ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how naturists constructed and sustained a version of their activities which contradicted the 'common sense wisdom' that public nudity is unrespectable. This account explores both the experiences of children who accompany their parents to naturist clubs and their wider role in the construction and maintenance of naturism as a 'respectable' pursuit. Naturist clubs in Britain are affiliated to a national organisation The Central Council of British Naturism, which itself is affiliated to an international body, the International Naturist Federation. Naturist adults maintained their own moral worthiness through the construction of 'decent exposure'. They justified the inclusion of children by reference both to this moral phenomenon and to their own anxieties about the physical (non-naturist) world. Observations of the children suggested however that they were orchestrators of their own moral destinies who actively assessed the moral and physical advantages and disadvantages of naturism as they negotiated a clear path through the hazards of growing up.
