Au Naturel: Naturism, Nudism, and Tourism in Twentieth-Century France

Note on Usage

NOTE ON USAGE I should note that the book’s title is not an error in English, though it could seem so in French. Like English-speaking tourists who marvel at the creative use of English words in France, native speakers of French who don’t speak English won’t have the foggiest notion of what au naturel is supposed to mean in this context. Pronounced à la française, au naturel (rather than AW NATURAL, as it usually is in the U.S.) sounds like eau naturelle. A croissant nature (not au naturel, a common error of Anglophone pastry buyers) does not have the butter of a croissant au beurre, but it is not naked. One can buy canned thon au naturel, that is tuna without seasoning, but it is hardly nude. In the end, au naturel is one of those fascinating English expressions without the same meaning in French, a fitting title for this work given the very strong foreign presence of nudists in post–World War II France. As the book will make clear, meanings of French terms naturisme and nudisme shifted considerably over time. By and large, when historical actors were clearly describing complete nudity, whether they called it naturisme or nudisme, I use the term nudism, as one normally would in English. When they focused on what is sometimes called naturalism in English, that is exercise in a natural setting, vegetarianism, avoidance of tobacco and alcohol in order to get back to nature, I frequently use the term naturism—much as interwar Anglophones did. In either case, in direct quotations originally in French, I translate naturisme as naturism, and nudisme as nudism. I rely on context in translation of the term nu (which means both nude and naked in French); when individuals express pride and happiness in being without clothes, I refer to them as nude, but when they (rarely, in this book) emphasize the vulnerability or shame of a body without clothes, I use the term naked. Particularly in the interwar years, a slip (a garment covering genitals and buttocks) for both women and men could be a way station to nudism, and thus appears frequently in my sources. A slip was usually a bit less than a “brief”; today we would say “bikini brief” in English. But that term is anachronistic xiv Note on Usage for the interwar years, since the term bikini to describe swimwear originated after World War II in the context of American atomic tests on the Bikini atoll. The closest North American equivalent would be a “speedo,” but that refers to swimwear (maillot in French) and is a brand name. Thus, like international nudists at the time, I use slip, in italics, so that readers do not confuse it with the undergarment that my grandmothers always worried might be showing. Joan Tumblety’s Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) appeared too late for me to use it for this book. See her work for the broader context of gendered physical education and culture in early twentieth-century France. AU NATUREL This page intentionally left blank ...