Groups Of Naked Women

🔞 ALL INFORMATION CLICK HERE 👈🏻👈🏻👈🏻

Groups Of Naked Women
The naked performers who shocked London
(Image credit: Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive )
The Neo Naturists were a group of women who blazed a trail with their nude happenings. Lindsay Baker takes a look back at their flamboyant performances.
A law from the Victorian era still stands in England – it is only men, not women, who are prevented by law from exposing themselves in public
We weren’t conforming, and we weren’t titillating. It was about freedom and expression – Christine Binnie
“Stunned silence” was the audience reaction to a performance art piece by the Neo Naturists at London’s grand Royal Opera House, says artist Wilma Johnson, one of the group’s founder members. The naked cheer-leading routine with body paint and pom-poms left the entire venue in shock. The live-art group had been invited to perform at the fund-raising event by the ballet dancer and choreographer Michael Clark. It is Johnson’s favourite memory from the time. “When I was a kid I was chucked out of ballet school because I was really gawky,” she tells BBC Culture, “so to silence the Royal Opera House was amazing.”
The Neo Naturists blazed a naked trail of disruption through the 1980s underground art scene (Credit: Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive)
The Neo Naturists blazed a naked trail of disruption, confrontation, chaos and confusion through the 1980s London underground art scene, creating their nude happenings in front of bemused audiences at clubs, galleries and various public places, where the women often arrived unannounced, launching into their performance guerrilla style. Wild, non-conformist and provocative, the group was nevertheless largely forgotten, but is now being rediscovered, and has reformed for a retrospective of their work at the Studio Voltaire gallery in London . The exhibition incorporates film and photographs, as well as live performance – though not completely naked this time around.
By all accounts, the group’s performances were surreally humorous. Christine Binnie who, along with her sister Jennifer and Wilma Johnson, founded the group, recalls performing a live tableau of “fishermen and mermaids” outside the landmark Centrepoint building in central London. The performance attracted a lot of attention, she remembers, including that of the police: “We had a conversation with a policeman for about 10 minutes, but in the end he didn’t arrest us, just told us to put our coats on.” Until recently, a law from the Victorian era still stood in England – it was only men, not women, who were prevented by law from exposing themselves in public.
The three women collaborated with and were part of a wider creative and social circle in London. Some of them went on to achieve considerable success – among them Michael Clark, artist Grayson Perry, singer Boy George, and film-makers Derek Jarman and John Maybury. Flamboyant would be an understatement for this loose collective of artists, art-school students, clubbers, performers and drag queens who were among the originators of the New Romantic movement, and also occasionally known as the Blitz kids.
In 1984, the group’s Swimming and Walking experiment took place outside the landmark Centrepoint in London (Credit: Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive)
As Jennifer Binnie puts it: “We were part of a mostly gay scene and the openness of that scene was what allowed us to do what we did. It was an expression of our own femininity.” Wearing nothing but body paint was also a way for the three women to keep up and to be ever more outrageous, shocking, out-there and radical. Grayson Perry particularly was a key collaborator at the time, and took part in many of the women’s performances, later describing the Neo Naturists as “true bohemians.”
Certainly the trio embraced bohemian ideals from early on. For Christine, a visit to Germany in the late 1970s was the initial spark of inspiration. “The German punks were all sunbathing nude around the lake, whereas in Britain the punks were very pale, wore black and stayed indoors.” The Binnie sisters had been brought up by their artistic parents to believe in “being natural”. Freedom of expression was encouraged at home, with crafts and organic food a part of everyday life. “We’re all quite outdoorsy,” says Christine. The sisters’ childhood also involved membership of the Girl Guides, and their early love of camping subsequently found its way into one of their Neo-Naturist performances featuring a nude cooking ritual with a Calor-gas camping stove.
