have not been more surprised by it is
due to the fact that we follow in their tradition and take the Greeks as models,
forgetting how often their institutions and attitudes made them the exception,
and not the rule, among ancient peoples. The Greeks of the Classical world did
not forget.

Nudity as a Costume in Classical Art

Larissa Bonfante
5
Page

… In a clothed society, however, nakedness is special, and can be used as a "costume." As it developed, Greek
nudity came to mark a contrast between Greek and non-Greek, and also between men and women. … Herodotus

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

and Thucydides correctly saw athletic nudity as a custom-much more than a costume! - that separated the Greeks
from other people

There is an excitement in nakedness. We derive an elementary

pleasure in the exposure of the skin to sun, air, and water.
When conditions are right, we feel vibrantly alive in this
exposure.
In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen
Excitement is life. The lack of excitement is boredom and death. Since Adam and Eve, the excitement of life has
centered around the mystery of sex. Clothing intensifies this mystery. It cloaks the biological response with the aura
of personality (persona = mask) and adorns it with the unique characteristics of the individual ego. Sex is elevated
from a generic response to a personal one.

The Old Testament associates nakedness with poverty,

destitution, and exposure. In fact, almost all impoverished
people associate nakedness as the state of being so woeful
as not even to possess clothing. … All Postlapsarian
nakedness is genital, mean, or shameful, and yet there was
always the paradoxical image of Eden and its perfect nudity.
The Deceit of Dress,
Richard Martin

The World in Dress:

Anthropological Perspectives on Clothing, Fashion, and
Culture
Karen Tranberg Hansen
Because clothes are so eminently malleable, we shape them to
construct our appearance.

"Nakedness is the only condition universal among vigorous

and healthy savages; at every other point perhaps they differ".
Frederick Boyle, Savages and Clothes,
Monthly Review, Sept., 1905

The Function of Clothing and of Bodily Adornment

… near the region where Spartan youths without moral jeopardy
wrestled naked with naked Spartan girls and Greeks in general were
6

lightly clad, the maid of Athens has had the proper length of her skirt
Page

prescribed for her by some modern Draco.

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

The Function of Clothing and of Bodily Adornment

The American Journal of Psychology, Jan., 1927,
Herbert C. Sanborn

One of the popular questions of the hour concerns the of woman's dress. For woman herself this is said to have
furnished themes of perennial interest well beyond the ken of psychologist and philosopher. But for the latter, too,
the general problem of clothing has been at various times a puzzling subject of reflection. At the present moment it
may have for them a more especial attraction, inasmuch as the short skirt and the short hair of the present generation
have come to be confidently linked by reformers with certain other alleged short-comings said to have developed
pari passu.

"I rise almost every morning, and sit in my chamber without

any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, either reading
or writing. This practice is … on the contrary, agreeable."
Benjamin Franklin in his letter to
M. Du Bourg from London July 28, 1760

“the body is more than raiment,” yet it was the conscious

release from raiment that made the body visible.
Annebella Pollen,
Utopian Bodies and Anti-Fashion Futures

“The human body is the principal actor in all utopias.”

Michel Foucault

… You don’t get anywhere near

as much physical and mental benefit without complete nudity.
A sense of absolute freedom is a sine qua non.”
Cedric Belfrage

The notion that Native peoples threatened the future of Christian civilization was strengthened when male and
female settlers captured by Indians refused to return to their settlements, preferring the Natives’ ways of life over the
rigid patriarchal hierarchy that controlled colonial life
“Sexual Savages:” Christian Stereotypes and Violence Against North America’s Native Women
Alexandra Pierce

… Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguise. To be on display is
to have the surface of one's own skin, the hairs of one's own body, turned into a disguise which in that situation, can
never be discarded. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress. Berger continues his
discussion of the objectification of the nude by the observer, further distinguishing the nude from the naked in the
latter's retention of subjectivity. The appearance of a naked person reveals the will and intentions of the person in the
7

expression of the body and face unlike the nude, whose pose serves the fantasies and will of the observer.
Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Nudity and Dance Art

Suzanne Jaeger

The spectacle of nakedness,

Sexual Education and Nakedness,
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Chiefs of influence and women of high birth, who in their

native dress would look, and do look, the ladies and gentlemen
they are, are by their Sunday finery given the appearance of
attendants upon Jack-in-the-green.

The whole life of these village folk is one piece of unreal acting. They are continually asking themselves whether
they are incurring any of the penalties entailed by infraction of the long table of prohibitions, and whether they are
living up to the foreign garments they wear. Their faces have for the most part an expression of sullen discontent,
they move about silently and joylessly, rebels in heart to the restrictive code on them, but which they fear to cast off,
partly from a vague apprehension of possible secular results, and partly because they suppose they will cease to be
good Christians if they do so. They have good ground for their dissatisfaction.

“The human body is the principal actor in all utopias.”

Michel Foucault

… Indeed, the untanned body came to be regarded as the unnatural body.

