Naked

by Brian S. Hoffman

  Child molestation represented the greatest threat to the movement’s respectability. At camp, few barriers existed to prevent members, whether single or married, from taking advantage of the club to abuse the naked bodies of nudist children. Fathers could just as easily be accused of molestation as single men.13 Yet the growing numbers of single men brought the issue of child molestation at nudist clubs to the forefront. At the Cobblestone Suntanners in Yelm, Washington, on January 2, 1957, the local police charged Otis Paulsell, a two-time divorcé and father of four children, with “carnal knowledge and having a 14-year old girl pose in the nude for him.” Since July 1951, Paulsell had regularly attended the club with his children; he had actively served on several committees and had always conducted himself in the “highest caliber and no one ha[d] ever doubted his integrity.”14 The discovery of five photos of his children, one of which may have exhibited an image of the “worst” kind,15 caused Fred Barnett, president of the Cobblestone Suntanners to take action to “protect the club.”16 Barnett contacted Norval Packwood, then president of the ASA, who immediately enlisted the help of attorneys, held special meetings with club members about the arrest, and completely cut any ties the club had with Paulsell.17

  While Paulsell had appeared to be a model nudist, his past and the circumstances surrounding his arrest seemed to confirm the hidden dangers of admitting single or divorced men to camp. Paulsell had been convicted of rape in 1938 and was released on probation after only two years because of a technicality. Known as a “camera bug” at camp, Paulsell explained that he took the questionable photo after he suspected his daughter of having sexual relations with her boyfriend one night and then pushed open her bedroom door and snapped a picture in the dark. According to Barnett, he had only retained the picture to “shame the kids into decency.”18

  The assumption within sexual liberalism that the family served as a barrier to sexual dangers allowed nudist leaders to avoid controversy and cover up incidents involving children. Despite claims that nudism had a flawless record when it came to protecting children at its camps, Packwood acknowledged after the Paulsell incident that “such happenings” were a “most unfortunate and an ever present danger” and that there seemed to be “little of anything” that could be done “to prevent them, other than for all clubs to take every possible precaution.”19 Yet few incidents of pedophilia or accusations of underage pornography at nudist camps came to light in the nation’s newspapers or in the courts in the postwar period. Since the public clung to the assumption that the family guarded against illicit forms of sexuality and since the subject of child molestation remained a difficult topic to address publicly, nudist leaders easily maneuvered to hide potentially damaging incidents involving children. Packwood advised Barnett to handle the Paulsell matter with “extreme care” since it could be a “very messy thing” that might “put a bit of tarnish” on the nudist movement’s record “in connection with juvenile sex delinquency.”20 Hiding behind the innocent conception of the family within sexual liberalism, nudist groups began to enact policies that would protect the movement from other potential scandals that might result from the interaction of naked men and children.

  The need to guard against male sexuality resulted in a number of different policies. Officially, the ASA advised clubs to admit only single men who demonstrated good character.21 Each individual nudist club, however, reserved the right to make its own policy regarding single men. Some clubs limited their membership to married couples exclusively; others made no restrictions based on marital status. Still others used a strict quota system to ensure balanced sex ratios.22 Clubs that received a great deal of interest from bachelors, who, they felt, jeopardized the familial status of the camp, often chose to completely deny single men membership and implored these men to bring women. Some went so far as to award prizes to men who brought women.23 These groups justified their policies by claiming that men who hid their nudist lifestyle from their wives or girlfriends risked undermining these relationships.24 Moreover, most clubs did not accept married men whose wives refused to participate in nudism. One article declared, “if she will not become a nudist, he had no business being one himself.”25 Clubs with a more stable and balanced membership often sought out a compromise by limiting how many times a single man could visit the club,26 by charging him higher rates,27 or by trying to maintain a gender ratio of five men to three women.28 Regardless of official membership policies, single men often felt excluded by married couples or family-oriented groups. One single man, who later deserted the movement, complained that he had been “‘frozen out’ of every camp he had attended over a three year period.”29 The exclusionary policies of nudist clubs threatened to limit the growth of the movement in the postwar period.

