The intellectual rebel

Lee Baxandall argued for the legitimization of naturism, instead of its normalization—so should we

Photo by Ned Vespa. Source: Milwaukee Journal, July 18, 1991.

“There’s no point to having sharp images if you have fuzzy ideals.”

-Jean-Luc Godard

Naturism has been thoroughly commodified into an easily-digestible consumer product, almost wholly separated from (some will argue unshackled from) the principles and philosophies that once defined it.  As a consumer product, naturism must now remain responsive to the ever-changing whims and desires of the marketplace to maintain and expand its customer base.  Subsequently, this ever-encroaching consumerist mentality puts the movement at the mercy of an increasingly impatient and anti-intellectual market, which rejects most anything nourishing, challenging, or thought-provoking in favor of trends and fads.  Contemporary naturism is whatever the market tells it to be.

Today’s naturist leaders call for the normalization of nudity within the mainstream, effectively asking how we might be homogenized into a middle-American society increasingly preo…