Sunbathing centres for children were opened on the grounds that the brown baby
was the healthy baby.
The Great Male Renunciation:
Men's Dress Reform in Inter-War Britain
Joanna Bourke

… White people. Their white color is due to the fact that sunlight can never
reach their skin. It is not in vain that they have sunshades, fans, awnings, arbors,
marquees, blinds, curtains, clothes, hats, partitions, walls, houses and cities.
How can they not look white?
Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan

“The more significant clothing is, the more meaning attaches

to its absence, and the more awareness is generated about
any relation between the two states.”
Seeing Through Clothes,
Anne Hollander

Nudes recline, nudes stretch, nudes beckon: they don't shiver

and they are seldom abject.
8

Nakedness and the Colonial Imagination

Page

Philippa Levine

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

The most aesthetic nations (notably the Greeks and the

Japanese) have been those that preserved a certain degree of
familiarity with the naked body.
Sexual Education and Nakedness
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Nudism looked both to the past and the future. It was understood as
a reinstatement of the previous glory of man, as a practice aimed at
“bring[ing] man back to his original [primitives] form and perfection”
(Boniface, in Salardenne [1931]: 90).
“Regaining what Mankind has Lost through Civilisation:”
Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan

the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy

what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look
at a woman's beauty and not desire to possess the joyous conquest.
The spectacle of nakedness,
Sexual Education and Nakedness,
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

… this strong aesthetic element which he explained as deeply

rooted in folklore, to wit, that the body is the clothing of the
soul. American Indians were described as naturally and
extraordinarily beautiful. Their physical beauty had to be
proof of their moral beauty.
Michelle Buchanan

“Let us then dispense with clothes and with all

attributes that are mean, vainglorious and untruthful,
and by so doing usher in the Golden Age.”
Albert Ebor

Do we dismiss the integrity of these experiments as Utopian

communities because we believe, above all, that society is
founded intellectually and not with the consent of the body, or
do we simply fail to acknowledge the idealism of naturism and
nudism because it is an awkward, if bare, truth that human
beings are born without clothing?
The Deceit of Dress:
Richard Martin

“the body is more than raiment,” yet it was the conscious

9

release from raiment that made the body visible.

Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Annebella Pollen,
Utopian Bodies and Anti-Fashion Futures

“There is a purity - a sacredness in our natural nakedness. We

find a marvellous revelation in the beauty and strength of the
naked body, transfigured by godlike purity shining from the
free and open eye which mirrors the whole depth of a noble
and questing soul.
Man and Sunlight
Suren

… You don’t get anywhere near

as much physical and mental benefit without complete nudity.
A sense of absolute freedom is a sine qua non.”
Cedric Belfrage

The notion that Native peoples threatened the future of Christian civilization was strengthened when male and
female settlers captured by Indians refused to return to their settlements, preferring the Natives’ ways of life over the
rigid patriarchal hierarchy that controlled colonial life
“Sexual Savages:” Christian Stereotypes and Violence Against North America’s Native Women
Alexandra Pierce

Nudism looked both to the past and the future. It was understood as
a reinstatement of the previous glory of man, as a practice aimed at
“bring[ing] man back to his original [primitives] form and perfection”
(Boniface, in Salardenne [1931]: 90).
“Regaining what Mankind has Lost through Civilisation:”
Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan

the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy

what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look
at a woman's beauty and not desire to possess the joyous conquest.
The spectacle of nakedness,
Sexual Education and Nakedness,
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

"Nakedness is the only condition universal among vigorous and healthy

savages; at every other point perhaps they differ",
Frederick Boyle,
"Savages and Clothes," Monthly Review, Sept., 1905
10

In Defense of Modesty
Page

Alexander Lowen

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

One simple principle, I believe, explains the behavior of organisms

- the search for excitement and pleasure. Excitement is life. The lack
of excitement is boredom and death. Since Adam and Eve,
the excitement of life has centered around the mystery of sex.
Clothing intensifies this mystery.

Utopian Bodies and Anti-Fashion Futures:

The Dress Theories and Practices of English Interwar Nudists
Annebella Pollen
Nudism was said to produce “more democracy and individual freedom through the disappearance of many
oppressive conventional, moral and legal restrictions.”

The spectacle of nakedness has its moral value in teaching us to learn to enjoy
what we do not possess, a lesson which is an essential part the training for any
kind of fine social life. The child has to learn to look at flowers and not pluck
them; the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not desire to possess
the joyous conquest … the blossoming of a fine civilization.
The spectacle of nakedness,
Sexual Education and Nakedness,
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

The spectacle of nakedness,

Sexual Education and Nakedness,
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909
… in Ungewitter's Die Nacktheit. In this case a party of people, men and women, would regularly every Sunday
seek remote spots in woods or meadows where they would settle down, picnic, and enjoy games. "... Gradually as
the moral conception of nakedness developed in their minds, more and more clothing fell away, until the men wore
nothing but bathing drawers and the women only their chemises. In this 'costume' games were carried out in
common, and a regular camp life led. The ladies (some of whom were unmarried) would then lie in hammocks and
we men on the grass, and the intercourse was delightful. We felt as members of one family, and behaved
accordingly. In an entirely natural and unembarrassed way we gave ourselves up entirely to the liberating feelings
aroused by this light and air bath, and passed these splendid hours in joyous singing and dancing, … free from
morbid prudery." (R. Ungewitter, Die Nacktheit, p. 58.)

In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen
One simple principle, I believe, explains the behavior of organisms
- the search for excitement and pleasure. Excitement is life. The lack
of excitement is boredom and death. Since Adam and Eve,
the excitement of life has centered around the mystery of sex.
Clothing intensifies this mystery.

… There is an excitement in nakedness. We derive an elementary pleasure in the exposure of the skin to sun, air,
11

and water. When conditions are right, we feel vibrantly alive in this exposure. We sense more keenly the biological
roots of our nature and we gain an identification with the body that is not possible when the body is fully clothed.
Page

However, the pleasure of public nudity is achieved by regression to the level of the young child whose innocence

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

parallels that state of existence in the Garden of Eden before man became conscious of his individuality. Like every
regressive phenomenon it can have a place in mature living.
In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen

… “false ideas of modesty should not be engendered

by covering the sexual organs or the breasts.”
H. Robini

“The whole thing about Nudism is that the idea is completely defeated
if you have a thread of clothing on you. It is a thing which you cannot possibly
appreciate unless you are completely naked. … You don’t get anywhere near
as much physical and mental benefit without complete nudity.
A sense of absolute freedom is a sine qua non.”
Cedric Belfrage

“The skin of the civilized man, is an atrophied organ” …

“it is no less [unreasonable] to expect the delicate skin of
man to keep its health in perpetual darkness”
Rev. Norwood,
1933, Nudism in England

The spectacle of nakedness,

Sexual Education and Nakedness,
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Chiefs of influence and women of high birth, who in their

native dress would look, and do look, the ladies and gentlemen
they are, are by their Sunday finery given the appearance of
attendants upon Jack-in-the-green.

