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The Power of Nudity

(Published by Sunscape, a student journal)

A whole floor was dedicated to Rome. High pillars rose to the sky and the archways curved round. Outdoor areas on the balcony included walls that blocked us all around, we saw only the sky. This outdoor space displayed plastic plants that smelled of milk and tea. Every part of this place told me to relax except, I was naked. Everyone was naked. I couldn’t brush off the eyes of the people around me. My friend and I looked at each other, laughing with our eyes stilled as we readied ourselves to enter a public bathhouse in Japan.

I grabbed a tiny square towel from the attendant without a smile. Her smile looked me up and down, immediately I turned around to get the hell out of there and get my clothes, but I saw posters screaming at me to not bring them in. My feet rubbed raw on the ground with my speed. Once my friend caught up to me she pushed on my back and we entered the shower areas together. There were stools and shampoo and conditioner and I soon realized that the tiny cloth was probably only for my face. As I walked from bath to bath I moved the cloth from my front side to my back constantly using my hands to stretch the cloth to its full limit. But, it was useless. Everyone’s eyes stuck close to my body as I tried crouching down to become as small and invisible as possible.

On the pathways rough stones poked out of the ground for a foot massage. It hurt more than it was suppose to so my friend and I took our time and walked in the smooth cracks between the protruding rocks. Our raw feet winced in pain. This bathhouse was the wildest place I have ever been to.

My definition of a wild place includes areas I feel uncomfortable in. While my bathhouse experience was not technically in the wild, I can relate to being naked and feeling vulnerable. It really brings everything upfront and personal, creating a connection with nature that no one can understand unless they have done it. In “Naked as Nature Intended,” David Bell and Ruth Holliday describe this popular movement in the 20th century. “Naturism” means the worship of the forces of nature, and includes the term nudism in the definition. Naturists embraced nudity to feel a sense of closeness to nature. Naturist also felt nudism was normal human nature, contradicting society and the expectation that people must wear clothes. Because believe it or not there are nudists who like to go out naked in the world, but instead of an indoor bathhouse they went into wild nature.

In the Wild West, the naturists believed in ideologies such as romanticism. Romantics wanted to be one with nature and god. In the 20th century, being one with nature was a problem for them when an abundant rise is industrialization happened and less people cared about nature. People proved to be more interested in efficiency and did not take their time to enjoy what nature provided them.

Romantics and naturists went to the countryside during this time so they could experience raw nature. “At the same time as the countryside became and object of mass enjoyment,” wrote Bell and Ruth, “came calls for its protection and cravings for self actualization and spiritual plenitude” (129-130).

Experiencing the countryside naked gave people a real feel for the places around them and invested them with the need to protect it. Nudity in the wild motivated people to be one with nature, how it was intended to be, without clothes. Bell and Ruth quoted Zimmermann, saying, “All who have seen it, seen it with their whole souls, know why human beings are not born with clothes on” (127).

Being naked in the wild was also seen as sexual. Sexuality in wild outdoor areas related to the innocence of humans while feeling all the sensations and being naked. It sounds strange but nudists often wanted to recreate Eden and go back to a place of simplicity. Eventually the sexual element led to distinctions between naturism and nudism. Naturism represents the worship of nature and is more innocent than the term nudism, which has a sexual appeal to it. Nudity can be viewed many different ways in the wild, but mostly to fully experience nature and become completely vulnerable to everything. My experience in the bathhouse was a little different; I did not quite feel the enjoyment of nakedness.

Our fingers turned to prunes from our time in the bath. We had a certain reluctance to walk outside of the baths for too long. With milk and tea still in our noises our stomachs started growling and we decided to search for food. A couple random restaurants rested in between the baths. The one my friend and I went to also contributed to the Roman theme. The walls were a tan color and had cracks running down to make it seem like an old and authentic restaurant. We sat down on stone grey seats that had warm water at our feet. The stone seat that touched my skin made me squirm. Too cold and rough for my behind and I found myself moving from side to side to get comfortable. The water splashed around making a disguising sound that I didn’t even notice until my friend told me to stop, her eyes widened and we started laughing again.

The fully clothed waitress gave us a menu that included, surprisingly, American food. We ordered food and watched the TVs within the cracked walls. A funny Japanese variety show played and seemed largely out of place in this scene. And with our bodies so open it was an interesting experience. We began to openly talk about our relationships with past and current boyfriends, and also with our parents, which is something I rarely talk about, even to close friends. It was a good conversation but we both wanted to get back in a bath or to be honest just leave after. I did not feel the power that comes with nudity, just the vulnerability.


