Perfect Freedom

Fawning, Faltering, and Fighting in the Pursuit of Liberation

“Nude male wading in Reflecting Pool” July 4th, 1970, Burk Uzzle (Smithsonian: National Museum of American History)

The image above was taken at the Honor America Day event on July 4th, 1970 in Washington, DC, by photographer Burk Uzzle. It is what piqued my curiosity and prompted me to write this piece about America, the nudist community, and our pursuit of a perfect freedom.

On July 4th of 1970, in the throes of the Vietnam War and the early years of the Nixon presidency, Honor America Day was sold to the American people as a non-partisan Independence Day event. On paper, it would unite Americans in their love of country, guided by keynote speaker Billy Graham and entertained by comedians and musicians such as Bob Hope, Pat Boone, and Dinah Shore. Public perception leading up to the event, however, was less generous, picking up on the pro-Nixon, pro-war undertones that marked Honor America Day as a rally for the American Right. The day of the gathering would prove those suspicions accurate, with Time Magazine reporting on attendees waving signs that read, “GOD, GUTS AND GUNPOWDER MAINTAINS LIBERTY” and one Baltimore Sun reporter noting that there were “fewer black faces than one might have expected in Alaska.” In response, protesters arrived, some smoking red, white, and blue joints, some waving Viet Cong flags, some wading nude into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and others chanting anti-war sentiments. Following head-butting, shouting matches, and a tear gas-induced stampede, the event was heralded as a success by some and as proof of the great divide in our nation by others.

With Independence Day on my mind, President Nixon’s Honor America Day feels like a fitting encapsulation of much of the American experience and expression of freedom, including both a patriotism that would paint over our missteps in favor of celebrating our triumphs and a patriotism that would confront our missteps before celebrating anything. It feels a lot like the America we live in today: deeply divided, angry, weary, disappointed in its trajectory, and in need of a pep talk. The 1970 event also conveniently included some acts of nude protest which makes it so much easier for me to quickly twist this into something relevant to the nudist community like I usually do.

First, though, I have to clear one thing up: The radical nude protesters at the Honor America Day event were not representative of the nudist establishment in 1970, or even in the twentieth century as a whole. The squeaky-clean, family-oriented, controversy-averse, established nudist community of the 1960’s and 1970’s would have been quick to distance itself from this anti-war protest, just as they were careful to distance themselves from all other seemingly “radical” political and social movements of the day. This protest was happening in the context of an ongoing anti-war hippie movement, a national sexual awakening, the Stonewall Riots and the nation’s very first Pride marches, and a streaking epidemic happening across American college campuses. While nudity was associated with all of these movements, the organized, largely suburban, predominantly conservative nudist community was not amused by any of it. Affiliation with any of these radicals, in their eyes, could both bring about unrest within the ranks of the American nudist community and attract increased public scrutiny and police interference to their own clubs and gatherings. So, no, these nude protesters were not affiliated with the nudist community, as liberating and powerful a message as that might have been. These radical acts of nudity and movements that embraced body liberation, however, are still an important part of American history and our relationship to nakedness.

Despite all of that, as a member of the nudist community, yeah, I certainly see the connections between American Independence Day and nudism: There is a shared celebration of liberation and self-determination and there is a proclaimed unity in the diversity that makes us who we are as a nation and as a community, respectively. That being said, I have not spent much time talking about these connections, probably because there’s something else that America and nudism share: Those, um, aforementioned historical failures to live up to the promises of freedom and self-determination and unity through diversity. We are a nation with a history of slavery, mistreatment of indigenous peoples, repression of sexual expression, all flavors of discrimination, skyrocketing incarceration rates, and plenty of questionable wartime decisions… for example. How can we as Americans celebrate freedom when our history is dotted with assaults on freedoms?

The nudist community has committed far fewer atrocities (hopefully none!) but has known its share of eugenic flirtations, shunning of progressive movements, and discriminatory practices against people of color and LGBTQ individuals for much of its century-long history, undermining its own claims of equality and body freedom. And that’s all very uncomfortable, right? How can we as nudists celebrate body liberation when we’ve been careful to distance ourselves from other groups fighting for their own liberation? These conflicts, for both Americans and nudists, are important in appreciating how far we’ve come and also how far we have to go.

