“20 Years in the Buff”
by Colin Penno
On Sunday August 16 quite a significant event went down in
Topanga Canyon with the celebration of Elysium Institute’s twentieth
anniversary in the clothing optional movement. In fact, it wouldn’t be far from
the truth to suggest that Ed Lange, Elysium’s founder, single-handedly created
the clothing optional idea, a philosophy which although frequently
misunderstood, is as different from “nudist colonies” as chalk from cheese.
The special celebration day was held in recognition of the
work of thousands of Elysium's supporters over the years—psychologists,
psychiatrists, social scientists, and the members of Elysium Institute. “I
can't overemphasize the importance of our members’ support,” said a beaming Ed
Lange over lunch last week. “Their interest, support and
encouragement—especially in some of our trying times, has been invaluable, and
really has made us what we are today. We wouldn’t have prevailed over some of
the adversities without this tremendous swelling of support for an idea whose
time had long ago come; but for which there had never been a place—a place to
mix the educational aspects of the personal growth movement with the
recreational environment; that is what makes Elysium Field a leader throughout
the United States and even Europe.”
Today, after some quite vicious fights over Elysium's right
to exist, people come from all over the state of California, from Chicago, New
York, to visit and to acknowledge the role it has played in the personal growth
and clothing optional movement.
Lange says the support from the Topanga community has been
very gratifying. “Twenty years,” he smiled, “it seems to have rushed by so
fast, but to look back over the past, I see how gradually we have become more
stable, the ideas behind our philosophy have been examined and tested. Ideas
that are examined and found wanting will fall,” said Lange, “but those with
substance will—with hard work—prevail, and such is the case with Elysium.”
During its 15 years of growth in Topanga, the Institute has
become easily the biggest commercial enterprise in the community. And this
year, Elysium was listed for the first time in the Topanga Chamber of Commerce
directory. Something of a breakthrough, said Lange. “There has been a degree of
change.” he smiled. “The attitudes of some of the newer people on the Chamber
Board indicate they are not locked into the 18th Century, as were most of their
predecessors.”
These days Elysium can count among its guests visitors from
Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, Yugoslavia, France and England, as well as from
all over the United States. “I’m sure I've missed a few, but it gives you an
idea of our present stature, and frankly, I am proud of our achievements.”
They come, according to Lange, because his Institute is the
only model of its kind in existence which has educational and recreational
opportunities running side by side.
As well as workshops, which operate in a structured way with
permanent staff and guest lecturers holding seminars (such as Tai Chi Chuan;
Money, Jealousy and Possession; Joyous Discovery; Transformational Theater;
Hatha Yoga; A New Sexual Ethic; Transitions; Body Image Appraisal; and so on),
members and guests enjoy what Lange calls spontaneous encounter education
within the beautiful acre park with its swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna, patios
and lawns.
The structured educational and the recreational aspects
pollinate each other and give Elysium its uniqueness, he said.
Naturalist parks and resorts require the removal of clothes
and do not offer educational opportunities, said Lange. They also prohibit
touching and any kind of body contact. By denying natural impulses they are
really quite repressive and unhealthy. “You'd get thrown out for having an
erection, for example,” he said. “At Elysium we neither encourage nor
discourage erections, we merely acknowledge that they can happen.”
At the same time the thousands of schools and universities
do not provide the opportunity to remove clothes where it might be appropriate.
Elysium combines the two, and that's what makes it what it is. Leading social
anthropologists have joined the Institute, says Lange, because they have been
intrigued by the phenomena of what happens when you mix these two—education and
recreation—and crossbreed them. In Lange’s view, recreational activities, when
conducted in this crossbred atmosphere, are in themselves educational, because
they offer families and their children the chance to familiarize themselves
with natural body education, or “anatomy education” as he calls it—”understanding
your own self, body self-image and education.
“The kids soon ask themselves ‘What’s all the fuss about?’
They adopt a take-it- for-granted approach to their own natural bodies.” This
allows them to prepare themselves for a superior role in society, says Lange,
free from the “hangups” about our bodies and about the role of sexuality which
hangs like a dirty cloud over our society today.
Although there is currently little available scientific
analysis or proof to support this claim, Lange is of the opinion that in
dealing with body self-image and appreciation at an early age, children are
relieved of a weighty burden of guilt about their sexuality. “It's brought out
from under the table and into the open. I do believe these children have a
better perspective of themselves, the people around them, and of society. They
are not fooled, deceived by, or attracted to the odious obsession with
sexuality which is responsible for a large part of the problems in contemporary
society, Lange feels. When they grow up, they will not be a part of those who
are titillated or stimulated by what Lange calls eroticism—artificial stimulation
purveyed for profit.
 |
| The smiling features of Ed Lange, the Sage of Elysium: after 20 years, a gradual acceptance that naked is beautiful. |
Ed Lange has been in the vanguard of the clothing optional
movement for almost fifty years, and with his grey and silver beard and
commanding presence has come to be known as the “elder statesman” of this
social philosophy.
He is also tough—his legendary fight throughout the
seventies against county government, eventually won the right for individuals
to go naked on their own property without harassment by the law.
Commonplace and taken for granted today by the countless
individuals who enjoy the play of sun and wind on skin, it was not always the
case in Los Angeles County. In large part, they have Ed Lange to thank for the
freedom to enjoy this natural right.
