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The benefits of social nudity are starting to show up in academic research, which backs what naturists have known for a very long time. Natural Pursuits began in 2018, making the same implicit argument: time spent naked together improves the way you think about your body.

Over those same years, a researcher studied what spending time naked around other adults does to a person’s mind, and the results back up our experiences.

So what are the benefits of social nudity? Research points to one payoff with a wide reach. Spending time naked around other adults lowers the fear of being judged, which improves body image, which in turn feeds higher self-esteem and greater life satisfaction.

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1. You worry less about being judged

The first thing that changes is your level of social physique anxiety. That term means the fear that other people are looking at your body and judging it. Most of us carry some of this fear, and it tends to get worse in situations where our bodies are on display.

You might expect that taking your clothes off around strangers would make that fear worse. The research found the opposite. In a 2021 study published in the Journal of Sex Research, psychologist Keon West of Goldsmiths, University of London, split 51 adults into two groups. One group spent about 45 minutes socializing while naked. The other group did the same thing while clothed. The naked group came out reporting much less anxiety about their bodies than the clothed group.

Why does this happen? When you are surrounded by bodies of every shape and size, and nobody is pointing or laughing, your brain slowly learns that there is nothing to fear. The bodies around you are ordinary, so yours starts to feel ordinary too.

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2. You start to appreciate your body

Once the fear of judgment drops, people begin to feel better about their own bodies. Researchers call this body appreciation, which means valuing and accepting your body for what it is and what it can do, rather than picking apart its flaws.

In that same 2021 study by West, the naked group showed a measurable rise in body appreciation over the session, while the clothed group barely moved. Because the participants were randomly assigned to their groups, meaning a coin flip decided who got naked and who stayed dressed, the study could show that the nudity itself caused the change.

This was not a one-time fluke. In an earlier set of studies published in 2018 in the Journal of Happiness Studies, West tracked people before and after naturist events, including one where 100 participants spent three hours naked at a water park. Their body image went up afterward, and the boost held whether or not they had tried naturism before.

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3. Feeling better about your body improves the rest of your life

The effects don’t stop at body image. Body appreciation connects to two larger things: self-esteem, which is your overall sense of your own worth, and life satisfaction, which is how happy you feel with your life as a whole.

In West’s 2018 research, the pattern held across a survey of 849 British adults and across the before-and-after event studies. Better body image was linked to higher self-esteem, and higher self-esteem was linked to greater life satisfaction.

A follow-up study West published in 2020 gave the strongest sign that these gains can stick. He ran a four-day nudity-based program for fifteen non-naturists who struggled with body image. Their improvements in body image, self-esteem, and life satisfaction were still measurable a full month later.

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The advice we have been giving all along

If you follow us on Twitter, you have seen the caption under our event photos: Hang Out Naked. We have always meant it as a directive, a small nudge to give it a try. What we never spelled out is that it is also advice, and now there is research behind it.

The body-image benefits above are the part scientists have measured. Our regulars will tell you there is more to it than that. When everyone is equally exposed, the usual social armor comes off along with the clothes, and people tend to find it easier to open up and to make friends. That mutual vulnerability, meaning the shared experience of having nothing to hide behind, comes up again and again in how members describe our events.

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A few acknowledgements on the research on the benefits of social nudity

A few honest caveats keep this in perspective. The research is young, and much of the strongest work comes from a single scientist, Keon West, often with fairly small groups of volunteers. Some of his studies received partial funding from British Naturism. Most participants so far have been White and European, so we cannot yet say how well the findings carry across every culture.

Still, the evidence that exists is consistent, and the best of it comes from the kind of experiment that can show cause and effect. Spending time naked around other adults, in a relaxed and non-judgmental setting, appears to lower the fear of being judged, improve how you feel about your body, and lift your broader sense of well-being

Studies referenced in this article

• West, K. (2018). Naked and Unashamed: Investigations and Applications of the Effects of Naturist Activities on Body Image, Self-Esteem, and Life Satisfaction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19(3), 677 to 697. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9846-1
• West, K. (2020). A nudity-based intervention to improve body image, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. International Journal of Happiness and Development, 6(2), 162 to 172. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJHD.2020.111202
• West, K. (2021). I Feel Better Naked: Communal Naked Activity Increases Body Appreciation by Reducing Social Physique Anxiety. Journal of Sex Research, 58(8), 958 to 966. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1764470