These clubs, according to Staiger, "don't have the spirit of FKK," she says.
It's another cycle of co-optation of an idea or maybe an ideology." "We have the issue of these sauna clubs or brothels that call themselves FKK sauna clubs, but they're hiding behind the FKK label. Staiger says a darker side connected to FKK has emerged in recent years in the form of sauna clubs that sell sex. "This way of dealing with nudity was lost after the country's reunification," he adds. Gysi says there were no separate nude beaches - everyone, whether they chose to wear clothing or not - bathed together. In the GDR (German Democratic Republic), FKK beaches on the Baltic Sea were the norm." "Partly, it also had ties to the workers' movement. "FKK culture has a long tradition in Germany," says Gysi. Leni Riefenstahl's film Olympia celebrated the aesthetics of the Aryan athletic bodyįKK culture persisted after the war and, although it existed in both East and West Germany, it took on a new meaning in the East where it became a symbol for people to escape a repressive state. "By the time Hans Suren's book Mensch und Sonne (1936) and Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Olympia (1938) came about, nudism had become incorporated - at least to some extent - into the racial ideology of the Nazis," she says. Staiger says it could be argued that the party adopted the culture in some ways through their obsession with bodies. Rather than sexualizing the body, the naturist movement was about health as well as freeing people from shame, social inequality and from the unhealthy living environments in the crowded cities of early industrialization.Īt the time there were dozens of magazines and films dedicated to FKK culture.įKK was initially banned by the Nazis during the war era, but the practice soon returned. "It was part of a broader movement connected to not having the body constrained by things like corsets, and letting it breathe." "Even at the turn of the century there was this movement away from the cities," says Staiger. The country's first FKK organization was created in 1898 and the idea, connected to the pursuit of good health, quickly spread, especially around Berlin, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The English Garden in Munich and the Tiergarten in Berlin are two of the most famous parks in Germany with nude areas Read more: Tasty or disgusting? Sculptures of raw meat and other weird German foods Politician Gysi agrees, saying nudism "isn't really erotic." "I see FKK as a possible counterweight to the ubiquitous sexualization in advertising, but also in society in general," he adds. Taking your clothes off isn't necessarily a sexual thing and it's not about looking good. It was such a different concept compared to what I'd grown up with.
But here people of all shapes and sizes could take their clothes off and feel comfortable. I had battled body confidence issues for years and embarked on numerous diets as I struggled with my changing body shape after puberty.
I found the attitude to nudity in Germany refreshing. After years of feeling uncomfortable in my skin, feeling that my body was ugly or something to be hidden away, it felt empowering to lie on the wooden slats of the sauna, with the heat prickling across my skin. You don't need a bathing suit to feel the heat in a sauna So "normal" nudity in saunas or beaches can make expats giggle or feel embarrassed. We're not used to seeing naked bodies unless they are highly sexualized in advertisements, music videos or porn.
#A serbian film nudity skin#
The British attitude to bare skin differs hugely from the continent. It's just not that common.įor Scotland the reluctance to go nude could be blamed on year-round terrible weather, but it's also something deeper. To put it bluntly, if you take your clothes off in public you'd probably be accused of being a pervert. Why? Because I'm from Scotland, and, like other parts of the UK, there isn't the same attitude towards stripping off. I'm not surprised at all the bums on show but it's taken some time to become accustomed to this laid-back attitude to nudity. "It think it's a pity because FKK has class," says Gysi, 70.īack at the lake a cyclist has just arrived, peeled off his bodysuit to reveal bare skin and jumped into the water. The politician said that according to a sex researcher it was the "pornographic gaze" of Westerners after reunification in Germany that destroyed the pleasure of nude bathing that had always been more widespread in East Germany. Gregor Gysi, a key politician of The Left party, at the opening of a photo exhibition in 2017