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HISTORY OF NUDISM

Genetic studies of the human body louse, which requires clothes to survive, suggests that humans started wearing garments 72,000 years ago +/- 42,000 years. This estimate matches that of the first appearance of physical evidence of clothing-making tools. The species Homo sapiens itself has existed for 200,000 or more years, so the 'natural' condition of humans is nude.

Informal nudism has always been practiced. Ancient cultures (the Greeks and the Romans for example) sometimes had quite different attitudes toward the unclothed human body than is common today. In fact, the word "gymnasium" comes from the Greek word "gymnos," meaning "nude," because athletics in Greece was routinely practiced naked by its participants.

Nudity taboos are often a holdover from a practical need for body covering, as with temperate or desert cultures, where people initially wear clothing in public by habit because of practical reasons, until it becomes ingrained in the culture itself that this is a requirement.

Objections against being nude are often religiously motivated, even when they start out as a cultural taboo as in the previous paragraph. Some peoples have started wearing clothes only after missionaries argued that that is more civilized. However, there are many devout nudists who attend services regularly and argue that they do not need to shed their morals with their clothes. Also there is a Christian sect that practiced religious nudism, the Adamites.

In Europe, the Renaissance had reawakened body-acceptance and art of the ancients.  Humanism and the celebration of the body were back, and even the reluctant Church had to accept the idea that God created man in his own image, and thought the work looked good.

As Europe progressed through the Renaissance, America remained entrenched in a mindset of religiously dictated morality that would define its mainstream culture for centuries.  There were progressive thinkers, such as Benjamin Franklin and Henry David Thoreau, who saw health benefit in their daily naked walks, or "air baths," but they were the minority.

20TH CENTURY - SOCIAL NUDISM BECOMES MORE ACCEPTED

By the turn of the 20th century, mainland Europe was far more tolerant of sensuality and body acceptance than the United States. Works of art and literature that were acceptable there were routinely banned in the U.S., such as the oil painting "September Morn" by French artist Paul Chabas.  This innocent nude bather was deemed obscene by Anthony Comstock of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

The first known organized club for nudists, Freilichtpark (Free-Light Park), was opened near Hamburg in 1903.  Nacktkultur, the German nudism, stressed naked healthful living, which included daily and women can socialize to gather nude without being lewd, the concept of nudism got national exposure. The nudist movement gained prominence in Germany in the 1920s, but was suppressed during the Nazi Gleichschaltung after Adolf Hitler came to power. Social nudism in the form of private clubs and campgrounds first appeared in the United States in the 1930s. A 1935 advertisement claims Sea Island Sanctuary, South Carolina, was the "largest and oldest" year round resort where nudism could be practised. In Canada, it first appeared in British Columbia and neighboring Washington State about 1939 and in Ontario nine years later.

In 1933, the International Nudist Conference was formed, which would later become the American Sunbathing Association, and by the mid 1930s there were eighty-one nudist camps across America.  Most nudist camps, to some degree, still followed the philosophy of nudism as part of a healthy regimen.
 
MODERN NUDISM

Organized Nudism, the ASA, and landed clubs became more popular in the 1960s.  Acceptance of the nude body was only natural, and young people across Europe and America experienced the freedom of being nude at the beach, in the stream or wilderness, or on their back porch or sundeck.  Often called "The Free Beach Movement," in the seventies, it was a philosophy of open nudism that would be called naturism.

Europeans have enjoyed more freedom of nudist expression than Americans.  For years, most European tourist beaches have allowed topless bathing for women.  Nude beaches are now common and popular throughout the continent, including Eastern Europe.
 
France now has a nudist resort city, Cap d'Agde, on the Mediterranean.  Since the early 70s, Denmark and the Netherlands have become very accepting of nudity in general, and there have been nudist activities on city streets and parks of both countries.  All but two of Denmark's beaches are clothing optional.
 
In 1980, the Naturist Society was formed in the U.S. to provide information and support for the free beach and other naturist groups around the country.  The Naturist Action Committee monitors and assists in the ongoing nationwide struggle to keep clothing optional beaches and recreational areas from being closed.
 
National opinion polls in 1983 and 1990 revealed that 72% of Americans approve of designated clothing optional beaches.  To date, over 30 million Americans have experienced mixed social nudity. 

Source: Wikipedia and other sources