Naked hiking takes divergent trails in Switzerland and Germany

As the case of nude hiking in Switzerland nears its ultimate hearing in that country's supreme court, many media sources are taking a look at naked hiking in Germany, which opened an 11-mile nudist hiking trail just over a year ago.

The Swiss case involves an unnamed hiker who was fined for a naked walk in the eastern Swiss canton of Appenzell, which had banned nude hiking there the previous year. Locals complain that the man appeared nude in full view of a communal barbecue area as well as by residents of a Christian care home. According to the UK news outlet The Telegraph, Appenzell is a conservative area with many anti-nudist residents. Nevertheless, Switzerland itself has no national law against public nudity as long as it is not lewd. Many expect the case to end up before the country's highest court.

Meanwhile, naturists in Germany have been enjoying their own sanctioned nudist trail near the town of Dankerode, about 200 miles west of Berlin. The trail has enjoyed considerable popularity among German naturists since it opened on May 29, 2010.

Undoubtedly, more American nudists would be grateful for similarly sanctioned hiking areas and beaches in their own country. But here at Nakedism, we see such provisions as stop-gap measures at best and the ghetto-izing of nudism at worst. Creating separate spaces for nudity only reinforces the idea that it is somehow harmful to see the human body in its natural state. It sets up a "separate but equal" kind of discrimination similar to that used to limit the rights of African Americans before the Civil Rights Act.

How much better it would be for the public at large to get over its fear and instead accept those who don't wish to wear clothes without the kind of panic or derision that so often accompanies the sight of an unclothed human body.