Nude recreation

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Nude recreation is recreation without any clothing. Common references also may substitute "nude" with the terms "clothing-optional", "naturist", "nudist", "body-positive" or "clothes-free".

The following activities are sometimes enjoyed in such contexts: hiking, running (in some contexts this is referred to as streaking), swimming, cycling and yoga. Other less aerobic activities include enjoying sauna, hot springs, and sunbathing (such as at a clothing-optional beach).

When such activities occur on public lands, the activities are sometimes said to be occurring within the context of public nudity, which may or may not be legal, and if illegal, may or may not result in arrest of participants, depending on how society views such activities.

Practitioners participate in clothes free activities for various reasons. Many are convinced that increased exposure to the natural environment, made easier through nudity, can result in numerous health benefits. Sunlight has been shown to be beneficial in some skin conditions and enables the body to make vitamin D, a necessary nutrient. Overall, those who enjoy clothes free activities often claim that they are more relaxed and in a better state of mind when they shed their clothes.

Many people say that being nude in groups makes them feel more accepted for their entire beings--physical, intellectual and emotional. They say that they tend to be more accepted, in spite of differences in age, body shape, fitness, and health. Without clothing, one's social rank is generally obscured. They report feeling more united with humanity, with less regard to a person's wealth, position, nationality, race, and sex.

Many people get their first exposure to the clothes free movement through that kind of informal approach (e.g. a clothing optional beach, a friend's place in the woods, a party on the shore or skinny dipping).

Recreational nudity in the context as is practiced today was most common in Germany and the Nordic countries, where "Body culture" known as "FKK" was very much revered (and some say, copied) by Nazi ideologues. This movement grew into the modern social nudity movement.^{[citation needed]}

In the Nordic countries, with their sauna culture, nude swimming in rivers or lakes was a very popular tradition. In the summer, there would be wooden bathhouses, often of considerable size accommodating numerous swimmers, built partly over the water; hoardings prevented the bathers from being seen from outside. Originally the bathhouses were for men only; today there are usually separate sections for men and women.

It is not uncommon for private clubs with male-only or female-only facilities to allow (for example) nude swimming. Some argue that in more private environments (whether at home or in, say a single-gender bathhouse), the less clothing one has on when exercising or doing any activity the better. A group from the southern U.S., having been invited in the 1950s to participate in a university students' swimming competition in Stockholm, was surprised to find at their arrival at the (indoor) swimming pool that their swimming trunks were out of place; they had to swim stark naked like their Swedish colleagues.^{[attribution needed]}

Some organizations traditionally offer members and guests of both sexes the opportunity to swim nude. As an example, NAC Seattle Swims used to organize monthly swims at City of Seattle Parks & Recreation aquatics facilities, with city lifeguards watching over the event. Many own or lease facilities that allow other sports to be played, including volleyball, tennis, badminton, bowling and the like. Typically these sports are played at a recreational level of intensity, and need not be particularly competitive.

During the yearly Roskilde Festival (Denmark), a race for nude runners has been a popular event since the year 2002.

Stephen Gough, dubbed the Naked Rambler, in 2003/2004 made a long-distance walk from one end of the UK to the other, wearing only boots. He was arrested several times, and his walk was interrupted by two periods of jail time, together five months. Including these, the journey took seven months. He undertook his walk as a protest, in order to celebrate the naked human form, and to try to convince the public to stop being paranoid about the naked body. He observed that anti-nudity laws are more strictly enforced in Scotland than in England. He completed a second walk over the same route in early 2006, punctuated by many arrests.

An occasional, often illegal, example of public nudity in sports occurs when a member of the public uses a sports venue to perform as a streaker.

Since 12 June 2004 thousands of people all over the world have taken part in World Naked Bike Ride in mostly western cities, where participants rode their bicycle either partially or totally nude in a light-hearted attempt to draw attention to the danger of depending on fossil fuels. In 2005 many European capitals saw bare bikers protesting 'poetically' against the badly protected 'exposure' of the cyclist compared to 'armored' motor vehicles.

Nudist walking/hiking clubs have been established in several continents. Unlike the example set by Steve Gough, most keep to wilderness areas and do not seek or encourage publicity. Individuals are also known to engage in nude hiking. In keeping with nudist/naturist tradition, participants do it for the enjoyment it brings to them, and will try to minimize any potential discomfort it might bring to an accidental passerby.

In some nudist resorts there is also the possibility to practice nude horseback riding. Like with other sports in nature the naked riders enjoy the direct harmony with the horse and the nature and the feeling of freedom.

