It all started in 1933 with a paper by Howard Warren, a Princeton psychologist and president of the American Psychological Association, who spent a week at a German nudist camp a year earlier.
According to Ian Nicholson, Professor of Psychology at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Warren’s article, “Social Nudism and the Body Taboo,” “was a qualitative and largely sympathetic consideration of the social and psychological significance of nudism.”
Warren “described nudism in therapeutic terms, highlighting the ‘easy camaraderie’ and lack of ‘self-consciousness’ in the nudist park, in addition to a ‘notable improvement in general health,’” along with the principal perspective to return to nature.
Soon after, other articles were published in psychology journals that highlighted the benefits of nudism in contributing to healthy, well-adjusted kids and adults.
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Didn’t Wilhelm Reich pioneer this earlier?
Dancing in the dark.
My grandfather used to say that , ‘we all look the same in the dark , what I think he meant is that we percieve nudity and its subsequinces differntly.Or if you want an eloboration , you may as well be nude in the dark , its only the assumption that causes the perception, judgement comes later .
I grew up in Africa where breasts were a common sight only when I left for the Sorbonne and Amsterdam then only did I realise how differntly I percieved nudity .
I currently live in Hong Kong where I am researching a book on Prosopagnosia .
I am interested in the perception reaction to nudity, my belief and I agree in part with Howard Warren………………….perhaps we should be nude and see our patients in the nude.
The mind boggles but what an equaliser.
lee du ploy (hong kong)
I spent some time in East Africa. My perception of the “topless scene” there was that breasts are only viewed as a vessel for milk. They have no erogenous appeal. Africans I knew there, however, would always warmly comment any time we saw a baby animal suckling. It was like a touch stone that everything is right with the world if a baby (animal or human) can have milk.