Encyclopedia
Nudity or
nakedness is the state of wearing no
clothing. It is sometimes used to refer to wearing significantly less clothing than expected by the conventions of a particular
culture and situation, and in particular exposing the bare
skin of intimate parts and has analogous uses.
Terminology
Although
nude,
naked and
bare have the same objective meaning , they have differing subjective connotations, which partly match their differing etymologies . Some consider one term more appropriate than the other. The book
Nude, Naked, Stripped suggests that these three terms define a continuum ranging from
artistic or tasteful absence of clothing by choice at one end, to a forced or mandatory condition of being without clothes at the other.
Various synonyms refer specifically -often as a negative- to the absence or rather removal of clothing, such as denuded, divested, peeled, stripped, unclad, unclothed, uncovered, undressed and dis- or un-robed.
Another euphemism for the embarrassing nudity is 'exposed' to glances, no less than to the elements; not only the expression 'to show skin' refers to nudity in terms of the
dermis, in Manx Gaelic
jiarg-rooisht and Scottish Gaelic
dearg rùisgte 'stark naked' is literally 'red' naked as either exposure makes one 'blush'.
Partial nudity and analogous 'nakedness'
- See Nudity .
Full nudity
Some expressions specifically express total nudity. Apart from the confusing use of terms literally referring to the most 'provocative' forms of partial nudity, these include such abstractions as 'the nude', 'the bare' or 'the buff', a reference to leather , just as 'buck-naked'; Spanish also has the euphemism "a la Cordobana", referring to the human hide as "Cordoban leather".
A special case is
stark naked or
starkers, as these terms were erroneously changed from 'start naked' to 'stark', an old Germanic word meaning 'strong' but used as 'utter'.
Euphemisms may be used, such as
birthday suit and
au naturel or the Dutch terms
Adamskostuum ,
spiernaakt and
poedelnaakt . The French
à poil "to the hair" and its Spanish equivalent
en pelota "in the hair" emphasize that human hairgrowth is generally too thin to be less than naked without clothes ; still in French,
nu comme un ver 'naked as a worm' phrases to absence of visually shielding hair by a disphemistic metaphor. While negatives such as 'undressed' may also refer to partial nudity unless explicitly qualified, in artistic modelling
undraped means completely naked, as opposed to such common practices as draping something over the crucial body parts or over the face so as to make the model anonymous.
Full frontal nudity -no clothing and facing the observer- shows the genitals, as opposed to only showing
toplessness or bare
buttocks. It is usually considered the most far-reaching form of nudity, with exception of a close-up of the most
erogenous zones, especially the genitals. Also, sometimes people avoid full frontal nudity by turning their back to other people when changing clothes in sight, or by lying on the beach completely nude only on their belly.
The distinction "frontal" is meaningful for pictures and movies. In many cases it is avoided or undone by purposely placing inanimate objects obscuring a view of an actor or actress' genitals or the shot is 'defused' by deliberately hazy lightening or focus. Such techniques not only make some actors more comfortable but usually aim to pass censorship or prevents the film from receiving an NC-17 rating from the
MPAA film rating system, which often leads to commercial failure. Thus revealing shots may be cut during the editing; sometimes a more liberal version is released separately, e.g. as director's cut. Few
American films show full frontal nudity, while more complete versions may be distributed in other countries and/or on video or DVD, media which generally are more ready to distribute productions offending various taboos.
Historical overview
Anthropologists logically presume that humans originally lived without clothing as their natural state. They postulate the adaptation of animal skins and vegetation into coverings to protect the wearer from cold, heat and rain, especially as humans migrated to new climates; alternatively, covering may have been invented first for other purposes, such as magic, cult and prestige, and later found to be practical as well.
Some religious cosmogonies exhibit analogous constructs; e.g. the story of
Adam and Eve describes the alleged first humans after their transgression against
God's rules , being ashamed of their nakedness and making aprons of
fig leaves. Nudity itself was not the original sin, but some people take it so, perhaps explaining the taboo against it.
In various Ancient cultures nudity was held to be humiliating, as attested for Pharaonic Egypt and the Hebrews by the Old testament: "So shall the
king of the Assyrians lead away the prisoners of Egypt, and the captivity of Ethiopia, young and old,
naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt". Similar images occur on many bas-reliefs, also from other empires.
In some ancient Mediterranean cultures, even well past the hunter-gatherer stage, such as Minoan, athletic and/or cultic nudity of men and boys –and rarely, of women and girls– was a natural concept.
