What we're going to tell you today is a history lesson. Something very real and, of course, something that will be surprising for those who are unaware of the issue of nudism allowed (and practically obligated) in the United States.
Nudism in the UNITED States? Allowed in all states? Forced?? Yes, we already know that it may seem implausible, but North America was undoubtedly a nation pioneer in normalizing social nudity without even knowing it.
The naked body was not only permissible but socially accepted, from 1926 to 1962.
And it was male swimming that made nudity accepted in the United States. Starting it all with a health problem.
In 1926, the American Public Health Association established pros nudity policies, which said men should swim naked in public, private pools, lakes and ponds. Yes, in chopped ball.
Although women, however, would continue to wearing swimsuits in these mentioned areas.
The reason was that the male swimsuits of that time, made of wool, were causing health problems. Some cases of typhus and cholera bacteria in swimming pools of schools, institutes and universities put the American health system, which maintained the thesis that wool garments transferred these diseases in aquatic areas, on alert.
But then that condition to the nudity for the bath was extended a little more. The boys also had to be naked on the gym tracks to do their exercises.
With the advent of the 1930s, the girls began to protest saying that it was not fair for men to be able to swim and exercise naked while they had to wear swimsuits or other clothing. They still had no awareness that it was a condition of public health, rather than of the freedom that comes with naturist ideology.
However, in 1937, the Health and Physical Recreation Administration and the American Public Health Association agreed that in some schools and universities girls should also bathe naked, as this was the most hygienic way to do so.
The girls then started swimming naked with boys on the swim teams. Something that became very common in all schools in the United States. And it seemed to no one a waste and, much less, an oscenity.
This is what started the taste for nudity, first in swimming areas and then in public schools, camps, parks…
The naked body was natural and healthy fun for the person who practiced it, beyond hygiene. And it was something no one should be shocked about.
In a letter in a social column of a newspaper at the time, which was used as a social practice, a woman asked if her son and daughter could go to a naked dinner. The middle answer was: "Of course. Being naked is a good and healthy way to live, and many families in the United States allow their children to go to picnics and naked dinners."
Perhaps we have a perception that the taboo to nudity must be much worse before today. But quite the opposite: It was the norm in those years between American society. It all started with young people and a health issue, but then it was not uncommon to also encounter adults who used nudity in their daily lives.
Today, most people, however, would look at us badly. And possibly, they'd call off someone who acted like this as depraved.
And why did it all end? Because the American Public Health Association canceled the mandatory nudity requirement in 1962. It was no longer a problem with the arrival of new bath garments, which did not harbor dangerous bacteria. And therefore, it was not necessary.
But those who had enjoyed nudity in their teens had become accustomed to that sense of freedom and did not understand why it began to be censored and forbidden.
Around this time, the hippie movement was born. Full of these young people who in their school and school days enjoyed their skin with nothing on them, in their countercultural, libertarian and pacifist claims, began to use nudity again. But the nude in public places is over. He's no longer well-seen as unnecessary.
The 1969 Woodstock music festival was also, originally, a protest to bring back the freedom of nudity. They believed in freedom as a whole and that is why they also began to use nudism in their protests about the sexual revolution and free love. Of course, that didn't work. It was actually even worse.
Politicians across the country clung to those claims they called immoral, to begin doing ordinances that prohibited nudity in public.
Evangelical pastors, who were already beginning to proliferate in American television programming of the time, called public nudity anything outside of all moral and sinful.
In 1980, public nudity was so poorly seen that it became illegal in many North American states.
But nudism persisted. By then, millions of people who had experienced nudity in American schools or who were like the sesentero hippie movement continued to practice and promote naked life.
Currently, no Federal Law prohibits nudism in the US but, as is also the case in Spain and in many other countries, state ordinances and laws are very restrictive in terms of being naked in public places.
It is curious how the development in the first steps of what would later become naturism, developed so differently in old Europe and in the "new world".
Although I suppose that all these formulations have contributed a lot to how we live today the ideology of Nudism/Naturism.
Although this story was erased, forgotten, or misrepresented by the history books, images, and memories of many who lived those days, they still persist. Although the United States has become the biggest censor of nudity, both on social networks (facebook), as well as in written press, television, politics, cinema…
Those muds, these sludge.
