The “Nudist Pageant 2000” was not an oxymoron. It was a real event, hosted by the American Sunbathing Association (now the American Association for Nude Recreation) at a resort in Florida. But to understand it, we have to erase the mental image of Miss America and instead think of a 4-H fair run by philosophy majors who really hate laundry.

But here is the deep cut. The reason we don’t remember the “Nudist Pageant 2000” is not because it was weird. It’s because the culture moved in the opposite direction.

I looked up the winner of a similar contest from that era. In interviews, she didn’t talk about liberation from patriarchy or the sin of shame. She talked about the quality of the air. “You don’t realize how much clothes weigh,” she said, “until you take them off for a weekend.”

There are certain images that feel like a glitch in the cultural matrix. A photograph from the year 2000—washed in that distinct digital-camera grain that straddles analog and early JPEG—shows a woman in a sash and little else. She stands on a grassy knoll. Behind her, a banner reads “Ms. Nude Millennium.” She is smiling. Not the awkward smile of a victim of tabloid television, but the genuine, unforced smile of someone who just won a talent competition for synchronized swimming in the buff.