Katja Hoyer: Why nudism is over – even in eastern Germany

Would you go to a museum naked? Many Stuttgart residents apparently answer yes to this question. The House of History of Baden-Württemberg is hosting two special tours of the new exhibition "Free Swimming – Together?!" On those dates, visitors are only allowed in nude. The museum will be heated to 23 degrees Celsius, and visitors are asked to bring a towel if they wish to sit down. The demand was huge, as museum spokesperson Joachim Rüeck reported : "The tickets were sold out within a few weeks."

One could dismiss this as a clever advertising ploy. After all, it worked. An exhibition about swimming and bathing culture, which would likely have only been of local interest, has now made national press coverage. But the exhibitors want to achieve more with it. It's about addressing "different attitudes and morals, physicality and tolerance," explained Rüeck, and "this includes nude bathing and nudism ."

The museum has partnered with the association "GetNakedGermany," which aims to remove the taboos surrounding nudity and desexualize it. "Germany has a long tradition of nudism, which encourages us to make nudity an accepted part of our society," the group argues on its website . This is true. Nudism has existed since the German Empire, and after the Second World War, it did indeed look as if at least nude bathing and swimming would become normalized. Today, however, there is much evidence that this trend is declining. It will likely be difficult to bring nudism back from its club-based niche into the mainstream.

In the GDR, nudism was completely normal – without club culture

Anyone who, like me, grew up in the East probably experienced the most liberal cultural approach to public nudity ever seen in Germany. In the GDR , nude bathing at lakes and the sea was completely normal and not part of any socialist or club culture. Publications still like to emphasize today that "nude bathing in real socialist waters was not in the spirit of the prudish GDR authorities." But for most East Germans, nudity on the beach was probably quite apolitical. They simply grew up with it.

I can still clearly remember briefly rebelling when, at some point in my childhood, the first feelings of shame arose and I preferred to wear a swimsuit at the lake. The response was, "No one's going to copy you here." Being naked was the norm. This is also reflected in the statistics. A 1990 study by the Central Institute for Youth Research found that 80 percent of the working population in East Germany had experienced nudism.

In West Germany, nude bathing also became more popular in the 1960s and 70s, especially as part of a hippie culture on the western beaches of the Baltic coast and in designated locations such as certain parks in major cities or textile-free campsites and hiking trails. A survey conducted by the online travel agency Expedia among participants from 24 countries shows that Germany and Austria lead the list of nudists by some distance. Around 28 percent of respondents from both countries stated they had been nude on the beach. Norwegians and Spanish people came in second, but each with only 17 percent.

The fact that there were and still are enormous cultural differences between East and West Germans was evident in the so-called "panty wars" after reunification. Many West German tourists on the Baltic Sea were bothered by the casual mixing of people with and without swimwear, so beach areas were more strictly separated and controlled by signs. To this day, differing perceptions persist. In a YouGov survey, only about a quarter of West Germans stated that they felt comfortable in places like nudist beaches or saunas. Significantly more East Germans, at 36 percent, answered affirmatively.

Nevertheless, it's striking that overall, only a minority feels comfortable in nudist spots today. Within a generation since reunification, a lot has changed here in East Germany, too. Sociologist Sabine Dreßler explained this in an interview : "There are still many nudists among the older generation. But it's now more of a niche. Because our society has changed. Nudity is highly sexualized, and bodies are subject to beauty ideals. The younger generation has grown up with this. In a sexualized society, people are more likely to cover themselves."

This is precisely what "GetNakedGermany" aims to combat. "It's time for simply being naked to be seen as nothing special and no longer intuitively associated with sexual acts in society," the association says. However, as a niche movement, naturism has always had problems clearly distinguishing itself from erotic offerings. For example, Mannheim city councilor Julien Ferrat recently went viral in the media when he published a controversial appeal in the official gazette, encouraging people to accompany him on a "political education trip" to a nudist swingers club in France. The German Naturist Association strongly distanced itself from the campaign, explicitly stating that it does not want to interpret nudity in a sexual sense.

Women in particular feel uncomfortable in nudist environments

But even within the broader context of today's zeitgeist, the action at the Stuttgart museum is likely to appeal to a niche audience. Young people, especially women, are constantly bombarded with images via traditional and new media that link physicality with attractiveness and sexuality. The aforementioned YouGov survey showed that women in particular feel uncomfortable in nudist environments – almost 40 percent said they generally avoid them, while this was true for less than a quarter of the men surveyed.

Further challenges arise. Due to the widespread availability of cell phones with cameras and internet access, you can't be sure, either on the beach or in the changing room, that you won't be filmed or photographed, and that the images won't end up online—a nightmare, especially for adolescent girls.

Unrestricted access to the internet has also led to studies showing that the majority of young people today are exposed to pornography and thus sexualized nudity at a very early age. While in the 1990s I would secretly sit with friends giggling over the Dr. Sommer pages in Bravo magazine, which featured normal naked bodies of men and women, today's young people sit alone in their rooms with access to all facets of human sexuality.

It would be naive to believe that the relatively carefree nudity that many Germans enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s could be restored. Certainly, we as a society can and should work to convey a healthy and self-confident understanding of our own bodies to future generations. But nudist campsites, hiking trails, or museum visits will likely remain niche phenomena for a long time to come.