“What a nuisance clothes are”
An eternally applicable ‘Common Sense’ essay on the burden of clothing, written by William Calhoun Walker in 1919
Editor’s note: This text first appeared in the journal Common Sense, edited by William Calhoun Walker, in the year 1919. It was reprinted in The Nudist magazine in January 1935. Walker is known to have established “Common Sense Clubs” which had camps across the United States and supported social and athletic nudity several years before Kurt Barthel established the American League for Physical Culture (ALPC)—widely miscredited as the first American “nudist” club—in 1929. Walker also produced Common Sense, a magazine that advocated for nudism and included a camp directory, as early as 1917.
We spend a large part of all that we earn on clothes. We devote a large proportion of our time to dressing or undressing, pressing, washing, mending, making over, planning, buying, packing, ironing, or fussing in some way over clothes.
Our freedom of movement is hampered so that when we wish to exercise we must take them off. And then we have to put on clothes especially made for that purpose.
We have to have different kinds of clothes for different occasions, bathing suits, working clothes, dress suits, business suits, riding suits, walking suits, even night clothes.
We are constantly conscious of our clothes, and very ill at ease if they are not the ones appropriate for the function in which we are engaged. We are constantly fearful lest we soil or tear them. We are humiliated if someone else of our acquaintance has more elaborate or expensive clothes or if the style changes more rapidly than our wardrobe can.
We are tempted and many of us yield to the temptation, to cover up our physical defects by a camouflage of clothing. We cannot go to a church or a lecture or a theater and get real intellectual enjoyment because we are so fearful lest there be something out of the way due to our clothes.
And with all of our care and expense and worry, we are often very uncomfortable because of our clothes and sometimes suffer seriously in bodily health. What a fetish we have made of these bits of cloth and leather, buttons and feather.
Oh, if heaven is a place where everyone is happy and comfortable, I am going to pick a secluded part of the Elysian Fields where folks never wear clothes and where the fashion never changes. And, I fancy I will find congenial company there, too! 🪐
Keep reading:
Early nudism uncovered
Exploring the early roots of American nudism, this article delves into William Calhoun Walker’s pioneering efforts with 'Common Sense Clubs' and his 1917 camp. It challenges the commonly accepted origins of the modern nudist movement, highlighting overlooked historical figures and early nudist practices predating Kurt Barthel’s American League for Physical Culture (ALPC).
I love how timeless this reads, so polite in its suggestion that we've developed an unhealthy codependency and fetish for clothing covering us, and so spot on too.
The author of this essay makes a compelling argument on several points. Clothing comes with a whole host of anxieties and hassles that in the 21st century are becoming all too familiar. We worry way too much about what wear and put so much unnecessary importance on it. It has to be the right popular style or we think others will judge us negatively. We work long hours to earn money to buy new clothes only to have the style change quickly. All those clothes get thrown away, which pollutes the earth and new styles get manufactured that further pollute the earth. People who can afford to keep up with styles, look down on others who can’t, which creates classism and disrespect for others. We wear clothes to hide our believed flaws and imperfections, rather than confronting and respecting ourselves to try and improve. The last part of the essay is also interesting. Are we naked in heaven? I would argue we are. In the dominate Christian tradition, God the father created Eden as a perfect paradise that was akin to heaven. The first humans are said to have been completely naked while living there. This says to me that God the father intended for his paradise to be clothes-free. The dominant Christian tradition also says that living in heaven is Eden reclaimed. Therefore I would logically say everyone who goes to heaven is naked.