The civilization of
ancient Greece , during the Archaic period, had an athletic and cultic aesthetic of nudity which typically included adult and teenaged males, but at times also boys, women and girls. The love for beauty had included also the human body, beyond the love for nature, philosophy, arts etc. The Greek word gymnasium means "a place to train naked". Male athletes competed nude, but most city-states of the time allowed no female participants or even spectators at those events,
Sparta being a notable exception. In Greek culture, depictions of erotic nudity were considered normal, including sexual act, even
pederastic practices. The Greeks were conscious of the exceptional nature of their nudity, noting that "generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; loves of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and naked sports are held, because they are inimical to tyranny;" In both ancient Greece and
ancient Rome, public nakedness was also accepted in the context of public bathing. It was also common for a person to be punished by being partially or completely stripped and lashed in public; in some legal systems judicial corporal punishments on the bare buttocks would persist to or even beyond the feudal age, either only for minors or also for adults, even till today but rarely still in public. In
Biblical accounts of the
Roman Imperial era,
prisoners were often stripped naked, as a form of humiliation.
In the
6th century,
Benedict of Nurcia advised the monks in his
Rule to sleep fully dressed in the dormitory. Until the beginning of the
8th century, Christians in Western Europe were
baptised naked, emerging from the water like Adam and Eve before the fall. "The disappearance of baptism by immersion in the Carolingian era gave nudity a sexual connotation that it has previously lacked for Christians" . About the same time it became common to represent Christ on the Cross wearing a long tunic, the
colobium. European men wore long tunics until the
15th century, when
codpieces,
tights and tight
trousers gradually came into use; these all covered the male genitals but at the same time drew attention to them.
During the
Victorian era,
public nakedness was considered obscene . In addition to beaches being
segregated by
gender,
bathing machines were also used to conceal the naked body. In the early
20th century, exposure of male
nipples was considered indecent at some
beaches. Ironically, as in the
Middle Ages, the
bathing suits worn by
men, while covering the genitals, often nonetheless made them quite obvious.
In
Judaism and in Jewish communities, men and women use ritual baths called
mikvahs for a variety of reasons, mostly religious in the present day. Immersion in a mikvah requires that water covers the entire body . To make sure that water literally touches every part of the body, all clothing, jewelry and even bandages must be removed. In contemporary mikvahs for women, there is always an experienced attendant, commonly called the "mikvah lady", to watch the immersion and ensure that that women have been entirely covered in water.
Various modern-era attitudes
As a general rule,
public nudity is not considered "proper" in most societies. There are, however, many exceptions and particular circumstances in which nudity is tolerated, accepted or even encouraged.
In general and across cultures, more restrictions are found for exposure of those parts of the human body that display evidence of sexual arousal. Therefore, sex organs and often women's breasts are covered, even when other parts of the body may be freely uncovered.
Nudity in front of a sexual partner is widely accepted, but there may be restrictions — for example, only at the time and place of
sex, or with subdued lighting, or covered by a sheet or blanket.
Another common distinction, also considered by censoring authorities, is that
gratuitous nudity is perceived as more offensive than the same degree of physical exposure in a
functional context, where the action could not conveniently be performed dressed, either in reality or in a fictitious scene in art. The intent can also be invoked: whether the nudity is meant to affect observers, e.g.
streaking can be considered inacceptably provocative, nude
sun tanning viewed mildly as rather inoffensive.
Western culture
Nudity in front of strangers of the same gender is often more accepted than in front of those of the other or both genders, for example when bathing, in common changing rooms, etc. Gender-specific changerooms and toilets serve to prevent accidental partial nudity in front of the other gender.
Urinals may have partitions between them to avoid the partial nudity of men to be visible by other men. In some cultures, even for people of the same gender to see each other nude is considered inappropriate and embarrassing. Also, the implication of
homosexuality among naked members of the same gender can discourage this type of nudity.
Functional nudity for a short time, such as when changing clothes on a beach, is sometimes acceptable when staying nude on the beach is not. However, even this is often avoided or minimized by a towel, going to a changing room, or changing at home before and after going to the beach.
