After
the Second World War many freedoms, legal rights
or just practices, such as nudism, which had been
accepted or tolerated, were abolished and persecuted
in its aftermath. Nudism was, then, looked down
upon in some cases, if not entirely banned, as it
was in others, by the new rulers who did not have
better priorities. And so, after the war, a wave
of Puritanism spread all over.
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Among hippies there are not false pretexts.
Their life style is ‘free love’,
nature, and peace. Many young people in
the 60s dreamt of living in a commune |
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It was not until the mid 60s, when the Hippy Movement
was born, in the United States, in opposition to
the Vietnam War, that we see a crack in the system
of values of the consumption society and the traditional
family. This movement kept evolving, embracing Eastern
Philosophies and concepts, and global pacifism.
The hippies and later movements prepared the ground
for the rebirth of naturism and nudism.
By rejecting violence, the hippies preach harmony,
mainly between human beings and the environment.
This harmony is translated into their life styles:
they live in communes where the material goods
and work are shared among their members. They
do not kill animals, and many become vegetarians.
Also, traditional marriage is replaced by love,
which means that this new relation is based on
the so called ‘free love’.
Hippies are, therefore, pacifists; love, nakedness
and respect for nature, thus living in a natural
environment, are other features of the movement..
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Hippy communes became alternatives to the
traditional family |
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Although the hippy movement,
(albeit very different in ideas amongst its followers),
brought about an increase in the consumption of
al kinds of drugs, it also made a crack in the
traditional values of a puritan world, by openly
trying out alternative ways of living. Vegetarians
and nudists gained ground and now they are respected
alternatives, although there is still a long way
to go until the latter may be considered socially
accepted as normal.
In Spain, the last years of the Franco’s
regime coincided with the hippy movement, which
may explain its weakness. However, wherever
there were hippies, nudism was practiced, (even
though they had to keep hiding from the Guardia
Civil, the paramilitary police). Probably we
owe it to these forefront pioneers having set
up the basis for what the nudist movement in
this country is, as we see it nowadays.
Carlos Ortega,
ADN member No. 332
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