Wearing body paint and feather boas, the group poked fun at the more serious aspects of the era’s feminist movement (Credit: Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive)
Although always done with a sense of fun and humour, there was – and is – a serious point to the performances. “It was to do with freedom and showing female bodies the way they really were,” says Christine. “In a broad sense the three of us didn’t fit in because all the other girls on that scene were very heavily made up and dressed up, and the men were heavily stylised and aesthetically very beautiful too. Our style was more messy, more expressive. We weren’t conforming, and we weren’t titillating. It was about freedom and expression.” The group also confronted some of the more joyless aspects of the era’s feminist movement. “We questioned whether feminists were always empowering to women,” says Jennifer. “In the late 1970s and early ‘80s we didn’t fit into the feminist ideal - we wore feather boas and body paint, and we were funny.”
Christine Binnie, who co-founded the group, was body-painted and photographed by Wilma Johnson in the British Museum in 1982 (Credit: Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive)
The Binnie sisters have since worked as ceramicists, and Wilma Johnson is now a “practising surfer” who lives on a naturist beach in France and has written a book, Surf Mama, about her life. The three have remained friends through the decades. “The thing that was and is the most powerful about what we do is that we never do it alone,” says Christine. “We did it in a group which made us daring and we became this one powerful unit, so that’s part of the reason we came back together for this show. When you get to a certain age as a woman you start to feel invisible. People don’t even notice you.”
Needless to say, nakedness has always had a power to shock, titillate or make us laugh – as streakers at sporting and other public events have proved over the decades. Naturists and nudists meanwhile have traditionally been a figure of fun. But increasingly nakedness is being used in other contexts too. The artist Spencer Tunick creates extraordinary, living pieces of art using thousands of unclothed human models, most recently with more than 3,000 naked volunteers covered in blue body paint - for a large-scale art-work in Hull in anticipation of its year as the City of Culture in 2017.
Spencer Tunick creates living art works using a mass of unclothed human models, such as this one, using 3,000 blue-painted volunteers (Credit: PA)
Meanwhile, a recent TV programme and one-off social experiment on the UK’s Channel 4, Life Stripped Bare, explores how a group of people react to having all of their possessions, including clothes, removed for three weeks. And nudity or semi-nudity as a form of protest continues to be powerful – the recent World Naked Bike Ride was an international ‘clothing-optional’ protest about lack of road safety for cyclists.
And of course there is Ukrainian activist group Femen and Russian punk protest group Pussy Riot, who have both made toplessness their trademark. Jessica Vaughan, the curator of the Neo-Naturist exhibition, argues that what the Binnies and Johnson were doing in the 1980s was ahead of its time and unfairly written out of history: “There is Femen and Pussy Riot, but the Neo Naturists were completely naked, they were ground-breaking,” she tells BBC Culture. “And they were under-represented in the 1980s, maybe because the scene they were involved in was dominated by men who were important figures. They worked alongside those figures but in an oppositional way - they were more messy, and more chaotic than the sometimes po-faced New Romantics.”
Ukrainian activist group Femen and Russian protest group Pussy Riot have both made toplessness their trademark (Credit: Rex Features)
The Neo Naturists are just as relevant now, if not more so, the 30-year-old curator argues: “I think there’s even more pressure now on women to conform to certain body images, to look airbrushed, smooth and hair-free. The Neo Naturists were the opposite of that. I can’t imagine seeing such voluptuous women naked in public now. Everything is manipulated and edited to perfection in the media and on social media. There was a sense of fun, authenticity and spontaneity about the way they just went out to see what reaction they would get from the public. There was an innocence and joyfulness about them.”
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter .
And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter , called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.


