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. http://news.excite.com/news/r/011019/08/odd-nudists-dc
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (Reuters) - Left your clothes and inhibitions behind to let it all hang out at a nudist resort?
The naked truth is that you might strip off but you can't strip away social customs, a Florida researcher has found.
People at nudist resorts tend to behave similarly to the way they do in the outside world: with the usual sexual hang-ups, social distinctions and gossip about weight, breast enlargements and the size of personal endowments, said Ellen Woodall of the University of Florida in Gainesville.
"It is rather like life with clothes on," Woodall, who studied the nudist movement in the United States for her master's thesis in anthropology, told Reuters on Thursday.
While nudists often think of themselves as progressive, the practice of nudism fails to live up to its ideal that everyone will be treated the same, regardless of social standing or body shape, Woodall said.
Woodall, who herself has practiced nudism for 15 years, spent two summers as a housekeeper at a nudist resort as part of her two-year study of nudist resorts, which have evolved into a sizable business from idealistic and counter-cultural beginnings about 70 years ago.
"I observed the formation of cliques, men commenting on or joking about the obesity of certain women, women giggling about the size of a man's genitals, sexual comments and harassment -- all activities one might commonly witness of larger society," she said.
Woodall also said that while women are told looks don't count at nudist resorts, and seek a refuge from idealized Hollywood images that women often find depressing, they are then exposed at such camps to nudist art depicting only so-called perfect figures.
Woodall also said that while nudism evolved from the 1920s in the United States as an alternative movement where everyone pitched in with money and labor to build resorts, it was hardly counter-cultural any more, with annual revenues at resorts estimated at around $400 million.
Whatever its aspirations to social openness, the nudist movement also tends to involve white, middle class, educated people. "Participants are by no means a cross-section of American society," she said.
"People participate in nudism because they find it liberating, but it's very firmly located in the mainstream."
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