… and a pair of spectacles, which he probably does not need, preaching to a congregation the male portion of which
is dressed in much the same manner as himself, while the women are dizened out in old battered hats or bonnets, and
shapeless gowns like bathing dresses, or it may be in crinolines of an early type.

The whole life of these village folk is one piece of unreal acting. They are continually asking themselves whether
they are incurring any of the penalties entailed by infraction of the long table of prohibitions, and whether they are
living up to the foreign garments they wear. Their faces have for the most part an expression of sullen discontent,
they move about silently and joylessly, rebels in heart to the restrictive code on them, but which they fear to cast off,
partly from a vague apprehension of possible secular results, and partly because they suppose they will cease to be
good Christians if they do so. They have good ground for their dissatisfaction.
12
Page

“The human body is the principal actor in all utopias.”

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Michel Foucault

… Indeed, the untanned body came to be regarded as the unnatural body.

Sunbathing centres for children were opened on the grounds that the brown baby
was the healthy baby.
The Great Male Renunciation:
Men's Dress Reform in Inter-War Britain
Joanna Bourke

… White people. Their white color is due to the fact that sunlight can never
reach their skin. It is not in vain that they have sunshades, fans, awnings, arbors,
marquees, blinds, curtains, clothes, hats, partitions, walls, houses and cities.
How can they not look white?
Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan

Do we dismiss the integrity of these experiments as Utopian communities

because we believe, above all, that society is founded intellectually and not with
the consent of the body, or do we simply fail to acknowledge the idealism of
naturism and nudism because it is an awkward, if bare, truth that human beings
are born without clothing?
The Deceit of Dress:
Richard Martin

The Great Male Renunciation:

Men's Dress Reform in Inter-War Britain
Joanna Bourke
… To help, the dress reformer and vice-president of the Sunlight League,
Sir Leonard Hill, invented an apparatus to measure sunlight, and
The Times published the results daily. The tanned man was scarcely 'nude'.

The Greeks of the Classical world did not forget. While not, as we shall see, fully understanding the significance of
the custom, they were proud of its singularity what nudity once meant for the Greeks … In a clothed society,
however, nakedness is special, and can be used as a "costume." As it developed, Greek nudity came to mark a
contrast between Greek and non-Greek, and also between men and women.
Nudity as a Costume in Classical Art
Larissa Bonfante

Sexual Education and Nakedness

Havelock Ellis
13

The American Journal of Psychology , Jul., 1909

What is the psychological influence of familiarity with nakedness ? How far should children be made familiar with
Page

the naked body? This is a question in regard to which different opinions have been held in different ages, and during

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

recent years a remarkable change has begun to come over the minds of practical educationalists in regard to it. In
Sparta, in Chios, and elsewhere in Greece, women at one time practised gymnastic feats and dances in nakedness,
together with the men, or in their presence.

Authenticity and Asceticism:

Discourse and Performance in Nude Culture and Health Reform in Belgium, 1920-1940
Evert Peeters
Modern man needed to relearn what "primitive man" had been capable of doing by instinct. "Primitive man,"
Pascault wrote, "bears, not stoically but passively, many tortures that seem horrible to us." If modern individuals
aimed at reestablishing this innate human ability, they needed only to strengthen their will. Their act of the will
aimed at a reframing of their experience through logical appraisal.

Naked In Nature:
Naturism, Nature And The Senses In Early 20th Century Britain
Nina J. Morris
… Surén's desire to immerse himself in nature is reminiscent of that expressed by 19th century American naturalist
and 'simple life' advocate Henry Thoreau. Like Surén, Thoreau actively sought out sensuous experiences; nature was
'a living thing, like himself, which he want [ed] to respond to with his whole being, not just with the sense of sight
but with the other senses as well'. Both men viewed going naked in nature as a form of education which could
develop an individual's 'natural' capacity for perception.

“Let us then dispense with clothes and with all attributes that are mean,
vainglorious and untruthful, and by so doing usher in the Golden Age.”
… Nudism “stands for all-round regeneration, in that it changes the false for the
true; bondage for freedom; hypocrisy and cant for truth of purpose and resolve,
and, above all, elevates the mind, and prompts the soul to strive for heights far
above the petty and mean things which are attached to civilisation, as we know
it to-day.”
Albert Ebor

The spectacle of nakedness has its moral value in teaching us to learn to enjoy
what we do not possess, a lesson which is an essential part the training for any
kind of fine social life. The child has to learn to look at flowers and not pluck
them; the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not desire to possess
the joyous conquest … the blossoming of a fine civilization.
The spectacle of nakedness,
Sexual Education and Nakedness,
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909
14

According Schurtz, this fact throws a flood of light on the psychological significance of clothing, which in many
cases is plainly seen to a symbol of the married state. With some races the expression, "he gave her a dress" means
Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

that a man has married a maiden and not a widow,' while on the island of Tahiti the chief ceremony in the marriage
rite consists in the groom throwing the bride a piece of cloth.
The Function of Clothing and of Bodily Adornment
Herbert C. Sanborn

