Naked as Nature Intended

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which naturism articulates a set of relationships between the body and nature. We begin by sketching the histories of some Western naturist movements, tracing their lineage back to 19th-century life reform movements and through into inter-war reorientations of citizenship and morality. We consider the problematic of the naked body's relationship to the erotic (and specifically to the erotics of nature), drawing on some materials on outdoor sex; set alongside this is a discussion of the regenerative use of wilderness in the mythopoetic men's movement. These strands are finally drawn together in order to consider the complex negotiation of discourses of nature, human nature, the natural body and the natural landscape - a negotiation embodied in naturism.