Thanks for the news and views about nudity. Social nudity is something that's important to me and that I have thought about since before I was grown. My perception is that, during the time of Charles Daney's arc, American society has shifted its attitude toward nudity itself. Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow Up" displayed pubic hair in 1967, Haskell Wexler showed us a nude couple chasing around a Chicago apartment in "Medium Cool" (an amazing movie which filmed the search for a lost child in the actual riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention). My friend had a poster of a Gage Taylor painting of naked hikers in a magical forest. Full frontal nudity featured in broadcast TV presentations about Elizabeth I and Paul Gaugin. Etcetera, etcetera. My girlfriend and I lived on the edge of the woods, explored them nude, and entertained friends nude. I relocated from the area around a university town to the big city in 1980, so my observations are a little corrupted, but it seems that it was the eighties when I stopped seeing nudes in film. Living in the city, I stopped experiencing spontaneous live nudity. Anger at erotic objectification of women on one side, and perverse moral hysteria on the other, were the chief culprits. It seems as though things are beginning to change, now, and I think nudists have queer activists to thank. There's always a lag between cause and effect. Think of it as a social form of ecological succession. My wife and I watched Disney's "Strange World" with our grandson recently. No nudity, and a formulaic adventure story, but the father is white, the mother black, and they take their son's gay crush matter-of-factly. (Also, the world's ecosystem turns out to be the metabolism of a giant turtle.) The world turns.
It does seem like there's less nudity in movies these days. But it's actually still there. And interestingly, especially in science fiction flicks. Recent examples include Aniara, Solaris (version with George Clooney), Ex Machina, Blade Runner 2049, and Under the Skin. Those are all good to excellent films, by the way, and well worth seeing.
Could be. My entertainment habits seem to be following my parents: don't see too much cinema; modern music ain't got the same soul. One thought. Somewhere I read that psychedelic consumption is greater now than 50 years ago. Maybe there's a similar thing going on with nudity in films.
The penis is finally becoming an allowed thing in popular movies and doesn't automatically get you a NC-17 rating. (I remember when American Gigolo broke that glass ceiling.) Partly due to feminism and partly from increasing gay participation but I think what makes it most possible is movie producers looking for the next big way to be edgy.
You're probably right about movie producers' motivations. I'd like penises to not be edgy, but I think any exposure probably moves the boundary at least a little in the right direction.
This made me think of a penis I saw in one of the few Game of Thrones episodes I watched. They were taking the naked guy to kill him. That crystalized my perception that the sex and nudity in that show was kind of grim. The characters didn't look like they were having fun.
There's an HBO series, "Euphoria," where a repressed gay football star walks into a locker room fill of naked guys and he's trying to force himself not to look at all the penises (penes?) because he considers them disgusting. (If he were a nudist, he wouldn't have this problem. Instead he's extremely sexually insecure.) Critics were griping at the gratuitous display of so many reproductive organs. Because of that, the number of penises was reduced from 110 to 30. LOL!
There's a lot of other sexually explicit stuff in there too. Pushing the limits to be edgy. Doesn't mean it is a bad series. It might be the next great classic. But how the hell do you get 110 penises in one locker room? And are they a random distribution of penises or did they select for "aesthetics?"
Unfortunately, I don't get HBO so I'll never know.
Jan 28, 2023·edited Jan 28, 2023Liked by Evan Nicks
I have a series of posts on my blog with news like this one. The problem with this format (of both) is the difficulty of responding to individual items. In the item here about my newsletter discussion, I concede that there's a real lack of hard data about the decline of naturism for the past 30 years or so. But I still think the decline is real. Unfortunately, there are almost no scientific polls related to naturism in the U.S., especially in recent years. That's a bad sign right there. The Naturist Action Committee, formerly a part of the Naturist Society, used to sponsor a couple of polls. But polling isn't cheap, and NAC recently decided to split from TNS. (Another bad sign.)
I've been a naturist for 40 years, so I've seen the decline, which seems to be ongoing. There are increasingly fewer people using nude beaches. Fewer people (especially women) visit naturist clubs, and a number of those clubs have closed. There could still be many closeted "home naturists", but it's impossible to count those, and they don't really help naturism itself. Such observations are just anecdotal, but unfortunately that's about all we've got.
As for naturism in other countries, the UK seems to be doing pretty well. But even in Germany there seem to be declines. There were many naked people in Munich's Englisher Garten when I visited several decades ago. They even overflowed into the area behind a public museum. More recent photos I've seen show fewer. There are now reports of declines in Germany, although there are many popular indoor spas where nudity is normal.