Nudism was said to produce “more democracy and individual freedom through the disappearance of many
oppressive conventional, moral and legal restrictions.”
Relations between the sexes would be improved, and a whole host of sexual neuroses were expected to “vanish”
along with clothing and its production of false modesty and shame. Other nudists went still further and predicted a
reduction in greed, the spatial reorganization of city life, population control, and pacifism among its potential
effects.
Utopian Bodies and Anti-Fashion Futures:
The Dress Theories and Practices of English Interwar Nudists
Annebella Pollen

The Psychology of Clothes,

J. C. Flugel
"Nakedness tends to diminish 'sexuality' (i.e. the more directly genital impulses of sexuality). The by now extensive
experience of the Friends of Nature [a nudist organization] would seem to show that this contention is correct, the
chief reason probably being that the increased pleasure of exhibitionism and of skin and muscle erotism have
drained off a certain quantity of sexual energy that might otherwise have found a purely genital channel."

A modest person is not afraid of exposure; he can choose when or where to express his
feelings and he will expose them in appropriate situations. The person who is ashamed
cannot express his feelings even in appropriate situations. He is afraid to expose himself
even when the situation calls for such exposure. In therapy we deal with people who are
ashamed of their feelings. They cannot express them even in the privacy and intimacy of
the therapeutic situation. Shame is pathological whereas modesty is normal. Prudery may
be defined as the shame of the body.
In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen

“The human body is the principal actor in all utopias.”

Michel Foucault

Soshinski, founder of the American Gymnosophical Association, declared that, through “nude culture,” “the body
shall become beautiful again, reappear as the ‘Image of God.’” He asserted that nudity would enable “body, mind
and soul” to join in harmony with “all vital forces of nature.” As a result, “man shall also become good again.” …
Such spiritual riches could be unlocked by undressing.
Utopian Bodies and Anti-Fashion Futures:
The Dress Theories and Practices of English Interwar Nudists
Annebella Pollen
15
Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

“There is a purity - a sacredness in our natural nakedness. We find a marvellous revelation in the
beauty and strength of the naked body, transfigured by godlike purity shining from the free and
open eye which mirrors the whole depth of a noble and questing soul.
Man and Sunlight
Suren

The Greeks of the Classical world did not forget. While not, as we shall see,
fully understanding the significance of the custom, they were proud of its
singularity what nudity once meant for the Greeks … In a clothed society,
however, nakedness is special, and can be used as a "costume." As it developed,
Greek nudity came to mark a contrast between Greek and non-Greek, and also
between men and women.

Nudity as a Costume in Classical Art

Larissa Bonfante
The Greeks saw their custom of athletic male nudity as something that set them apart from the barbarians, as well as
from their own past. A survey of male nudity as a costume in Greece attempts to trace its origin in eighth- century
ritual, its gradual transformation from initiation rites to the "civic" nudity of the Classical period, and its significance
in various religious, magic, and social contexts. The character of this institution can be seen more clearly by
comparing it with earlier Near Eastern attitudes to nakedness, and to the later contemporary "barbarian" attitudes of
the Hebrews, Etruscans, and Gauls, as well as to the contemporary views of female nudity, before its acceptance in
the Hellenistic period. Among the innovations of the ancient Greeks that changed our way of seeing the world, one
of the most prominent is a certain kind of public nudity-nudity as a costume.' This is a surprising phenomenon. That
we have not been more surprised by it is due to the fact that we follow in their tradition and take the Greeks as
models, forgetting how often their institutions and attitudes made them the exception, and not the rule, among
ancient peoples. The Greeks of the Classical world did not forget. While not, as we shall see, fully understanding the
significance of the custom, they were proud of its singularity what nudity once meant for the Greeks … In a clothed
society, however, nakedness is special, and can be used as a "costume." As it developed, Greek nudity came to mark
a contrast between Greek and non- Greek, and also between men and women.

In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen
Excitement is life. The lack of excitement is boredom and death. Since Adam and Eve, the excitement of life has
centered around the mystery of sex. Clothing intensifies this mystery. It cloaks the biological response with the aura
of personality (persona = mask) and adorns it with the unique characteristics of the individual ego. Sex is elevated
from a generic response to a personal one.

the blossoming of a fine civilization - The spectacle of nakedness has

16

its moral value in teaching us to learn to enjoy what we do not possess,

… the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not desire to
Page

possess the joyous conquest

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

The American Journal of Psychology, Jul., 1909,

Sexual Education and Nakedness

Havelock Ellis,
What is the psychological influence of familiarity with nakedness? How far should children be made familiar with
the naked body? This is a question in regard to which different opinions have been held in different ages, and during
recent years a remarkable change has begun to come over the minds of practical educationalists in regard to it. In
Sparta, in Chios, and elsewhere in Greece, women at one time practised gymnastic feats and dances in nakedness,
together with the men, or in their presence. Plato in his Republic approved of such customs and said that the ridicule
of those who laughed at them was but "unripe fruit plucked from the tree of knowledge."

The need to maintain an appearance or support an ego image is a

restraint that inhibits the joy and spontaneity of the body. In the privacy
of our homes, we all welcome the opportunity to relieve ourselves of
this ego burden by removing some of our clothing.
In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen

In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen
The young, child knows no modesty since it has no genital aim. The sexually mature individual who is conscious of
his body is necessarily modest. Modesty, however, must not be confused with prudery or shame. The distinction
between modesty and shame is the difference between claiming a sense of privacy and fearing self-exposure. A
modest person is not afraid of exposure; he can choose when or where to express his feelings and he will expose
them in appropriate situations. The person who is ashamed cannot express his feelings even in appropriate
situations. He is afraid to expose himself even when the situation calls for such exposure. In therapy we deal with
people who are ashamed of their feelings. They cannot express them even in the privacy and intimacy of the
therapeutic situation. Shame is pathological whereas modesty is normal. Prudery may be defined as the shame of the
body.

