Why is it that newspaper reports still
occasionally refer to the nudist movement as a “cult”, and talk about nudists
as practicing their “rites?” Nothing could present a more garbled word picture.
Perhaps the word “nudism” commonly applied, is misleading to some, for this
practice of being just ourselves when we wish to be so, without masquerading in
clothes, is not an “ism” in the sense of a religious system, but only in its
first meaning, indicating action or the process of such action. But once a
newspaper man’s imagination conceives of nudism as a cult, it perhaps follows
very easily that he should think of any cult as possessing weird religious
ceremonies and thus practicing strange “rites.”
Actually, the nudist is only a very normal human being enjoying the most perfect form of physical culture ever known, in terms of sunshine, clean air, water and exercise, along with the advantages of mental health growing out of freedom from sex complexes and ugly superstitions that have spiritually poisoned the lives of civilized (?) nations for untold generations. The nudist simply finds joy and strength in going back to nature. There is no “cult” involved. Nudists are not even sun worshippers in the primitive sense of those who make a religion of worshiping the sun as a “god.” Nudists only enjoy the sunshine, as they enjoy their open air sports and games, unhampered and untrammeled.
Speaking of cults, one may rather that it is the millions of non-nudists who are afflicted with cults and rites. The puritans, critics and smug, conventional people everywhere, all belong to the Cult of Concealment based on the false concept of bodily indecency. They are all members of the Cult of Shame and Sex-guilt. These self-styled respectable people who shrink from the thought of nudism, belong, rather, to the Cult of Obscenity, the obscenity always existing only in their own minds, perhaps as a corollary to the quaint, yet vicious, old superstition of original sin. In short, it is the anti-nudists, the prudists, who belong to a cult –the Cult of Indecency.
As to the “rites” occasionally mentioned in the papers, the nudists have none. But those who fear to be nude and are shocked by the nude very definitely have “rites,” which consist in the ceremonials of concealment, of dressing painstakingly, of utter privacy in the bath with a locked door, of wearing stifling, sweltering clothes even the hottest and most humid weather, of donning pajamas or night-robes in blistering nights not for warmth or protection but purely to satisfy the demands of a shame psychosis.
“Rites?” They are the offerings of primitive-minded people to the superstitions which obsess them. Nudists wear clothes when desirable for warmth, for protection, even for adornment and consideration of the feelings of conventional people –but never for concealment. But nudists have no cult. They need no rites, as offerings to superstitions, as in the putting on of clothes to hide one’s shame. Nudists are just normal, healthy people who are free from morbid preoccupations and mental conflicts growing out of an acute sex-consciousness. Nudists are just people who are happy because they are clean-minded and wholly honest with themselves.
Actually, the nudist is only a very normal human being enjoying the most perfect form of physical culture ever known, in terms of sunshine, clean air, water and exercise, along with the advantages of mental health growing out of freedom from sex complexes and ugly superstitions that have spiritually poisoned the lives of civilized (?) nations for untold generations. The nudist simply finds joy and strength in going back to nature. There is no “cult” involved. Nudists are not even sun worshippers in the primitive sense of those who make a religion of worshiping the sun as a “god.” Nudists only enjoy the sunshine, as they enjoy their open air sports and games, unhampered and untrammeled.
Speaking of cults, one may rather that it is the millions of non-nudists who are afflicted with cults and rites. The puritans, critics and smug, conventional people everywhere, all belong to the Cult of Concealment based on the false concept of bodily indecency. They are all members of the Cult of Shame and Sex-guilt. These self-styled respectable people who shrink from the thought of nudism, belong, rather, to the Cult of Obscenity, the obscenity always existing only in their own minds, perhaps as a corollary to the quaint, yet vicious, old superstition of original sin. In short, it is the anti-nudists, the prudists, who belong to a cult –the Cult of Indecency.
As to the “rites” occasionally mentioned in the papers, the nudists have none. But those who fear to be nude and are shocked by the nude very definitely have “rites,” which consist in the ceremonials of concealment, of dressing painstakingly, of utter privacy in the bath with a locked door, of wearing stifling, sweltering clothes even the hottest and most humid weather, of donning pajamas or night-robes in blistering nights not for warmth or protection but purely to satisfy the demands of a shame psychosis.
“Rites?” They are the offerings of primitive-minded people to the superstitions which obsess them. Nudists wear clothes when desirable for warmth, for protection, even for adornment and consideration of the feelings of conventional people –but never for concealment. But nudists have no cult. They need no rites, as offerings to superstitions, as in the putting on of clothes to hide one’s shame. Nudists are just normal, healthy people who are free from morbid preoccupations and mental conflicts growing out of an acute sex-consciousness. Nudists are just people who are happy because they are clean-minded and wholly honest with themselves.
(Source: American
Sunbather and Nudist Leader,
Vol. 9, Nr. 4, April, 1957)
Vol. 9, Nr. 4, April, 1957)
No comments:
Post a Comment