Generation Bare: Reshaping Naturism

n a breezy spring morning outside Berlin, a small group gathers beneath tall pines, barefoot in damp grass. There's no grand ceremony, no rigid ritual. Just laughter, warmth and a shared sense of freedom.

At the heart of the group are Leo and Carmen, a queer couple in their late twenties, guiding their latest body-positive naturist retreat. For them, naturism isn’t about tradition, it's about liberation.

"I grew up hiding my body," says Leo. "Naturism taught me that there’s no such thing as a wrong body, only the wrong gaze."

Their retreats attract a diverse crowd: queer folks, artists, students, trauma survivors. Held on eco-friendly land they lease seasonally, the retreats blend nudity with mindfulness workshops, consent training and communal meals. “We call it radical softness,” Carmen adds. “Being naked here isn’t shocking. It’s healing.”

Transformation

Long associated with white, heterosexual and often older practitioners, naturism is undergoing a quiet transformation. Young naturists across the globe are reshaping the culture, not by rejecting it, but by broadening its roots and connecting it to activism, climate justice, racial equity and mental health.

In rural Wiltshire, 25-year-old Amari Mensah leads monthly nude nature walks under the banner of Bare Earth Collective. A Black environmentalist with a background in permaculture, Amari discovered naturism through his aunt, who once posed for a 1980s photo essay on Afro-Caribbean naturists in London.

“Being nude outdoors connects me to the land in ways I didn’t expect,” Amari says. “As a Black person in Britain, public spaces often feel policed. Naturism, for me, reclaims space in my body in nature without shame, without surveillance.”

Amari’s collective has grown to over 80 members in two years, including queer folks, disabled hikers, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) youth. “We talk about soil degradation and ancestral land loss while walking nude among oaks and brambles,” he says. “It’s protest and pleasure intertwined.”

Antidote

In Portland, Oregon, 22-year-old Ellis Nguyen lives alone in a cabin on the edge of Mount Hood forest. A digital minimalist who unplugs for weeks at a time, for Ellis, solo naturism is an antidote to the curated chaos of modern online life.

“I used to feel so alien in my own skin,” Ellis admits. "Online, you’re never really naked, you're constantly performing. Out here, being nude is like defragmenting your soul."

Ellis practices daily bare rituals, bathing in cold creeks, gardening without gloves or clothes, and painting abstract watercolors in the sun: a naturist lifestyle that isn’t communal, but deeply personal. “I think people assume you have to be in a group to be a naturist,” Ellis says. "But there’s power in being alone, in reclaiming your body from digital hyper-visibility."

Challenges

This wave of young naturism doesn’t come without its challenges. Many long-standing clubs still operate under rigid codes: no phones, no visible tattoos and in some cases gender-based rules that clash with nonbinary or trans inclusion. Some younger practitioners report friction when trying to enter established naturist spaces.

Leo comments: “We have been told that our retreat isn’t 'real naturism' because it includes yoga and poetry. But why can’t body freedom include other forms of expression? Why should it stop evolving?”

Yet bridges are forming. Amari occasionally co-hosts events with older naturist groups open to change. "It’s beautiful when elders join us and say: 'I’ve never done it like this, but I’m learning,'" he says.

Desire

What unites these stories is not nudity for nudity’s sake, but a desire for wholeness. For many young naturists, being bare isn’t an escape from society; it’s an invitation to reimagine it.

“We’re not here to recreate the past,” says Carmen. “We’re here to build futures where everyone feels safe in their skin.”

Some retreats now include grief circles, trauma-informed workshops, and accessible facilities for disabled naturists. Mental health is openly discussed. “There’s no hierarchy,” says Ellis. “No 'ideal body,' no follower count, no trend to keep up with. Just honesty.”

That honesty manifests in diverse ways. Amari recently hosted a walk in silence, encouraging participants to reflect on land dispossession. Leo and Carmen partnered with a local refugee centre to offer free retreat spaces for displaced queer youth. Ellis’s social media posts have sparked a pen pal chain among isolated naturists in rural America.

There is nostalgia, too, among older naturists who remember communal bonfires, handwritten newsletters, and a time when the movement felt more subversive. But younger naturists are not discarding these traditions; they’re evolving them. The spirit of naturism can become sanitised or overly-regulated. But what’s gained is inclusiveness. And dropping the pretence that naturism always has to be apolitical.

Indeed, whether through environmentalism, queer advocacy or anti-capitalist solitude, this new wave of naturism is inherently political. It reclaims the body not just from clothing, but from judgment, objectification and erasure.

Debate

It all opens up the debate about the wider definition of naturism: beyond clubs, events and beaches. For many of today’s young naturists, being nude isn’t the point. Being honest is.

Across continents, bare skin is becoming a backdrop to something deeper: truth-telling, transformation and collective healing. If older generations embraced nudity to escape society’s constraints, young naturists are using it to confront and dismantle them.

“Being nude is just the beginning,” says Mariah, a 22-year-old from São Paulo who hosts virtual meetups for naturists of colour. “It’s what we do with our vulnerability that matters. It’s about unlearning shame.”

This sentiment resonates in urban centres and remote communes alike. Naturism, once associated with seaside retirement or rural getaways, is now thriving in places once considered unlikely: city rooftops, college dorms, digital platforms and reclaimed public land.

In Nairobi, 24-year-old activist Moses has launched The Naked Dialogues, a podcast inviting Africans across the diaspora to talk about body image, colonial hangovers and decolonising pleasure. “So many of us grew up fearing our own bodies,” he says. “But nudity can be our protest. Our prayer.”

Many young naturists also treat clothes-free living as an intersectional practice. They draw lines between environmentalism and body autonomy, gender liberation and land justice. They resist oversexualized portrayals by offering their own raw, imperfect, joyful versions of nakedness. Their movement is both softer and sharper than that of its predecessors.

Split

Tensions remain, however. Some traditional naturist institutions still hold fast to outdated codes, gender rules, strict definitions of family-friendly spaces, and discomfort around queerness or race. Younger folks often find themselves unwelcome or unacknowledged in these circles.

There’s also a split on technology. While older naturists worry about camera phones and privacy violations, many Gen Z naturists are actively reclaiming digital spaces. They build encrypted group chats, share zines via Substack, and post curated images that celebrate body diversity and consent culture.

Perhaps what defines this generation isn’t how they look without clothes, but how they live with intention. In their hands, naturism becomes less about breaking rules and more about making room for difference, for depth, for dreaming.

The next generation of naturists isn’t waiting for permission. They’re organising on social media (with sensitivity to privacy), crowdfunding land-based projects, designing zines and art, and challenging laws that restrict public nudity under vague decency clauses.

And as they walk, swim, protest, plant and relax naked, they offer an invitation. Come as you are. Stay as you become.

In order to respect personal preferences, the photographs used here are for illustration, and not necessarily of the participants interviewed.

© H&E Naturist 2025