For any improvement to occur, we've got to be realistic about what the current situation is.
Thank you for the clarifying remarks. I think your assessment is astute and I basically agree with your analysis of the situation(s). Perhaps I didn’t do a good enough job of saying that above. There is absolutely a real need for more data (to your point, polling isn’t cheap) and clearly the lack of existing data reflects both a lack of resources amongst “organized” nudism, but on some level a lack of understanding of the importance of such a priority to navigate these broad cultural shifts that your article alludes to. I really enjoyed your article (and your substack in general) and appreciate the opportunities it has provided for thought and discussion. I probably should have put my comments on your original post, but I wanted to take the opportunity to link to your article and newsletter for my readers as well. 😬☺️
At least in SoCal, the decline is quite real. There used to be unofficial nude beaches up and down the coast. With the death of the Cahill policy they disappeared. Fewer colleges use nude models for their art classes. Even nudity in locker rooms has all but vanished. Several local clubs went under and nothing new replaced them. (Elysium, Silver Valley Sun Club, McConville and others) San Francisco passed an anti-nudity ordinance (admittedly with loopholes for special events) as did Berkeley and a few other small communities that I am aware of.
Counterbalancing this, the internet has made it possible for nudists to find each other. Even though the numbers are declining as a percentage of the population, it still feels like there are plenty of us out there. Special events like the WNBR have caught on but remember, it wasn't started by nudists and most riders would not identify as nudists. Organized nudism gets little credit for it.
A lot of the decline is that the peak population of nudists back in the 80s is aging out. We had our moment in the sun but don't seem to have anything to offer younger people. That's a topic for a very long post all by itself.
Gotta respectfully disagree. Nudists are very definitely a minority group. Just as are gays. It is a minority that finds it very easy to stay in the closet. Step out of the closet and out of our personal social bubble and you'll find discrimination. If it had come to the attention of the school district where I once worked that I were a nudist, I'd have been immediately fired without recourse. Not because I broke any laws but because a certain subset of parents would be outraged. Much worse things could follow. Do not imagine that nudists are not oppressed.
But beyond that, discrimination isn't a part of the definition of minority. Republicans are a minority group within California but I don't see any calls for discriminatory laws.
Thanks for the news and views about nudity. Social nudity is something that's important to me and that I have thought about since before I was grown. My perception is that, during the time of Charles Daney's arc, American society has shifted its attitude toward nudity itself. Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow Up" displayed pubic hair in 1967, Haskell Wexler showed us a nude couple chasing around a Chicago apartment in "Medium Cool" (an amazing movie which filmed the search for a lost child in the actual riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention). My friend had a poster of a Gage Taylor painting of naked hikers in a magical forest. Full frontal nudity featured in broadcast TV presentations about Elizabeth I and Paul Gaugin. Etcetera, etcetera. My girlfriend and I lived on the edge of the woods, explored them nude, and entertained friends nude. I relocated from the area around a university town to the big city in 1980, so my observations are a little corrupted, but it seems that it was the eighties when I stopped seeing nudes in film. Living in the city, I stopped experiencing spontaneous live nudity. Anger at erotic objectification of women on one side, and perverse moral hysteria on the other, were the chief culprits. It seems as though things are beginning to change, now, and I think nudists have queer activists to thank. There's always a lag between cause and effect. Think of it as a social form of ecological succession. My wife and I watched Disney's "Strange World" with our grandson recently. No nudity, and a formulaic adventure story, but the father is white, the mother black, and they take their son's gay crush matter-of-factly. (Also, the world's ecosystem turns out to be the metabolism of a giant turtle.) The world turns.
Tom,
It does seem like there's less nudity in movies these days. But it's actually still there. And interestingly, especially in science fiction flicks. Recent examples include Aniara, Solaris (version with George Clooney), Ex Machina, Blade Runner 2049, and Under the Skin. Those are all good to excellent films, by the way, and well worth seeing.
Could be. My entertainment habits seem to be following my parents: don't see too much cinema; modern music ain't got the same soul. One thought. Somewhere I read that psychedelic consumption is greater now than 50 years ago. Maybe there's a similar thing going on with nudity in films.
The penis is finally becoming an allowed thing in popular movies and doesn't automatically get you a NC-17 rating. (I remember when American Gigolo broke that glass ceiling.) Partly due to feminism and partly from increasing gay participation but I think what makes it most possible is movie producers looking for the next big way to be edgy.