John Langdon-Davies, for example, satirized the explorer Henry

Morton Stanley (of “Dr Livingstone, I presume” fame), whose unashamed
project was to enrich the British textile industry by clothing “naked
Africa.” Langdon-Davies sarcastically called him “a noble figure worthy
of imitation, a hero if ever there was one, an empire builder, a pioneer”.

“Regaining what Mankind has Lost through Civilisation:”

Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan

Nudism, though it was always controversial, enjoyed considerable popularity in the early decades of the twentieth
century in Europe. It stood in paradoxical relation to modern society. It was an explicit critique of modern
civilization, both a nostalgic attempt to imagine a return to Edenic perfection and a utopian projection forward to an
imagined era of healthful egalitarianism. On the one hand, nudist writings conceived of modernity as a fallen state,
and as a result they contain elements not only of nostalgia and lament but also of critique, especially of class
distinctions, materialism, and the stresses of industrialized and urbanized life. Civilization, it seemed, had not
17

brought all it promised, a possibility that Parmelee 1941 [1927]: 15) called “a fact of poignant significance.”
Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Clean, fine humanity thrills us like a holy thing when the warm sun
kisses our naked limbs–when glad sunlight kindles the soul to wonder.
In the web of verdant Nature (sic), in the swirl of storm, in the waft of
summer breezes, in the witchery of exquisite sunshine, the loftiest
ideals appear near and attainable. H.
Surén, Man And Sunlight

When early morning boarders the distant summer cloudlets with gold, and the larks exalt over field and meadow;
when all that rejoices in the name of man is slumbering, then hasten forth; throw off the mundane, the care and
trouble within […]. Doff your garments; rove and run in free and healthy nakedness. So true manhood reveals itself.
How wondrously the cool morning breeze caresses the naked limbs, and how every sense moves with the divine
melody of the Lark’s song.106
H. Surén, Man And Sunlight

The Golden Ages depicted by artists, whether Botticelli, Giorgione, or even Degas, Pu vis de Chavannes, and
Gauguin might be fulfilled in real places where the human body is not encumbered by clothing. The hypothesis of
functional nudity is a characteristically twentieth century one, informed by a secularism that circumvents the
arguments of modesty and by a rational inquiry into the evolution and nature of human beings.
The Deceit of Dress:
Utopian Visions and the Arguments against Clothing
Richard Martin

… this strong aesthetic element which he explained as deeply rooted in

folklore, to wit, that the body is the clothing of the soul.
Michelle Buchanan

American Indians were described as naturally and extraordinarily beautiful. Their physical beauty had to be proof of
their moral beauty. This conviction was so firmly rooted in travelers' minds that they scorned negroes as a perverse
and inferior race, often referring to them as "ugly blackbirds" while they admired the splendid and graceful Indians.
Fairchild reminds us that even Bartolome de las Casas "did not hesitate to advocate the importation of negro slaves
to lighten the burden of his beloved Caribbeans."
Savages, Noble and Otherwise,
and the French Enlightenment
Michelle Buchanan

Do we dismiss the integrity of these experiments as Utopian

communities because we believe, above all, that society is founded
intellectually and not with the consent of the body, or do we simply fail
to acknowledge the idealism of naturism and nudism because it is an
awkward, if bare, truth that human beings are born without clothing?
The Deceit of Dress:
Richard Martin
18
Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Authenticity and Asceticism: Discourse and Performance

in Nude Culture and Health Reform in Belgium, 1920-1940
Evert Peeters

Helios affiliates tried to convince the outside world of the

noble purposes of nudist culture by differentiating nudism
from eroticism as much as possible.

six key themes of nudist writing:

shame and modesty; relations between the sexes;
connectedness to nature; the medical importance of sunlight;
the health and beauty of the race; and the elimination of class distinctions.

“Regaining what Mankind has Lost through Civilisation:”

Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan

In post-World War One Europe, civilization could no longer be imagined as unequivocally beneficial, and yet the
attractions of modern science and medicine - indeed of reason itself - could not be denied. Nudism’s critique of
modernity, then, was intertwined with a bold and self-consciously modern philosophy, one reliant on the emerging
discourses of psychology, sexology, feminism, and sometimes eugenics. In this guise, nudism was selfconsciously
radical, progressive, and utopian. It was, many nudists believed, the only viable future for modern societies. They
urged their readers to cast off superstition, hypocrisy, and “old” thinking - especially on matters of sex and gender -
and to join them in creating a New Eden.

“The skin of the civilized man, is an atrophied organ” …

“it is no less [unreasonable] to expect the delicate skin of
man to keep its health in perpetual darkness”
Rev. Norwood,
1933, Nudism in England

Bodily shame is an important theme in nudist writing. Many nudists would have agreed with Norbert Elias’s (1994
[1939]) famous characterization of the process of modernization as the gradual spread of an “embarrassment
threshold.” Elias described the modern relation to the body as an increasingly private, individualized and potentially
shame-laden one.
He saw the advancement of this threshold from the sixteenth century on as a repetition of a psychological process
already inscribed in the Bible: “and they saw that they were naked and were ashamed”.
“Regaining what Mankind has Lost through Civilisation:”
Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan
19
Page

The Great Male Renunciation:

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Men's Dress Reform in Inter-War Britain

Joanna Bourke
Modernity was a mixed blessing. In 1929, the Men's Dress Reform Party was established in response to what its
founders regarded as the heinous modern age. … Indeed, the untanned body came to be regarded as the unnatural
body. … Holiday-makers anxiously attempted to obtain this 'desirable insignia'. To help, the dress reformer and
vice-president of the Sunlight League, Sir Leonard Hill, invented an apparatus to measure sunlight, and The Times
published the results daily. The tanned man was scarcely 'nude'.

