A museum in France has a shocking request for visitors who are coming to view its exhibition on naturism, the lifestyle which practices non-sexual social nudity in public.

As an ode to the art on display, the Marseille Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (Mucem) has invited visitors to view the exhibition naked as way to achieve a more intimate and visceral experience of the artworks.

"France is the world's leading tourist destination for naturists: its temperate climate and the presence of three seas have facilitated the establishment of communities, which - with the exception of Switzerland - have few real equivalents elsewhere in Europe, where naturism is practised more freely, outside established communities," the museum told the New York Times.

The museum said that "new craze for nudity in nature" goes hand in hand with the quest for healthy, vegetarian diets, natural therapies, meditation and yoga while rejecting "diktats" that weigh down bodies.

The museum's exhibition opened in July, and has attracted nearly 100,000 visitors, with as many as 600 attending five special viewings in the nude.

The visitors included practicing naturists along with regular people. This is not the first time a museum has organised nude events. Similar gatherings have taken place in Paris, Vienna, Montreal, Barcelona, Milan, and even Dorchester in England. "I always say that nudity is a tool - a very effective tool - to get people to achieve body acceptance," said Stephane Deschenes, the president o. "But it's not the objective."

The exhibit Naturist Paradises traces the development of naturism in Europe over the past century. It starts with the movement's origins as a revolutionary social and health initiative and follows its evolution into a key part of the modern body positivity movement. The exhibition showcases a variety of artifacts, including vintage magazine covers, black-and-white photographs, archival videos, paintings, and informative text panels.