Nudity as devotion

There are reports of numerous historical rituals, where nudity is an integral part of worship and devotion from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece to Rome, on nude cults in honour of the gods with the reasoning, that only the pure, nude human can establish a direct relationship with the gods. Thus, the classical Greek oracles were spoken by the priestesses in nude revelation, the acceptance of offerings by the gods often presupposed, that the sacrificing priests were nude like the sacrificed themselves. Due to respect for the foreign gods, the soldiers of Alexander the Great listened in the nude to the teachings about the gods and religious customs in the conquered lands.

Nakedness as sin

In some worldviews, nakedness is declared a sin, being of devilish origin, and Satan always being anxious, to seduce people to sin because of their nakedness.

Apart from the fact, that a most naive belief in Satan is behind such an assessment, the representatives of such worldviews unfortunately hope in vain to be seduced by Satan: There is no Satan.

Moreover, according to wise knowledge of the Roman poet Vergil, no sin is associated with natural nudity:  

Naturalia non sunt turpia – The natural is not disreputable

Vergil, Georgica

Nudity is a fundamental, natural, and positive property of all living beings in the world, and it only takes on a negative meaning when bad-minded people assign a negative meaning to it. This was already known to thinkers and poets in ancient Rome.

Nakedness as provocation

Since the 1960s, there has been the appearance of naked streakers, who have been fond of appearing at events such as football matches or in busy areas of city centres in order to attract attention and disturb. Mostly, police officers hunted, captured and took them away. A different objective than pure provocation was not determined in any case.

Nakedness for protest

Women of the internationally organised FEMEN movement support their protest against institutions or bodies in their actions by a naked upper body as well as by passive violence. Also, police officers mostly hunted, captured, and took them away. Their objective, however, is regularly a precise protest against actions such as violations of rights or oppression.

Also, the World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR) is at its core a protest action directed against excessive car traffic with resource consumption and environmental damage – and fights for an increased use of the bicycle. As with FEMEN, nudity is also a means for protesters to attract more attention and thus put more emphasis onto the demands.

Naturist nudity

From a naturist point of view, nudity is a clothing-free state, which is connected to nature and the awareness that nudity is the natural normal state of humans and all other living beings.

For naturists, any assignment of such natural nudity to body shame or sexual connotation is out of question. Instead, it is exclusively an expression of light-hearted joy of life, caring attention to other people, and practised closeness to nature.

Thus, the naturist concept of nudity is the conscious, intellectual overcoming of all ideas of nudity, which are connected with certain symbolisms or meanings depending on the world-view, and the tracing back to our all natural basic existence.

I have nothing to hide – do you?

Although naturist nudity is not a paradisiacal nudity (without being aware of it), it is closest to it by consciously reducing nudity to its naturalness.