It’s called gymnophobia. The fear of naked bodies. : In Defense of Filth & Impiety

At the risk of offending those who love Jesus and hate nudity, I find myself once more in the position of defending Elysium Fields, a private institute in the Santa Monica Mountains where one may, if one desires, remove his clothes in the presence of others. Her clothes too. I mean, they remove their own clothes, not each other’s. Right, a nudist camp.

For the past 16 years, the colony has successfully withstood efforts by the county to shut it down. But last week the Board of Supervisors, led by one of God’s best friends, Mike Antonovich, voted not to extend the operating permit of what critics call the Topanga Sex Club. Without that permit, the Sex Club is out of business.

Ed Lange, who founded and directs Elysium, is enraged in ways that cannot be printed here, and with good reason. It has cost the institute’s 1,400 members about $100,000 in legal fees in the past decade and a half to simply defend their right to de-pants in a secluded setting.

That right has been upheld by the courts and by a whole laundry list of county agencies, none of which apparently makes any difference to the supervisors. Last Tuesday they ordered the camp closed. Their reasons: noise, traffic and geology.

Geology?

Well, they apparently feel that the seven-acre institute and its paved road might slide down the hill at any moment, triggering a calamity equivalent to the volcanic eruption that buried Pompeii in 79 A.D.

To which, being subject to the same restrictions that inhibit Lange, I only say nonsense. We all know why Antonovich and the board want the camp out of business. It’s called gymnophobia. The fear of naked bodies.

Let me assure you first that I am not a nudist. I have no desire to run unclothed through the woods in the presence of others. My reluctance has to do with genetics, not morality, having inherited the worst physical traits of both parents. It’s no fun being naked when others are going to snicker and point.

However, if Lange’s people want to expose themselves to the judgment of their peers, that’s all right with me as long as they do not insist on extending their private peculiarities into the public arena. I would, for instance, find naked food shoppers offensive.

Secondly, notwithstanding letters to the contrary, I deny that my continuing defense of Elysium Fields has anything to do with hedonism, animalism or satanism. I am not, as one woman wrote, in league with the devil to promote filth and impiety, two old favorites on the hallelujah trail.

The letter writer, a resident of (wouldn’t you know it?) Chatsworth, is among those who regard nudist camps as sex clubs, based on the theory that if they’re going to show it, they’re going to use it, God save the little children.

“I hope,” she wrote, “that I am never asked to expose my body to others or that others expose their bodies to me.” I suspect she has nothing to worry about.

That, however, is not the point. The poor lady, like Antonovich and his four apostles, are no doubt victims of a terrible malady.

Gymnophobiacs fear the naked human body the way a claustrophobiac fears being trapped in an elevator stalled between floors. Imagine that everyone in that stalled elevator suddenly removes his clothes and you approach the level of terror a gymnophobiac might experience.

Those who suffer from the unfortunate condition generally avoid occupations that require any kind of nudity, such as medicine, embalming or defensive linebacking with the Los Angeles Raiders. Showering together is out.

In extreme cases, gymnophobiacs remove all mirrors from their homes, bathe with their eyes taped shut and sleep fully clothed. Marriage is generally unacceptable, since connubial partners are known to insist on at least some form of nudity, although there have been situations where gymnophobiacs have married and managed to artfully conceal their disorder.

A friend who teaches psychology says the affliction is often the result of an unfulfilled desire to be naked all the time. An infant sees his mommy nude during a period of high emotion, which translates into his own urge to strip off his Pampers, and this in turn causes feelings of intense guilt.

The guilt creates repressed self-hatred, obsessive self-control and eventually an unreasonable fear of nudity. Ergo, gymnophobia. Makes sense to me.

Ed Lange has attempted many times to help the county supervisors deal with their malady by inviting them to visit Elysium Fields, but, of course, they won’t. His only hope lies in sending photographs and clippings of human forms to members of the board, beginning with a knight in full armor and culminating with a model discreetly unclothed.

Perhaps by that slow and measured familiarity with what God gave us all, our legislators will come to understand that there is really nothing to fear in human nudity.

When so much as an unzippered fly might move them to civil repression, that could be a big help to us all.