From bush to beach: nudism in Australasia

This paper argues that the history of nudism is a history of space and place as well as of bodies. It offers a geography of Australasian nudism, from the advent of organised nudist camps in the inter-war period, through to the post-war era. From the outset, antipodean nudists often sited their camps in the bush, private locations chosen as much for their ideological importance as their practical benefits. In their pre-Fall Gardens of Eden, nudists argued, they could recapture the childlike purity and pioneer values of an earlier era. But the critics of nudism rejected the idea that nudism was associated with innocence and controlled sexuality, and ignored the rural locale many nudists had chosen. In their ridiculing of nudists they mis-located them, situating nudists at the beach, a public place associated with bawdy behaviour, rather than in their safe, bush camps. Ironically, this mis-location and the discussion it generated helped nudists make the transition from their private, bush retreats, to the public, mainstream beaches.