Was observing the naked savage a way to determine if humans shared

the same genitalia, the locus, after all, of human origin and survival? If
natives differed genitally from those who observed them, then the
polygenists could refute a literal interpretation of the biblical narrative
of origin from a common stock. This was a potent debate, and it was
tied critically to the significant interest in evolutionary theory in mid-
nineteenth-century Britain. While for theologians, the truth of Genesis
was at stake, these questions raised uncertainties close to the heart of
the newly-emerging scientific disciplines.
States of Undress:
Nakedness and the Colonial Imagination
Philippa Levine

The Deceit of Dress:

Utopian Visions and the Arguments against Clothing
Richard Martin
Some Utopian speculations have, of course, associated clothing with the need for warmth, originating in Thomas
More's onomastic text of 1516. In his consideration of clothing in Book II under the rubric of "Economy and
Occupations," he cites loose-fitting leather clothing, but additional wool cloaks for "going out," thus implying chilly
weather and that mandate for clothing. But clothing exists in societies without such a mandate; tropically warm
civilizations nonetheless choose to dress themselves.
Those societies that have denied clothing have done so as a cultural expression and they have been vivid in the
collective imagination. Sparta encouraged, at least according to legend, frequent nudity and the nudity of the young.
The exotic noble savages of eighteenth-century fantasies and explorations were seldom nude, but were admired for
their proclivity to nudity. The twentieth century has yearned for ideal, nude societies as if to recreate the condition of
Eden before the fall and before the fig leaf. The Golden Ages depicted by artists, whether Botticelli, Giorgione, or
even Degas, Pu vis de Chavannes, and Gauguin might be fulfilled in real places where the human body is not
encumbered by clothing. The hypothesis of functional nudity is a characteristically twentieth century one, informed
by a secularism that circumvents the arguments of modesty and by a rational inquiry into the evolution and nature of
human beings.

States of Undress:
Nakedness and the Colonial Imagination
Philippa Levine
The politics and aesthetics of nakedness was, for Victorians, both complex and slippery, the result of ambivalent
nineteenth-century attitudes toward the unclothed body. … such vexed attitudes about nudity and naked- ness in
20

Victorian Britain cannot fully be comprehended without reference to the experience of empire. Colonialism's
seemingly timeless fascination with indigenous undress provoked a number of questions about human difference,
Page

evolution, and the nature civilization.

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

… Indeed, the untanned body came to be regarded as

the unnatural body. Sunbathing centres for children
were opened on the grounds that the brown baby was
the healthy baby.
The Great Male Renunciation:
Men's Dress Reform in Inter-War Britain
Joanna Bourke
Modernity was a mixed blessing. In 1929, the Men's Dress Reform Party was established in response to what its
founders regarded as the heinous modern age. … The popularity of swimming increased as provision of swimming
pools was actively promoted by the Board of Education, Ministry of Health, and Local Authorities. Related to this
was the way that the tanned body came into its own. In 1916, the senior medical officer for the Education
Committee in the City of Nottingham marvelled at the effect of soldiers on leave from 'Lord Kitchener's Open-Air
School': one could 'hardly recognise bronzed stalwart young fellows'. … Indeed, the untanned body came to be
regarded as the unnatural body. Sunbathing centres for children were opened on the grounds that the brown baby
was the healthy baby. Areas of parks were allotted to sunbathing. No longer did the white body indicate leisurely
Men's Dress Reform in Inter-war Britain status: instead, the tanned body did so. Holiday- makers anxiously
attempted to obtain this 'desirable insignia'. To help, the dress reformer and vice-president of the Sunlight League,
Sir Leonard Hill, invented an apparatus to measure sunlight, and The Times published the results daily. The tanned
man was scarcely 'nude'.

States of Undress:
Nakedness and the Colonial Imagination
Philippa Levine
T. H. Huxley, that most consummate of nineteenth- century scientists, wrote to the Colonial Office in 1869
requesting that colonial administrators supply him with naked photographs of the locals, his seemingly dispassionate
request for scientific data was duly passed on to governors around the Empire. Administrators at the Colonial Office
saw no problem with the request, sending it out to governors in a wide variety of British colonies. Certainly the
response from the colonies was mixed. Some governors sent portfolios of indigenous people photographed without
clothes. Others apologetically sent photos of clothed people, while another group explained that requests for naked
modeling might prove tricky with the locals. The photos Huxley did receive were a pretty stock collection,
unremarkable for the most part, more interesting for what they tell us about the politics of aesthetics and colonial
practice than about their often-anonymous subjects.

The nude, conversely, "carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone". Clark upholds distinctions between
art, science, and pornography. Unclothedness for properly aesthetic or for neutrally scientific ends is permissible and
even to be encouraged, while pornography is an undesirable and a dangerous category. Even the acceptable nudes of
high art were often draped in some manner in order not to appear utterly uncovered. It seems impossible to define
any rigorous distinction between nakedness and nudity, and yet despite the constant slippage between these
categories, even now there is a general adherence to the principle that art and science differ radically from
pornography and that the nude is by no means coterminous with the naked person. The literary cliche of the naked
wretch, after all, has no nude counterpart. Nudes recline, nudes stretch, nudes beckon: they don't shiver and they
don't shiver and they are seldom abject.
21

States of Undress:
Nakedness and the Colonial Imagination
Page

Philippa Levine

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Nudity and Dance Art

Suzanne Jaeger
The nudity is one aesthetic element among others that work together to suggest certain images, ideas, and feelings.
Nudity is used similarly in other art dance works to convey, for example, vulnerability, innocence, and the opposite
of these shame, lack of innocence, and even invincibility (in the same way that the ancient Greek gods are
sometimes portrayed naked because it is rather mere mortals who need clothing). Dance critics have also written
about how naked dancers can be experienced as threatening or as revealing some raw, unmasked, more real aspects
of human life. It has been suggested too, that in certain cases nakedness conveys a sense of alienation, social and
sexual difference, and possibly universality, depending on other elements in the work.

… Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguise. To be on display is
to have the surface of one's own skin, the hairs of one's own body, turned into a disguise which in that situation, can
never be discarded. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress. Berger continues his
discussion of the objectification of the nude by the observer, further distinguishing the nude from the naked in the
latter's retention of subjectivity. The appearance of a naked person reveals the will and intentions of the person in the
expression of the body and face unlike the nude, whose pose serves the fantasies and will of the observer.
Nudity and Dance Art
Suzanne Jaeger

The Deceit of Dress:

Utopian Visions and the Arguments against Clothing
Richard Martin
Today, few of us can think of nudist colonies without sniggering. Correspondingly, the principle movement in
America was renamed the American Sunbathing Association in the late 1930s. The American Sunbathing
Association now has some 25,000 members. Moreover, the austere reductivism of communal rejection that would
otherwise be undeniable as a sign of virtue has often been mistaken as a purported vice of promiscuity for nudists.
Those who live without clothing have tended to be the most puritanical of communities, though their neighbors have
often associated the visibility of flesh and sexual organs with carnal desire. In this, nudism persists in the modern

In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen
One simple principle, I believe, explains the behavior of organisms -the search for excitement and pleasure.
Excitement is life. The lack of excitement is boredom and death. Since Adam and Eve, the excitement of life has
centered around the mystery of sex. Clothing intensifies this mystery. It cloaks the biological response with the aura
of personality (persona = mask) and adorns it with the unique characteristics of the individual ego. Sex is elevated
from a generic response to a personal one. This response is the basis of love; from it derives all romance, the elixir
that transforms mundane existence into enchantment and ecstasy. This transformation does not exist on the animal
level, where sex is a purely biological function. The specifically human quality that raises sex from its animal level
is the sense of awe that grows out of the awareness of the surrender of individuality and the fusion of the self with
the universal.

There is an excitement in nakedness. We derive an elementary pleasure in the exposure of the skin to sun, air, and
22

water. When conditions are right, we feel vibrantly alive in this exposure. We sense more keenly the biological roots
of our nature and we gain an identification with the body that is not possible when the body is fully clothed.
Page

However, the pleasure of public nudity is achieved by regression to the level of the young child whose innocence

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

parallels that state of existence in the Garden of Eden before man became conscious of his individuality. Like every
regressive phenomenon it can have a place in mature living. It is possible to retain a sense of modesty in nude
gatherings when nudity is socially approved, as in the age-old custom of nude bathing in many countries. Divorced
from a sense of modesty, however, public nudity reduces man to the level of a barnyard creature. Such a
development would lead to the loss of the mystery and romance of life and force people to adopt desperate measures
to seek some excitement in life.
In Defense of Modesty
Alexander Lowen

The Old Testament associates nakedness with poverty,

destitution, and exposure. In fact, almost all impoverished
people associate nakedness as the state of being so woeful
as not even to possess clothing. … All Postlapsarian
nakedness is genital, mean, or shameful, and yet there was
always the paradoxical image of Eden and its perfect nudity.
The Deceit of Dress,
Richard Martin

The World in Dress:

Anthropological Perspectives on Clothing, Fashion, and Culture
Karen Tranberg Hansen
Because clothes are so eminently malleable, we shape them to construct our appearance. There is an experiential
dimension to the power of clothing, both in its wearing and viewing (O'Connor 2005). Our lived experience with
clothes, how we feel about them, hinges on how others evaluate our crafted appearances, and this experience in turn
is influenced by the situation and the structure of the wider context (Woodward 2005). In this view, clothing, body,
and performance come together in dress as embodied practice. While clothes are among our most personal
possessions, they are also an important consumption good.
A translation results so that even when they do not dress bodies, cloth
and clothing contribute to new ways of thinking and being. Some of
these works describe the cultural and ritual significance of dressed
bodies and their adornment by gender and status/rank relations and the
mutual vexations dress caused Europeans and Pacific islanders in early
encounters.
The World in Dress
Karen Tranberg Hansen

The Deceit of Dress:

Richard Martin

Emancipation from clothing was emancipation from all that clothing represented; this included industrialization.
Gill, as part of his wider arguments about the loss of craftsmanship and contemporary culture, argued that the world
of mass production was producing uniformity. By extension, in casting off mass-produced dress, nudism would
return individuality. Interestingly, other authors who evoked industrialization as a problem claimed that nudity could
23

provide a way to mark out distinction from “the mob” in a world where securities of status were being put at risk by
“the increased prosperity and higher standard of living among the working classes, the remarkable rise in
Page

democracy, the emancipation of women, the enormous spread of popular education.”

