More than just a lack of dress, nudism is a proposition of sorts. It invites you to abandon the dogma of a society that has handed down the long-held conservative mores of its parent generation—and their parents before them—all the way back to the birth of bodily shame, the Original Sin. This point in time and place is, by the way, impossible to tack down.
But, in an attempt to get near the heart of it, let’s try to penetrate the hazy lacuna of human history. We can follow a few breadcrumbs back to the hunter-gatherer communities of the tropics, where donning any sort of clothing would only serve to stifle oneself and where a simple string tied around the waist might be considered ample coverage in the savage heat of the day. For many, this way of life remains as simple and untarnished as ever, a testament to what we all came from: cultures of nudity, jewelry, body modification, and tattoos, adornments often linked to status and beliefs in the occult. From a modern viewpoint, these types of accessories sound punk rock indeed, and all the more so with our “naughty” parts swinging, slapping, and dangling freely for all to bear witness to. 🪐
Nudism, punk rock, and anti-authoritarianism