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NATURISM vs. NUDISM

The meanings of naturism and nudism are very similar. Both terms describe a cultural and political movement advocating social nudity in private and public spaces, and also a lifestyle of living in harmony with nature and others as expressed through social nudity.  Several other terms ("social nudity", and recently: "clothes-free") have been proposed as a replacement of these terms, but none has yet found the same wide-spread acceptance as the older terms naturism and nudism.

Some draw a distinction between the two terms this way: A nudist is one who sometimes chooses to go without clothes. A naturist is one who embraces a philosophy that includes more than occasional nudity, often environmentalism, vegetarianism or simply more of a closeness to nature.

The movement includes a large range of variants including "naturism", "nudism", "Freikörperkultur (FKK)", the "free beach movement" as well as generalized "public lands/public nudity" advocacy.

While there is a large amount of shared history and common themes, issues and philosophy, differences between these separate movements are sometimes contentious. The usage of these terms varies geographically; people in the US often prefer the term nudism, while people in Europe more often than not refer to themselves as naturists. 

The predominant movement centers on established, family-friendly, non-sexualized variations.  Use of the word "clothes free" has also been used when preceding other words as a descriptive term, some arguing that it allows more inclusion of both the naturist and nudist philosophy, which are arguably similar in many regards.

Source: Wikipedia and other sources