Fitness
Gym Wear
Beauty
Health
Food


Subscribe

Newsletter

25 Outdoor pools and lidos to visit in the UK
I tried Olaplex's new shampoo and I have thoughts
TikTok hack shows how to make a fan feel colder
Anne Hathaway Has Toned Legs In Heels, Mini Dress
Surprising drink that'll cool you down in heatwave

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Simone Ashley bares her core in cut-out dress
Ana De Armas has strong legs in pantsless fit pics
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Elizabeth Hurley, 57, shows toned core in BTS pics
Heidi Klum's core is 🔥 in a makeup-free video
Dua Lipa's core is 🔥 in a string bikini
Bella Thorne's core is next-level in a crop top
January Jones, 44, shows epic core in a bikini
Florence Pugh shares #FreeTheNipple clapback On IG
Anne Hathaway Has Toned Legs In Heels, Mini Dress
Natalie Portman & her PT on her Thor workout plan

©2022 Hearst UK is the trading name of the National Magazine Company Ltd, 30 Panton Street, Leicester Square, London, SW1Y 4AJ. Registered in England 112955. All rights reserved.


About & how to contact us
Cookies Policy
Terms and Conditions
Complaints
Privacy Notice
Sitemap
Advertising



Cookies Choices




We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article.



From Rochelle Humes to Chrissy Teigen
There is no doubt that a ' healthy body' looks and feels very different on each and every one of us.
Sadly though, research conducted by Women's Health as part of our campaign, Project Body Love , found that three-quarters of British women don't feel confident in their own skin. The reality is, for most women, being naked is not a feel-good place to be.
It's wanting to embrace the female form in all of its diverse glory that inspired Women's Health's very first Naked Issue back in 2014, for which actress Zoe Saldana fronted the magazine's cover in the nude, with trainer Tracey Anderson and former reality star Millie Mackintosh going buff within the pages.
Then, 2016 saw Lea Michele, Iskra Lawrence and Madeleine Shaw respond to our naked women call out. Come 2017, Jenna Tatum was gracing the cover, with the likes of Alexandra Burke and Melanie Sykes inside the issue.
September 2019 saw presenter and singer Rochelle Humes taking the cover, with professional climbers and football and rugby players also appearing in the magazine.
'Our research found British women are overwhelmingly negative about their bodies,' Claire Sanderson, WH Editor-in-chief, said of the decision. 'These women 'may look "perfect" to many, but every woman has the right to their own emotions, from insecurity to supreme confidence.'
To celebrate the stars of the Naked Issue, past and present, WH has collected a series of the images of the women who have bared all in the name of body confidence and female empowerment.
Straight up: Healthy is not a body shape, it's a lifestyle – as the 40 different shapes, sizes, mindsets and mentalities of the women below prove.
She says: ‘I’m a mother of two little girls now, I’m 30 years old and it finally happened: I accepted myself, my body, my hair, my scars and my bumps and my bits on one side that doesn’t look the same as the other, and I bit the bullet.’
She says: 'My body looks the way it does through effort and hard work.'
She says: 'I'm not perfect. I'm not trying to represent myself as being some perfect girl, but I love myself, flaws and all.'
She says: 'I used to take pride in the fact I didn't have to work out — then I hit that age where I have too. I want to drink champagne and have hearty dinners, so I would rather work out for an hour and be able to do what I want.'
She says: 'There are certain days or weeks where I’m so busy with work it will be harder to get in a workout and other times I’d just prefer to be with my family. I have to make sure it’s something I want to do or I will make every excuse not to work out.’
Yoga instructor and founder of Strala yoga
She says: 'As long as I feel good and I'm healthy, the dimensions of my body don't matter.'
She says: 'For me, it's not about having muscles or cut abs – I don’t have abs. I don’t think, “I need to be like a fit model with a perfect body,” because, you know, I’m 45. That would take too much effort. But I have accepted it, because it’s now part of my life. I know that, for my health, it has to be.’
Singer and former The X Factor winner
She says: 'Healthy eating encouraged me to kick-start my gym routine, too. I work out five or six times a week. It’s been a slow fitness process but the rewards are for the long term. Now, my training schedule never changes – not even when I’m on holiday.
'I begin with a 10-minute run to warm up, then an hour of circuit training. My fitness goal is to run the New York marathon before I reach 30 and kids factor into the equation.'
She says: 'I see exercise as an investment. I’m in my forties and my body has more definition now than it did in my twenties. It also gives me more energy, which is important when you have an active, growing family.'
