In Greek and Roman times, bathing was communal with a focus on cleanliness rather than sex. * In ancient India, some male spiritual groups participated in a disciplined naked existence, while the Hindu sect of the Sakas celebrated nudity and sex as natural. * The Jain religion still practises nudity today. * In the Middle Ages, the Christian Church linked nudity to ‘original sin’and cited women as the ‘daughters of Eve’so covering up became a necessity. * The Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence in 1497 witnessed the destruction of ‘sinful’ Renaissance paintings featuring too much human flesh. * The prudish Chinese thought that classical Christian paintings of draped saints were pornographic. * In Victorian England, when nudity was considered indecent, the naughty postcard became extremely popular. Mostly produced in French studios they ranged from artful poses to the downright obscene. * The first nudist colony in the UK, known as the Moonella Group, was founded in 1924 in Essex, while the first nudist event in the USA took place in woods outside New York in response to an ad by Kurt Barthel, founder of the first official US nudist camp, inviting like-minded people to join him. * The Sex Party started in British Columbia, Canada, in 2005 calls itself ‘the world’s first registered political party dedicated exclusively to sex-positive issues’, promoting public nudity and a gradual learning of sexual activity.
‘Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.’ Marilyn Monroe