  The restrictive policies toward single men at nudist camps also limited the number of homosexual men who participated in nudism. The fledgling gay rights organizations that emerged in the postwar period, nevertheless, took a positive view of nudism. Rudolf Geinreich, one of the founders of the Mattachine Society, an early gay rights organization formed in New York City in the 1950s, identified himself as a homosexual and a nudist. Geinreich believed that the “taboos against homosexuality and nudity encouraged shame, self-loathing, and the social control of personal behavior.”30 In 1959, One, a publication that the Mattachine Society used to communicate with other gay rights organizations and to reach out to a broad homosexual audience, featured an article titled “The Homosexual Nudist” written by Kermit Josephs.31 The article echoed Geinreich’s understanding of nudism by asserting that the “mental attitude of the nudist and of the homosexual . . . is in many ways so similar that the homosexual is perfectly at home.” Josephs explained that the “attitude of respect and admiration for the body is common to the nudist and the homosexual.”32 The many articles, photos, and classified ads that appeared in Sunshine and Health that appealed to a gay readership during the Second World War created a positive impression of nudism within the gay community emerging during the postwar period.

  Yet the article asked, “Why then is homosexual representation in nudist clubs so small?”33 Josephs, referring to his own experiences, maintained that nudist clubs did not make it a policy to exclude homosexual applicants. He remarked, “overtly homosexual applicants might possibly be eliminated at the first personal interview with officials of the clubs; but to my knowledge, this has not been the case.”34 Rather than homophobia, Josephs identified the exclusion of the “single man” as the primary reason behind the lack of homosexual men participating in American nudism. He described how any “unmarried men, singly or in pairs, even if superior in intelligence, well educated, or of good appearance, responsible in the business and professional world, . . . find the doors of nudist organizations closed to them.”35 Nudist clubs enforced this policy, according to him, in response to the disproportionate number of male applicants. He reasoned that it only required the greater participation of women to make nudism available to male homosexuals. Josephs declared that women would be “doing a service for the male homosexual” by joining the nudist movement, where “a happy way of life awaits him.”36

  While some single men accepted their exclusion, others vehemently objected to being treated as pariahs. One of the “much frowned upon single men” wrote that he found it “gratifying” that a group admitted him into camp, and he hoped that other groups would not “become too dogmatic” regarding the single man problem.37 N. L. Hansen, a twenty-six-year-old single man, also continued to offer his “support, moral and otherwise and hope for the best.”38 Other unmarried nudists resented the rhetoric printed in Sunshine and Health. W. L Vannort, a single man who held an officer position in a nudist club in Oregon, described the material as “hopeless trash.”39 He thought that the fear of a gender imbalance dooming nudism originated from people who “imagine too much.”40 He particularly resented the discriminatory policies imposed on single men. Responding to clubs that required men to bring a female companion, he retorted, “do
n’t ask the single outsider to do your missionary work for you.”41 Acknowledging that he was “swinging with both fists,” he implored nudists, “Let the Single man have his place in the sun.”42

  Single men of “good character” represented a valuable asset to an emerging and developing movement. Some nudists recognized that bachelors were “more willing to pitch in and work” and often carried their “share of the financial load even when their fees [were] somewhat higher.” It was also hypothesized that they would most likely bring their future wives and families to camp in the future.43 These nudists argued that excluding all single men from the movement “en masse would be to deprive nudism of an excellent source of recruits.”44 In addition, exclusionary policies ignored the need for “new blood” in the form of “youthful individuals who will catch the spark and carry it on.”45 One letter to the editor worried that the “prejudiced public” looked on the “elder generation” of nudist leadership as “old fogies” and “sexy crackpots.”46 According to him, “every single youth being denied admission and membership to various groups is just one more nail in the coffin of that particular group.”47 Young singles, many who might be returning from war, not only would contribute to the construction and maturation of nudist clubs but also would lead nudism through its next phase of development in the United States.