Much of the way we express and experience freedom today, as Americans and as nudists and as nearly any other community, is similarly conflicted. We don our American flag t-shirts and ball caps and novelty glasses made in a sweatshop halfway around the world. We light fireworks almost entirely imported from a nation that enjoys far fewer freedoms than we do. We celebrate freedom of speech and assembly while, just across town, we are banning books and arresting student protesters (yet again). We tout our historical status as a safe haven for the world’s refugees while locking up migrants and installing deadly barriers at our borders to keep people out. We honor our forefathers’ and foremothers’ sacrifices for our freedoms while too often chipping away at those same freedoms. We salute a flag that represents all of us while hesitating to confront the uncomfortable history that many among us have faced.

As nudists, do we not gather in private, secluded, hard-to-reach spaces and charge day fees to practice our… uh… freedom? Are we not lauding one or two minor legislative wins while our clubs are shuttering and beaches are closing and rights are at risk across the country? Do we not tout the way our nakedness breaks social barriers while implementing gender quotas and couples-only policies in many of our spaces? Do we not claim to welcome everyone while… well… not really looking like we welcome everyone, if you know what I mean? Whatever the justification and no matter our good intentions, the gap between our stated values and the way we act them out persists. What we choose to learn from that is up to each of us, both individually and collectively, but I can tell you what I take from it.

America is all of us who call this place home and, just like all of us as individuals, she contains multitudes. She is the best of us and the worst of us, the light in us and the dark in us, and everything in between. Just like us, she makes mistakes—sometimes a lot of mistakes, over and over again, and sometimes those mistakes hurt real people. She loses her way, acts impulsively, and can let her emotions and fears get in the way of her compassion and logic and values. She clings to the nostalgia of the past and can see change as a threat. The same is true for the nudist community. This community, too, is made up of all of us, of you and me and all of our leaders and thinkers and spaces. And we don’t always get it right. We don’t always embody the version of freedom or inclusivity that we would like to be known for. From where I stand right now, and likely from where many of you are standing as well, neither America nor the nudist community has a great track record or is inspiring much confidence at the moment.

But none of that diminishes the freedoms we have achieved or the progress we have made. It shouldn’t stop us from believing in our collective ability to do better. Our failures to live up to our own ideals of freedom and liberty should not limit our ability to recognize the freedoms we do enjoy, nor should the freedoms we’ve already achieved stop us from seeking to ever improve and expand upon those freedoms for one another. It’s in recognizing our failures that we find room for growth and redirection, and it’s in recognizing our achievements that we remind ourselves what we’re working towards.

President Nixon’s Honor America Day—replete with all its tear gas and nude radicals and wholesome family values and angry picket signs and unifying speeches and glossy celebrities—accidentally demonstrated this principle: That there is no perfect America and no perfect freedom. It’s all kind of a big, tangled, divisive mess all the time, and sometimes it really disappoints us, hurts us, or rejects us. But there is an America, and there is a freedom, in need of our constant maintenance, pursuit, and perfection. And there are glimmers of light to remind us of what is great. To me, thinking about those nude protesters in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool at Nixon’s big event is just such a glimmer of light. It’s evidence of our commitment to standing up for progress, but also of our sense of humor, our camaraderie, and our vulnerability. Likewise, the nudist community has counted among its ranks some outspoken proponents of sexual liberation, the civil rights movement, and LGBTQ inclusivity. Though we may fail and fail and fail, we are also constantly making progress and moving forward, and those wins are just as much ours to own and celebrate. Those naked protesters and forward-thinking nudists are part of us, too, even if they were seen as radicals at the time, even if we didn’t appreciate them then.

In a world where broken promises and imperfections and injustices haunt every nation and every people, the guiding light of a more perfect freedom should not be forsaken just because we have so often failed to follow it. The nudist community needs this reminder, too. Despite everything going on in the world—and also because of it—we should still remind ourselves to see the best in each other, to believe in the hope and promise of a more perfect freedom, and to relish the opportunity to do better next time.

Happy Fourth of July to my American readers! Go get naked or something! And then get to work!