You're probably right about movie producers' motivations. I'd like penises to not be edgy, but I think any exposure probably moves the boundary at least a little in the right direction.
This made me think of a penis I saw in one of the few Game of Thrones episodes I watched. They were taking the naked guy to kill him. That crystalized my perception that the sex and nudity in that show was kind of grim. The characters didn't look like they were having fun.
There's an HBO series, "Euphoria," where a repressed gay football star walks into a locker room fill of naked guys and he's trying to force himself not to look at all the penises (penes?) because he considers them disgusting. (If he were a nudist, he wouldn't have this problem. Instead he's extremely sexually insecure.) Critics were griping at the gratuitous display of so many reproductive organs. Because of that, the number of penises was reduced from 110 to 30. LOL!
There's a lot of other sexually explicit stuff in there too. Pushing the limits to be edgy. Doesn't mean it is a bad series. It might be the next great classic. But how the hell do you get 110 penises in one locker room? And are they a random distribution of penises or did they select for "aesthetics?"
Unfortunately, I don't get HBO so I'll never know.
I have a series of posts on my blog with news like this one. The problem with this format (of both) is the difficulty of responding to individual items. In the item here about my newsletter discussion, I concede that there's a real lack of hard data about the decline of naturism for the past 30 years or so. But I still think the decline is real. Unfortunately, there are almost no scientific polls related to naturism in the U.S., especially in recent years. That's a bad sign right there. The Naturist Action Committee, formerly a part of the Naturist Society, used to sponsor a couple of polls. But polling isn't cheap, and NAC recently decided to split from TNS. (Another bad sign.)
I've been a naturist for 40 years, so I've seen the decline, which seems to be ongoing. There are increasingly fewer people using nude beaches. Fewer people (especially women) visit naturist clubs, and a number of those clubs have closed. There could still be many closeted "home naturists", but it's impossible to count those, and they don't really help naturism itself. Such observations are just anecdotal, but unfortunately that's about all we've got.
As for naturism in other countries, the UK seems to be doing pretty well. But even in Germany there seem to be declines. There were many naked people in Munich's Englisher Garten when I visited several decades ago. They even overflowed into the area behind a public museum. More recent photos I've seen show fewer. There are now reports of declines in Germany, although there are many popular indoor spas where nudity is normal.
For any improvement to occur, we've got to be realistic about what the current situation is.
Thank you for the clarifying remarks. I think your assessment is astute and I basically agree with your analysis of the situation(s). Perhaps I didn’t do a good enough job of saying that above. There is absolutely a real need for more data (to your point, polling isn’t cheap) and clearly the lack of existing data reflects both a lack of resources amongst “organized” nudism, but on some level a lack of understanding of the importance of such a priority to navigate these broad cultural shifts that your article alludes to. I really enjoyed your article (and your substack in general) and appreciate the opportunities it has provided for thought and discussion. I probably should have put my comments on your original post, but I wanted to take the opportunity to link to your article and newsletter for my readers as well. 😬☺️
At least in SoCal, the decline is quite real. There used to be unofficial nude beaches up and down the coast. With the death of the Cahill policy they disappeared. Fewer colleges use nude models for their art classes. Even nudity in locker rooms has all but vanished. Several local clubs went under and nothing new replaced them. (Elysium, Silver Valley Sun Club, McConville and others) San Francisco passed an anti-nudity ordinance (admittedly with loopholes for special events) as did Berkeley and a few other small communities that I am aware of.
Counterbalancing this, the internet has made it possible for nudists to find each other. Even though the numbers are declining as a percentage of the population, it still feels like there are plenty of us out there. Special events like the WNBR have caught on but remember, it wasn't started by nudists and most riders would not identify as nudists. Organized nudism gets little credit for it.
A lot of the decline is that the peak population of nudists back in the 80s is aging out. We had our moment in the sun but don't seem to have anything to offer younger people. That's a topic for a very long post all by itself.
Gotta respectfully disagree. Nudists are very definitely a minority group. Just as are gays. It is a minority that finds it very easy to stay in the closet. Step out of the closet and out of our personal social bubble and you'll find discrimination. If it had come to the attention of the school district where I once worked that I were a nudist, I'd have been immediately fired without recourse. Not because I broke any laws but because a certain subset of parents would be outraged. Much worse things could follow. Do not imagine that nudists are not oppressed.
But beyond that, discrimination isn't a part of the definition of minority. Republicans are a minority group within California but I don't see any calls for discriminatory laws.