  With the issue threatening to stall the growth of the movement, many nudists wrote to the editor of Sunshine and Health in defense of single men. Vilma Bartlix of Portland, Oregon, believed there was “really no singles problem” since she had personally witnessed both naked single men and women interacting without any lingering looks, sexual indiscretions, or unwanted advances.48 Rudolph Johnson of Yelm, Washington, encouraged readers to remember that “humans are humans be they single, married or just paired off for the purpose of attending meetings,” in the hope that they might adopt a more tolerant perspective toward singles.49 Other letter writers thought that the movement should have more confidence in its ideals. They believed that even if the single man came to camp with a “tongue-in-check attitude,” the ideals of nudism would change his perspective. Any others “who prove undesirable” would quickly be weeded out.50 Many nudists who advocated for the admission of singles did not embrace the free expression of public sexuality. Rather, they framed their defense by pointing out the absence of sexual indiscretions by singles and the role of nudist ideals in reshaping unacceptable erotic behaviors and by relying on expulsion as a last resort. They assumed that the appearance of a rigid form of heterosexuality centered on marriage and family life needed to prevail in order for nudism to continue its growth as a recreational activity. Like members who advocated for the expulsion of single men, defenders of single men understood the need to prevent the nudist camp from being seen as a place to pursue sexual relationships with other men, women, or even children.

  Yet many single men found it very difficult to convince women to visit a nudist camp. For married men who developed an interest in nudism, the process of telling their wives could be daunting and risky. Clifford Kennedy, a man who turned to nude sunbathing to cure a “bad pair of lungs,” found it extremely difficult to convince his wife that the practice would be beneficial for the entire family. His wife considered him “despicable, indecent, indelicate, offensive, obscene, immodest, vulgar, and [an] incurable moron” and sought a divorce.51 Another single man “found it almost impossible” to “meet a nudist minded, decent, healthy girl.”52 Although the letters he read in the “Readers Forum” made “it sound easy,” he reported losing “several very good girls” after he talked with them about nudism.53 Gender ideals that expected modesty from young women, wives, and homemakers made the idea of exposing one’s naked body to unfamiliar men highly erotic, taboo, and dangerous. While women with unconventional backgrounds and upbringings might have been willing to visit a park, the vast majority of women, subscribing to common gendered notions of modesty, represented a major obstacle for many single men hoping to join a local nudist camp.

  Seeking to resolve the single man problem while continuing to encourage the movement’s growth, the October 1947 issue of Sunshine and Health, featuring Rose Holroyd, who served as the recording secretary of the ASA, wrote that nudists could not “expect to have a movement large enough to give it the strength it so badly needs” if they continued to “make rules of exclusion.”54 She suggested that members “divert some of this energy” from excluding single men to conduct a campaign to “get single women in the movement.”55 The editors of Sunshine and Health heeded this call with an advertisement titled “How Can He Best Tell Her about Nudism?” Alongside a picture of a pontificating man flanked by one dressed and one undressed woman over his shoulders and a question mark over his head, the magazine called on readers to submit their opinions and suggestions.56 Describing the man in the picture as “any young, intelligent, up and coming fellow” and the woman as “any young, well-adjusted girl with the innate modesty, good looks, and quick mentality that characterize the modern American girl,” the advertisement declared, “We want them in the nudist movement!”57

  Advertisements in Sunshine and Health sought to address imbalanced gender ratios by offering men advice on how best to invite a woman to a nudist camp. (Sunshine and Health, January 1949, 6; courtesy of the Sunshine and Health Publishing Company)

  To appeal to more women, the editors of Sunshine and Health again changed the appearance and content of the long-running nudist publication. The editors began running several columns in Sunshine and Health that were written by women and for women and established a distinctly female focus and tone by addressing the anxieties, concerns, and interests of women. Evelyn Rawlings’s “Women’s Page” dismissed the “man’s ideas or the man’s viewpoint about nudism” and declared, “we girls should stand up and have a chance to speak for ourselves” rather than being “dissected and examined like some fly under a microscope by a bunch of men.”58 In subsequent columns, she related her battles to overcome her own conservative religious upbringing, offered practical suggestions that would enhance the female nudist experience, and pointed out the therapeutic benefits of a nudist lifestyle from a woman’s perspective.

