Growing up, one of the things that seriously irked me (even before I ever considered being a nudist) was how stories would have characters wearing clothing when it just didn’t make sense, whether that was a book, or TV show, or whatever.
As a writer, one of the things I’ve endeavored to do is hold to this - if clothing doesn’t make sense within the context, I’m not going to have my characters wearing clothing. This is, of course, accounting for social norms.
The story I am working on is a bit of a Planescape inspired adventure across multiple planes of existence, though less fantasy coded and more my own thing. As the main cast adventure, they come across many different civilizations with different cultural norms, and navigating this becomes important as the novel becomes more of what I would consider a political thriller and the main cast has to represent these various different civilizations in what is essentially a massive hearing.
Some of these civilizations are completely body positive. Some aren’t. Some only wear clothing for hazardous purposes, others never, some are utterly ashamed if anyone sees their lower half but not their upper. The main cast reflects this. One was essentially a maintenance worker as the sole inhabitant of a certain plane of existence, never developing any societal norms beyond keeping the machine running, so clothing is unheard of. Another, a prisoner who’s clothing tattered long ago, but takes pride in their appearance and fashion once freed.
I guess, there’s not much of a question here, but I believe literature can be a great medium to extend nudist values and wanted to hear from others on the topic.