That power, I realized comes from having a cause or something to prove and Katie Lee showed this. Lee, an environmental activist, has been featured in documentaries and articles that displayed her passion for Glen Canyon and the Colorado River. She fought to take down the dams and did it with emotional appeal by taking photos in the beautiful landscapes of Glen Canyon, so people would want to save it. Lee discussed this in “DamNation,” a documentary. She described how she tried her best to convince people what a tragedy it would be if Glen Canyon were destroyed.

Along with being an environmental activist, Lee was also quick to shed all her clothes off and enjoy the wild for everything it could offer. In fact, most of the photos used to try to save Glen Canyon displayed her naked. For example, one of the photographs shows Lee naked in between a crack in the cliff. Both sides are pressing against her naked body and the wide shot showed a great deal of the nature around her, truly revealing the beauty of Glen Canyon. Being one with nature, she said, “I have been hiking freely and in tune with nature for at least half of those years. When I met Glen Canyon it was love at first sight” ("Environmental Activist and Katie Lee and Her Triple Tizzy"). Like other naturists, Lee used nudity to feel the wild and be closer to it, but she had a power behind her nudity as well, because it played a part in her saving Glen Canyon.

Like Lee, Joseph Knowles, known as Naked Joe, went into the wilderness naked. He specifically went to the northwest part of Maine by the Dead River, for a purpose. In his book “Alone in the Wilderness,” Knowles describes his thought process of going in the wild with nothing but a jockstrap on, basically naked. He felt no one appreciated the beauty and importance of nature. So he set out to prove he could survive on nothing. “I wondered if the man of the present day could leave all his luxury behind him and go back to the wilderness and live on what nature intended him to have” (Knowles). When he told his friends this they asked him how would he make a fire or get food. He was insistent in his answer, saying he could simply live off the land.

Around the fall he went into the wilderness to prove himself. When leaving Knowles stated, “I had left civilization!” By being away from the civilized world he could concentrate on his task and would not be held back, but he soon ran into several problems. He had encounters with animals and because he had to compete with them, he had trouble getting fish to eat. When he left the wilderness, he was shocked by the response. Many people heard about his determination and were moved by it. In fact, people met him when he came back to the civilized world after two months, in his jockstrap, right outside the wilderness he inhabited.

Being naked heightened his experience. By really relying on the earth around him he was able to feel uncomfortable and experienced nature to the fullest. Although he tried to prove something, he wanted to get away from urbanization. Both Katie Lee and Joseph Knowles went naked into the wild; one liked it, the other not as much. Either way they were out in the wilderness and felt what it feels like to be vulnerable in nature.

Nudity brings people to the beauty of nature, but also to the power behind it. A power that can stand up, or prove how powerful a person can really be. By being in a wild place people can feel uncomfortable and nudity will bring up that feeling of vulnerability, but also closeness with nature.

After thinking about the situation of the bathhouse I do realize the beauty of it. All my first thoughts consisted of “I’m naked,” but I see the connections with being vulnerable.

Within the baths my body was covered in milky white water and all my pores opened to feel the sensations. Certain calmness came to us and we talked as the silky water brushed against our skin. I felt so comfortable, in the bath. No one could see me and my vulnerable body was safe. The large bath outside was lined with rocks and fake bushes, making me feel like I was actually bathing in nature. Steam rose in front of my face and I got that nice dizzy feeling. And I felt close to the nature around me, especially when the snow from outside fell on our heads and eyelashes. My body felt the snow but not the coldness. It was romantic. We spent most of our time there because we enjoyed the snow resting on the water and immediately dissolving.

I felt closer to my friend as we spent time naked. As strange as that sounds we opened up and talked the whole day. Not just about the cute Japanese celebrities we had crushes on but our issues. We both had no idea what to do with our lives at that time and it scared us. But, by being in this uncomfortable place it brought our fears to the surface and felt therapeutic to us. We were both foreigners there, but we ended up not caring because by the end of our time there we had fully enjoyed ourselves. I wonder now what our experience would be like if we bathed out in the wild west, we probably would not have had the courage to go out there naked. However, I could see how it would be a freeing and intimate time with nature. But, a public bathhouse is probably as wild as I can go.

Works Citied

Bell, David, and Ruth Holliday. "Naked as Nature Intended." Body & Society 6 (2000). Sage. Web.

Knowles, Joseph. Alone in the Wilderness. Boston: Small, Maynard. Web.

Rapaport, Diane. "Environmental Activist and Katie Lee and Her Triple Tizzy." Http://www.homesweetjerome.net/artists-jerome-az/environmental-activist-katie-lee-triple-tizzy/. 29 Apr. 2014. Web.


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