  Other female nudists critiqued the gender ideals of American society and suggested that gendered social roles shaped the imbalanced interest in nudism. According to Evelyn Zimmerman, men were “naturally more unconventional than women and find it easier to do the things they like” even if they went against social norms. Women, on the other hand, had “always been more sharply criticized for [their] departure from the conventional patterns” and placed more importance on what their “friends would sanction,” making them “more cautious.”59 Zimmerman then went on to describe how women suffered from a “deeply ingrained . . . shame complex.” Due to “generations of emphasis on modesty and the gentle art of being a female decoration,” she theorized that the attributes of the ideal wife became “demureness, modesty, innocence.”60 In addition, women fought their inhibitions. They often used the excuse that their “figure [was] not just right, too thin, too fat, an operation scar or some other alibi,” to avoid attending a nudist camp.61 To resolve the single man problem, American nudism had to overcome gender ideals that defined nakedness as an intimate and erotic experience and made many women uncomfortable exposing their bodies regardless of the environment or setting.

  Although Sunshine and Health transformed itself into a more female-oriented magazine, nudists did not try to challenge the restrictive gender ideals that they believed led to the imbalanced sex ratios at their resorts. The movement wanted to reach out to women who conveyed middle-class respectability to ensure that nudist resorts communicated family, recreation, and health rather than illicit behavior. As a result, nudists framed their appeal to women by evoking the very characteristics that made women reluctant to display their naked bodies. They invoked the attributes and responsibilities of the ideal wife to convince women to give the nudist lifestyle a try. One article, titled “Why We Women Wen
t to Camp,” described the ideal nudist woman as a wife whose “principle duty is to keep her husband happy.”62 The wife is the one who will “smile the brightest when she is weariest, who attends a movie with a splitting headache, who entertains after a busy day.” But most of all, the ideal wife should go to a “nudist camp for the first time . . . all because he asks it of her.” Women, according to Mary Columbus, the author of the article, had no interest or desire to go to nudist camps. She remembered the “trepidation in her heart” the first time she attended a camp.63 She only went along with her husband’s unusual interest to “keep ‘him’ happy.”64 Other articles echoed this sentiment when they encouraged women to “give your husband a break, try their nudist ideas.”65

  The genre of the short story also sought to reassure skeptical wives in the pages of Sunshine and Health. These stories regularly featured an extremely reluctant wife or female companion who had to overcome her anxieties and fears about nudism, either willingly or through the chicanery of her husband, friend, or boyfriend.66 Acknowledging that many women remained uncomfortable with, skeptical of, and even scared of visiting a camp, nudists used the articles and images in Sunshine and Health to show everyday, middle-class homemakers that they could uphold their role as a respectable and dutiful wife even when they agreed to visit a resort with their husband.

  Other articles went beyond the topic of nudism to appeal to women readers. Engaging the female experience, regular columns took up the topics of pregnancy, childbirth, parenting, cooking, shopping, and exercise. Although the authors tried to relate these topics to nudism by explaining the way that sun and exercise benefited the pregnant mother67 or by discussing how early exposure to the opposite sex’s naked body would help a child’s mental development,68 articles also specifically focused on exclusively feminine topics such as “Your Obstetrician May Be Too Impersonal.”69 Other columns sought to make the homemaker’s daily routine a little easier or more enjoyable. Margaret A. B. Pulis’s “Eat Healthy and Like It” listed recipes that “reduce[d] the homemaker’s work” and saved the family money. Recipes such as “home made biscuit mix,” “Cinnamon Buns,” “Steak and Peppers,” and “Party Chicken” helped the housewife feed her children, please her husband, and entertain her friends and neighbors.70 “Marge’s Mail Mart” offered women advice on shopping and provided women the option of purchasing domestic products such as flexiclogs, pot holders, knife holders, bathroom-tissue holders, matching his and her watches, and a marriage medal through the magazine.71 Still other columns offered advice on exercise routines that aesthetically improved parts of the female anatomy. Dick Falcon’s “Trim & Firm Those Hips and Thighs” came replete with nude pictures of athletic young women performing specific exercises, alongside detailed instructions from the trained fitness instructor on the various methods that led to an attractive, shapely, and healthy body.72 Although the attractive and shapely women that almost exclusively graced the covers of Sunshine and Health continued to appeal to individuals seeking naked images of men and women, many of the magazine’s pages began to read like a women’s magazine.