Lange's involvement with clothing optional thinking began in
1938 at high school in Chicago. Dissatisfied with the predatory sexual
attitudes of his male and female contemporaries, he sought a better way, a way
that would allow an attitude of life enhancement toward people, “a way to
transcend cultural conditioning that equated nude with lewd, and that bodies
and their functions are dirty, vile, and to some, obscene,” he said, “a way
that could acknowledge that humans can be naturally sexual and sensual without
shame.”
In 1961 Elysium Publishers was founded in L.A. Such
magazines as Sundial and Nude Living spread the idea that life
without clothes was indeed possible across the nation. Lange did much of the
photography for these pioneering magazines, and it was a lucrative venture for
him. He concedes that without the income derived from his publishing ventures,
Elysium Field, which opened in 1967, would not have been possible.
Lange's decade-long struggle to overturn a 1970 county
ordinance prohibiting “three or more people from assembling in the nude” has
left its mark on local politics. The battle was reported on in depth in the
Messenger Volume 3, No. 22, October 1979. Although the ordinance is now
defeated and defunct, attempts to close down Elysium Field continue.
“Once things start and get past a certain point they're
hard—almost impossible to stop,” he chuckled. “It’s bureaucratic momentum, a
frightful thing to behold.”
Today the move to make Elysium Field and its philosophy
de-materialize has shifted to the zoning issue. County Regional Planning
officials contend the Elysium facility is in violation of the area's
agricultural zoning. Elysium's operation is recreational, they say, and have
denied them a continuing zoning variance.
A later Board of Supervisors decision upheld that denial.
Elysium's fight to stay in business has been the most
expensive and time consuming piece of litigation in L.A. County history, yet
Lange is optimistic and undaunted. “I genuinely believe that if and when this
issue comes to a further test—perhaps in the California Supreme Court—we will
prevail.”
As to the current mood of the country, the swing to the
right and towards intolerance, Lange appeared troubled but optimistic. “It’s
the old story of two steps forward and one back,” he said. “The conservative
right may be half a step or a step back, but I don't think it will undo what
people now perceive as their constitutional right—to assemble in the nude
together on private property. They may inhibit, interfere, and bully, but they
will not prevail, because these things go in cycles, and I am sure most people
realize it is impossible to turn back the national clock to a period of
make-believe.”
And what does the King of the Hill, at 61, robust, tanned
and energetic, look forward to? “I’ve begun work on a book tentatively entitled
The Evolution of Nudity in Our Culture,
how it evolved and where it's heading,” he said. “From the most puritanical of
beginnings, we are now getting to the point where there is nothing
automatically obscene about the human body or its functions. “We are also
working on some fine video films with an important producer, for distribution
on a syndicated basis over cable television across the country. And after all
these years in this business I have come to be known as an authority on these
matters, so film people are coming to me for editorial assistance, for casting,
and for locations where nude scenes are involved.
“This summer, a scene involving 24 clothed and unclothed
people—all between the ages of 45 and 70—were shot in our hydropool for the
soon to be released film Buddy, Buddy,
starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.”
Lange has also worked quietly over the years in support of
the free beach movement, and it is in this area that he hopes to achieve some
advances in the future. With the exception of Black Beach near San Diego where
a sort of laissez-faire attitude exists between the public and the authorities,
there is currently nowhere along the 1,000 miles of California coastline where
one may go naked without fear of harrassment and humiliation by police. Hardly
a satisfactory state of affairs, said Lange, in a state that is generally still
perceived as being socially futuristic and experimental.
“What kind of society is it that we are so proud of which
cannot set aside a half mile of beach here and there out of that 1,000 miles
for those who wish to exercise their constitutional option of being naturally
naked with the air, the sun, and the sea? L am very interested in this
political and social area,” said Lange. “It is basically a question of options
that people may freely choose if they wish, and that was the thrust behind the
state's first official nude beach which I helped set up at Davenport Landing
near Santa Cruz in 1958. It was known as XB 58—Experimental Beach, 1958.
“With the approval of county officials in Davenport Landing,
myself, Jason Loam, and Sol Stem, as trustees of the American Sunbathing
Association, organized these weekend outings for naturist families, and XB 58
began the recognized and up-front clothing optional beach experiment in
California.”
It failed, said Lange, because the so-called landed resorts,
the private clubs and resorts, felt threatened. They felt that if the beaches
were opened up, it would take business away, especially if expanded and
successful. They were so afraid of it they forced the withdrawal of ASA
support, and rather than fight on alone, Lange and his associates abandoned the
idea. Lange himself began the project that is so successful today: Elysium
Field.
“I’ve always supported the free beach movement,” said Lange,
“but not the people among them who feel they have a right to offend others. Some
of these people are so dumb they don't realize you can't force things, it
doesn’t happen overnight, and what you get is a public backlash. That's the
difficulty with the Clothing Optional Society. They're hostile and antagonistic
toward government, they’re almost inviting government to bang them on the head.
“My role as elder statesman in all of this—as I see it—is
somewhere in the next year or two, to try to put the pieces together again. It
may take a few years, but we’ll get a beach. “
Whether you agree or not with Ed Lange and his views, here
is one tough cookie with the inner conviction to take on one of the last great
taboos of contemporary society. And he may just win.