[edit] History

This section covered in greater detail in Nudity in sport.

In antiquity even before the Classical era, e.g. on Minoan Crete, athletic exercise played an important part in daily life. In fact, the Greeks credited several mythological figures with athletic accomplishments, and even male gods (especially Apollo and Herakles, patrons of sport) were commonly depicted as athletes.

Nudity in sport however was not common. It was first introduced in the city-state of Sparta, during the late archaic period. The custom of exercising naked was closely associated with pedagogic pederasty and with the practice of anointing the body with olive oil to accentuate its beauty and erotic appeal.

It spread to the whole of Greece, Greater Greece and even its furthest colonies, and the athletes from all its parts, coming together for the Olympic Games and the other Panhellenic Games, competed naked in almost all disciplines, with the exception of chariot races.

It is believed to root in the religious notion that athletic excellence was an ‘esthetical’ offering to the gods (nearly all games fitted in religious festivals), and indeed at many games it was the privilege of the winner to be represented naked as a votive statue offered in a temple, or even to be immortalized as model for a god's statue. Performing in the nude certainly was also welcome as a measure to prevent foul play, which was punished publicly on the spot by the judges (often religious dignitaries) with a sound lashing, also endured in the bare.

Evidence of Greek nudity in sport comes from the numerous surviving depictions of athletes (sculpture, mosaics and vase paintings). Famous athletes were honored by a statue erected for their commemoration (see Milo of Croton). A few writers have insisted that the athletic nudity in Greek art is just an artistic convention, finding it unbelievable that anybody would have run naked. This view could be ascribed to Victorian morality applied anachronistically to ancient times. Other cultures in antiquity did not practice athletic nudity and condemned the Greek practice. Their rejection of naked sports was in turn condemned by the Greeks as a token of tyranny and political repression.

The word gymnasium (Latin; from Greek gymnasion, being derived from Greek gymnos, meaning "naked" as ), originally denoting a place for the in the intellectual, sensual, moral and physical education of young men as future soldiers and (certainly in democracies) citizens (compare ephebos), is another testimony of the nudity in physical exercises. In some countries including Germany the word is still used for secondary schools, traditionally for boys. The more recent form gym is an abbreviation of gymnasium.

In Hellenistic times, Greek-speaking Jews would sometimes take part in athletic exercises. They were then exposed to ridicule because they were circumcised - a national and religious custom which was unknown in the Greek tradition. In fact the Greek athletes, even though naked, seem to have made a point of avoiding exposure of their glans, for example by infibulation, tying a bit of string around their foreskin. In Roman-occupied Jerusalem, Jews using the gymnasium would wear prosthetic foreskins made from sheep gut in order to avoid being ridiculed for being circumcised.

The Romans, although they took over much of the Greek culture, had a somewhat different appreciation of nakedness. To appear nude in public was considered disgusting except in appropriate places and context: the public baths (originally open to both sexes) and even public latrines were as popular meeting places for all as the forum.

Athletic exercises by free citizens (no longer required to serve as soldiers since Marius' army reform) were partly replaced by gladiatorial games performed in amphitheatres. The gladiators were mainly recruited among slaves, war captives and death row convicts — the very lowest, who had no choice — but occasionally a free man chose this fast lane to fame and riches.

When fighting in the arena, against one another or against wild beasts, they would be armed with swords, shields etc., but would otherwise be partly or totally naked (see Gladiator for particulars).

• Gladiators were one of many features, especially religious, Rome inherited from its highly respected Etruscan neighbors. This ancient, alien (not Indo-European, possibly originating from Asia Minor) culture even depicts warriors fighting completely naked.
• When Christianity in the fourth century became the state religion, gladiatorial games were soon abandoned, and the concept of nudity as 'sinful' took root.

In Japan, female sumo wrestlers wrestled in the nude. Today, females are not allowed to sumo wrestle, and the sport, practiced by men in ceremonial dress of loin cloth-size that exposes the buttocks like a jock strap, in general is considered sacred under Shintoism.

[edit] Quotes

• Body Acceptance is the idea, Nude Recreation is the way. -Lee Baxandall. Popular motto of The Naturist Society
• Every civilized nation has nude beaches. That's a mark of a civilized nation. -Lee Baxandall from video: The Beginner's Guide to Skinny Dipping. The Naturist Society. Fast Forward Images, Inc. 1991.

[edit] See also

• Gymnopaedia
• List of social nudity places
• Strip games (often done in sexualized or semi-sexualized contexts)