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Together these factors had created “a herd” from whom elites found it hard to stand apart. This use of nudity as an
act of class definition contrasted with the more common egalitarian claim that hierarchies of caste and class could be
broken down by removing clothes. Nudism was said to produce “more democracy and individual freedom through
the disappearance of many oppressive conventional, moral and legal restrictions.”
The Deceit of Dress:
Richard Martin

Nudism looked both to the past and the future. It was understood as
a reinstatement of the previous glory of man, as a practice aimed at
“bring[ing] man back to his original [primitives] form and perfection”
(Boniface, in Salardenne [1931]: 90).
“Regaining what Mankind has Lost through Civilisation:”
Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan

The spectacle of nakedness,

Sexual Education and Nakedness,
Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909
The whole life of these village folk is one piece of unreal acting. They are continually asking themselves whether
they are incurring any of the penalties entailed by infraction of the long table of prohibitions, and whether they are
living up to the foreign garments they wear. Their faces have for the most part an expression of sullen discontent,
they move about silently and joylessly, rebels in heart to the restrictive code on them, but which they fear to cast off,
partly from a vague apprehension of possible secular results, and partly because they suppose they will cease to be
good Christians if they do so. They have good ground for their dissatisfaction.

In centre of the village," he remarked in quoting a typical "is the church, a wooden barn-like building. If the day be
Sunday we shall find the native minister arrayed in a greenish-black swallow-tail coat, a neckcloth, once white, and
a pair of spectacles, which he probably does not need, preaching to a congregation the male portion of which is
dressed in much the same manner as himself, while the women are dizened out in old battered hats or bonnets, and
shapeless gowns like bathing dresses, or it may be in crinolines of an early type. Chiefs of influence and women of
high birth, who in their native dress would look, and do look, the ladies and gentlemen they are, are by their Sunday
finery given the appearance of attendants upon Jack-in-the-green.

Likewise, as Karl Toepfer (1997) has argued,

modernity never simply celebrated a rationalist or technological triumph
over the body by reason or by the machine. Germanic body culture, for
example, represented an especially “ambitious attempt [. . .] to physicalize
modernity within the body and to view the body itself as a manifestation
of modernist desire” (Toepfer 1997: 7). Modernity, then, needs to be
conceived of as complex, contradictory, and fractured; indeed, Toepfer
(1997: 6) puts instability at the heart of his definition of German modernism:
“bodies are modern because they create significant instabilities of
perception.”
“Regaining what Mankind has Lost through Civilisation:”
Early Nudism and Ambivalent Moderns
Ruth Barcan
24
Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

Authenticity and Asceticism:

Discourse and Performance in Nude Culture and Health Reform in Belgium, 1920-1940
Evert Peeters
Modern man needed to relearn what "primitive man" had been capable of doing by instinct. "Primitive man,"
Pascault wrote, "bears, not stoically but passively, many tortures that seem horrible to us." If modern individuals
aimed at reestablishing this innate human ability, they needed only to strengthen their will. Their act of the will
aimed at a reframing of their experience through logical appraisal.

Naked In Nature:
Naturism, Nature And The Senses In Early 20th Century Britain
Nina J. Morris
… Surén's desire to immerse himself in nature is reminiscent of that expressed by 19th century American naturalist
and 'simple life' advocate Henry Thoreau. Like Surén, Thoreau actively sought out sensuous experiences; nature was
'a living thing, like himself, which he want [ed] to respond to with his whole being, not just with the sense of sight
but with the other senses as well'. Both men viewed going naked in nature as a form of education which could
develop an individual's 'natural' capacity for perception. For example, Thoreau disciplined himself to sense all that
he could and was proud of his ability to witness sights that companions could not, distinguish between (and
anticipate) slight sounds, smell the scent trails left by animals, enjoy simple foods and, detect tiny changes in air
temperature. Whilst Surén commented that his powers of observation, instinct for nature and capacities for insight
had all been marvellously increased since first shedding his clothes and that, when naked, his self-awareness and
senses of touch, smell, hearing and taste became inflamed. When roving naked in the natural environment he stated
that one could feel the breathing of nature; 'every tree and every shrub whisper deep slumbering wisdom into our
souls [it] awakens in us the deep intuitive knowledge of true humanity and all of the transitoryness of our school
learning'. For both Surén and Thoreau such close encounters with nature symbolized 'the antithesis of culture' and
promised to 'provide westerners weary of the sophistry of civilization with what seem [ed] like a welcome retreat
into untutored sensation'.

Fig Leaf, Pudica, Nudity, and Other Revealing Concealments

Seymour Howard
It is unclear how Surén's views on tanning, and his elevation of darker
skin tones to a position of healthy desirability, fitted into the Aryan
discourses which were beginning to circulate in Germany around this
time. One can clearly see a primitivism in Man and sunlight -which,
challenged the racial dialogues which had been circulating in Europe
(as a result of colonial expansion) since the 18th century.

“There is a purity - a sacredness in our natural nakedness.

We find a marvellous revelation in the beauty and strength
of the naked body, transfigured by godlike purity shining
from the free and open eye which mirrors the whole
depth of a noble and questing soul.
Man and Sunlight
25

Suren
Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine
 the blossoming of a fine civilization, … to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, … the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not
desire to possess the joyous conquest. The spectacle of nakedness, Sexual Education and Nakedness, Havelock Ellis, Jul., 1909

… You don’t get anywhere near

as much physical and mental benefit without complete nudity.
A sense of absolute freedom is a sine qua non.”
Cedric Belfrage

The notion that Native peoples threatened the future of

Christian civilization was strengthened when male and female
settlers captured by Indians refused to return to their
settlements, preferring the Natives’ ways of life over the rigid
patriarchal hierarchy that controlled colonial life
“Sexual Savages:” Christian Stereotypes
and Violence Against North America’s Native Women
Alexandra Pierce
26
Page

Western thought, especially in its colonial mode, has, however, consistently tried to define and prop up such a binary, one based centrally (if not
exclusively) around a distinction between nakedness and nudity. States of Undress, Philippa Levine