She says: 'Through seeing what my body is capable of, I’ve been able to beat my body demons. I respect it now and don’t compare myself to the small, thin girl I once dreamed of being. I train three to five days a week, alternating body weight and weighted circuit workouts; rarely cardio unless I go for a run with my dog. I’m a size eight and I weigh just under 11st – it’s the heaviest I’ve ever been but I’m two sizes smaller than when I was 18.'
TOWIE star and founder of Results with Lucy
She says: 'A few years ago, I started working with a PT, Cecilia Harris. I’d wake up happier, more motivated– I wanted to get to the gym and push my body.'
Celebrity trainer, fitness pioneer and author
She says: 'I don’t train every day to look hot for some dude or to look great on the beach. I train because it makes me healthy, in control and comfortable in my body – like I’m home.'
She says: 'I have curves and my work and social life sometimes get in the way of exercise. But I don't beat myself up about it. Eating all the kale in the world isn't going to make you happy.'
She says: 'Eating well and getting fit is about feeling amazing. Looking good in a bikini is just a by-product.'
She says: 'I simply want to be the best, healthy, toned, happy version of myself.'
She says: 'I'm turning 40 soon, but age means nothing if you don't look after yourself. I enjoy my body more when I keep it fit and healthy — it's important to be in touch with your body and I love the fact that I am.'
She says: 'These days, I don’t really care about how much I weigh, even though it’s a couple of stones more than a few years ago when I was a size eight and weighed 8st. Now I’m all about personal challenges. I train three to four mornings a week, with a mixture of running, HIIT workouts, Barry’s Bootcamp and BodyPump, and I ran the London Marathon earlier this year, finishing in four and a half hours. My next fitness goal is learning to swim.'
She says: 'I'm finally content with who I am inside and out. I love working out, and have built muscle in my bum with weighted squats and lunges and I’ve slimmed down my waist with cardio and side planks.I exercise every day; either cardio at the gym or, if I’m short on time, a quick abs workout or HIIT session at home.'
She says: 'My attitude to exercise has changed over the years: in my early twenties I worked out all the time in the gym, desperate to be thinner and smaller than my 5ft10in frame so I could look more like other girls. But after studying for a master’s in child psychology,I learned that accepting who you are is at the root of self-esteem. Now, I’ve come to love my curvy body – especially my hips.'
TV presenter and former Miss Universe
She says: 'As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become kinder to myself. I don’t hit the gym to get a body like Kim Kardashian’s, I go to make my body look the best it can. I lift weights once or twice a week and can squat 10 to 15 reps of my body weight, about 60kg. I love and respect the legs I once hated because they’ve helped me achieve so much.’
She says: 'I’m a size eight and 9st 13lb, which is mostly muscle – I have strong abs and defined shoulders. When I was a young teenager, my body was different from those of other girls my age, which made me feel self-conscious. But now I see the beauty in my strength.'
Former reality star, fashion designer, influencer
She says: 'People ask, 'How do you deal with the fact that people think you’re too thin?' I know I’m not too thin – I’m slim. I go to the gym to feel toned and to build muscle.'
Former Made in Chelsea star, founder of The Mummy Tribe
She says: 'Exercise is essential for my mind. I suffer from anxiety, but a gym session chills me out and makes me happier.'
She says: 'Body image is far more wholesome and health-focused than it was in the Nineties. I'll always be lanky, but having a health goal to aim for has really tightened and toned the muscles I have.'
She says: 'It breaks my heart to read my teenage diary now and see how much I used to hate myself. I have a healthier relationship with food now and don't beat myself up so much.'
European Champion swimmer, Commonwealth Gold Medallist and World Silver Medallist
She says: 'Yes, my body is the tool of my trade – but I love looking good in my swimsuit, too!'
She says: 'I feel I’m exactly where I want to be. I feel beautiful in a way that even when I was working out a whole lot, I didn’t. Just be happy, regardless.'
Olympic hammer thrower and current British record holder
She says: 'I love my big thighs. I wouldn't be able to pick up a hammer without them. I put blood, sweat and tears into building them up. When I was younger, I always wished I was more petite or willowy; now they're a symbol of my success as an athlete.'
Footballer for England women, team GB and Arsenal ladies
She says: 'I'm so proud of my body and what it's let me achieve.'
She says: 'I'm not saying I'm the ideal. I'm not saying only muscly bodies are beautiful — this is just what I do. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm human and allow myself a few days to lie on
Pornstars Fucked Hard
Elodie Yung Nude
Dee Naked