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GLST 15 Elwood Miller 7/15/10

De-Queering, Conflict, and Denial:

The Estrangement of the Homosexual and Nudist Movements

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GLST 15 Elwood Miller 7/15/10Homosexuality and the nudist/naturist

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movement, indeed just as many conceptsof ‘self’ do, share common genesis. Both are identities whose formations werenecessitated by the significant social upheavals brought about by the industrialrevolution. Both contain elements whose roots may be seen as a reaction to thecontrolling effects of monotheism and the rise of the industrial state. Because both arereactionary identities, identities which seek to challenge the norms proscribed by theindustrial/religious/corporate state, both are marginalized and in constant threat ofrestraint or outright destruction by the state. As identities, both may be seen as theindividual’s effort to embrace the true self in defiance of the cages and strictures whichthe industrial/religious/corporate state seek to impose.As identities, same-sex attraction and the nudist movement were both born outof a necessity to resist a growing cultural shift which sought to negate the body, the self,and nature in favor of the machine and profit. It is no coincidence then that as identitieshomosexuality and nudism were constructed within decades of each other and thatearly innovators and leaders claimed membership within each group. It is not surprisingthat within the homosexual movement one would expect to find many adherents to thenudist movement. For if our sexuality is truly elemental to our beings, then so are ourbodies. Can we separate the two, our sexuality from our bodies?Paradoxically, as identities seeking survival in the post-moderncorporate/religious/military state, both homosexuality and nudism seem to have

1 Much has been said about the meaning of the labels nudist and naturist. Within the movement manyclaim a distinct difference, many do not. Merriam-Webster defines a naturist as a nudist. For the purposesof this paper and in the interest of continuity, I will refer to the group identity as nudist, even whenspeaking of the Naturist organization.

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GLST 15 Elwood Miller 7/15/10succumbed to the belief that willfully re-entering the very cage which spawned theirformations and from which they have tried to escape will deliver success. Herein lies thesource of conflict between these two identity movements which share such distinctcommonalities and genesis. Both have historically rejected the other out of fear ofcensure from the institution against which each is reacting. Each has subscribed to thedominant cultural critique of the other, rejecting the other in hopes of tempering thedominant culture’s critique of themselves, resulting in a simultaneous resistance to andembrasure of the cultural cage which seeks to negate their very existence.~ ~ ~ ~It was the acceleration of scientific investigation during the nineteenth centurycoupled with the industrial revolution and the rise of the machine which not only had theeffect of negating the body but also dissecting, subjugating, and classifying it. As earlyas 1828, Daniel Webster, in a speech given at the Boston Mechanics Institute predictsthe replacement of bodies with machines:

Steam . . .[is] on the rivers, and the boatmen may repose on his oars; it is on thehighways . . . it is in the mill, and in the workshops . . . It rows, it pumps, it excavates, itcarries, it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves. . . It seems to say to men. . .“Leave off your manual labor, give over your bodily toil; bestow your skill and reason tothe directing of my power, and I will bear the toil,--with no muscle to grow weary, nonerve to relax, no breast to feel faintness.” (Takaki 150)

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