Never judge a book by its cover.

Unless you have read it.

Recently I was made aware of a book called "The Politics of Perverts”, written by Charles Anthony Smith, Shawn R. Schulenberg and Connor B. S. Strobel.

The blurb about the book on Amazon reads:

The Politics of Perverts delves into the political attitudes and activities of individuals who identify with non-traditional sexual orientations and practices, such as Polyamory, BDSM, the Furry Fandom, Nudism, and the large bisexual population within these communities. These groups face similar discrimination, stigma, and lack of legal protections in various aspects of life.

Immediately my hackles were raised as the authors have included nudism as a non-traditional sexual practice.  Nudists indeed face similar discriminations as more sexualised groups, but organised naturist groups seem far more sensitive to being labelled as a non-traditional sexualised practice and have been actively fighting that classification for more than 100 years.

Now there will be people who enjoy nudity, and who also engage in sexualised activity as a part of their nudity.  Swinging and sexualised hookups (largely amongst gay and bisexual men, although not exclusively) are something that some people identifying as nudists see as a healthy part of their naked lifestyle. Still, for the majority of people embracing the naturist philosophy, their nudity is non-sexual.

Perhaps the use of the term Pervert in the book title is trying to be ironic as some people have suggested, however, to be considered such, maybe it should have been enclosed in quotation marks.   

Maybe the word Pervert is being used as an attempt to try and reclaim the word on behalf of these sexualised groups, much like the term queer which was embraced and used by the LGBT community in the 1980s.  Those who have seen the 2014 film Pride, will recall when faced with being called perverts by the local media, the characters embraced the slur and owned it, organising the pits and perverts ball to further their cause.  I might lose several readers over my views here, but my nudism is non-sexual, and I have no desire to reclaim the term Pervert in advocating for naturism.

Without having read the book, my thoughts were that the authors had misunderstood naturism and had simply lumped it in with other sexualised activities out of ignorance. It also occurred to me that their view may be a particularly U.S.-centric one, as it seems the nudity in the land of the free is perhaps more misunderstood than in other parts of the world.

My initial reaction was that I felt the title was unfortunate, as it appeared to perpetuate misconceptions about non-sexual nudity.  To be fair, I thought I should reserve judgement until I had read the book.

I ordered a copy online which cost me more than I would have liked.  Books are expensive here in New Zealand, partially due to our exchange rate, but mostly due to freight and postal charges, an annoying consequence of living so far away from anywhere else.   I prefer a printed copy as I don’t like reading books on a screen.  I don’t own a Kindle so I must suffer the expense of that preference.

$80 later and I waited for the copy to arrive in the post, which it duly did, and I began to read it, admittedly from a defensive position.

The first thing that struck me about the text is that it is a U.S.-centric work and looks only at the politics of minority groups in the U.S.  While it discusses and acknowledges the European influence on the history of nudism in the U.S., none of its research goes beyond the U.S. borders or political systems.  Perhaps the subtitle should have read “The political attitudes and actions of non-traditional sexual minorities in the U.S.”.

In many countries, nudity is not illegal, and many societies do not have the pathological fear of nudity that the U.S. seems to carry.

The questionnaire only asked if participants supported the Democrats, the Republicans or an Independent.   Most other countries appear to have far more political options than seem available in the United States.

The research into nudists seemed to have a limited sample size.  260 people were interviewed with over 75% of the surveys taken live at one of 3 naturist locations, Olive Dell, Glen Eden and Penn Sylvan.  One limitation of this approach is that the number of people who consider themselves nudists is significantly higher than those who belong to a club.

While I don’t know the numbers in the U.S., research in the U.K. suggested that there were nearly 7 million people in the U.K. who identify as naturists or nudists, and yet around only 9,100 are registered as club members.   I would suggest that there are still more people who will enjoy occasional nudity or skinny dipping but do not identify as nudists.

Perhaps limiting your research to members of a nudist club is not representative of the naturist community as a whole.  Maybe things are different in the U.S.

The authors did distinguish between nudists and naturists, stating that nudists are simply naked whereas naturists have a more natural and environmentally aware existence with nudity being just one aspect of the philosophy.  They also conclude that the American public views nudity as a sexual minority despite nudists themselves denying this.  My initial concerns that the authors had misunderstood naturism were proved incorrect.  It appears that they have a well-reasoned and comprehensive view of naturism and how naturists see themselves. They also identified how algorithms used by social media platforms cannot meaningfully account for context and often confuse simple nudity with pornography.

Anyone who reads the chapters on the history of naturism in the U.S. and the results of their research into the nudist community will come away realising that naturists tend to keep their sexuality separate from their socially nude activities and that they are a broad cross-section of society, although perhaps not as ethnically or gender diverse.

Given the authors clearly understood the non-sexual nature of the majority of nudists and naturists and the challenges that naturists face in addressing that misconception, it was disappointing to see them consistently refer to nudists as a sexual minority.

As a study into the political views and difficulties faced by a few marginalised groups in the United States, the book does what it says on the tin.

As a text likely to further the notion that naturism is largely non-sexual, I fear that the academic nature of the book means it is unlikely to be widely read by anyone other than academics conducting similar work.

The authors claim :

We chose the term “perverts” for framing the project because the elites (leaders) we interviewed for each group invariably reflected on the fact that the world at large thought of their community as perverts constantly engaged in perverted things.

We use the term with affection and respect in the same aesthetic vein it is used by members of these groups - that is, in order to gently mock those who do not understand these communities.

As a member of the broader world naturist community, I am not aware of anyone embracing the term pervert to gently mock people who don’t understand our philosophy.

I firmly believe that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I also believe that first impressions count.

I stand by my original assertion that the title is unfortunate.  It may have been better titled “The Politics of Socially Marginalised Groups in the United States”, although the cynic in me suggests that such a title might not sell as many copies.

Thank you for reading.  Have a comfortable day.

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