In certain structured settings in which nudity serves a practical purpose — such as providing access to a patient's body during a medical procedure, examination or therapeutic massage, or providing
figure drawing students or artists with unobstructed views of the human body — an individual may be naked in front of one or several clothed people. In most such situations, the exposed individual will be given a loose robe or cloth to cover themselves partially, even if their "private parts" must be exposed. Total nudity for the model remains the norm in figure drawing studios, however. Similarly, pornography is typically photographed with the models fully nude and the crew fully dressed. None of these settings are routinely experienced by most members of society, however, so they are not normative; attempts to have subjects pose in the nude in public view as
Spencer Tunick stages all over the world are often received with more mixed feelings, if not repressed as indecent exposure.
Although exposure of women's breasts is considered perfectly acceptable in most western countries in appropriate settings, such as while suntanning, in the
United States of America exposure of female nipples is still considered criminal by many states and not usually allowed in public. Public
breastfeeding, since the exposure it involves is functional, may be looked upon more mildly, but still it is sometimes considered problematic. However, courts in some of these jurisdictions—including
New York State—and other North American jurisdictions—like
Ontario—have legalized the exposure of women's nipples on
equal protection grounds . The movement of "
topfree equality" promotes equal rights for women to have no clothing above the waist; the term "topfree" rather than "topless" is used to avoid the latter term's sexual connotations. However, there are still extreme reactions on the parts of many to exposure of the full breast, as in
Janet Jackson's
partial breast exposure during the half-time show of the 2004
Super Bowl.
Nakedness can be part of a corporal punishment or as an imposed
humiliation . In fact,
torture manuals may distinguish between the male and female psychological aversion from self-exposure versus being disrobed.
Nudity is closely associated with sexuality in most cultures where some level of body
modesty is expected. This is evidenced by the existence of
striptease in these cultures.
Sexual dimorphism when depicted in the
main stream media of these cultures is often seen as sexually related. As an effect of Catholic cultural heritage, in Latin cultures the common definition of modesty does not generally admit genital nudity, but the definition of what is lewd has changed and women's breasts are now commonly exposed or depicted without scandal.
The trend in some
European countries is to allow both genders to bathe together naked. Typically, older German bathhouses, such as Bad Burg, remain segregated by gender. On the other hand Finnish
saunas can be mixed and are always attended nude.
Some people enjoy
public nudity in a non-sexual context. Common variants of the
clothes free movement are
nudism and
naturism, and are often practised in reserved places that used to be called "nudist camps" but are now more commonly referred to as naturist resorts,
nude beaches, or clubs. Such facilities may be designated topfree, clothing-optional, or fully-nude-only. Public nude recreation is most common in rural areas and outdoors, although it is limited to warm weather. Even in countries with inclement weather much of the year and where public nudity is not restricted, such as the
United Kingdom,
Germany and
Denmark, public nude recreation indoors remains rare. One example is Starkers Nightclub in
London, a monthly nude-only disco party.
Others practice public nudity more casually.
Topfree sunbathing is considered acceptable by many on the beaches of
France,
Spain and most of the rest of Europe ; however, exposure of the genitals is restricted to nudist areas in most regions. In the United States,
topfree sunbathing and thongs are common in South
Miami Beach, Florida. There are a number of
nude beaches up and down the
West Coast of the U.S., as well.
Even where the general public is fairly tolerant of public nudity, it is still notorious enough to be used as a deliberate, often successful means to attract publicity, either by naturists promoting their way of life or by others for various purposes, such as commercial
nudity in advertising or staging nude events as a forum for a usually unrelated messages, such as various nude biker tours demonstrating for different causes or celebrities revealing their natural state by removing a fur coat to support a campaign against fur sales.
Non-Western attitudes
Attitudes in
Western cultures are not all the same as explained above, and likewise attitudes in non-western cultures are many and variant. In almost all cultures, acceptability of nudity depends on the situation.
Cultural and/or religious traditions usually dictate what is proper and what is not socially acceptable. Many non-western cultures allow women to breast feed in public, while some have very strict laws about showing any bare skin.
In some hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates, near-complete nudity has been, until the introduction of
Western culture, or still is, standard practice for both men and women. In several
African tribes, men going completely naked except for a string tied about the waist are considered properly dressed for hunting and other traditional group activities. In a number of tribes in the
South Pacific island of
New Guinea, the men use hard gourdlike pods as
penis sheaths. While obscuring and covering the actual
penis, these at a longer distance give the impression of a large, erect phallus. Yet a man without this "covering" could be considered to be in an embarrassing state of nakedness. Among the
Chumash Native Americans of southern
California, men were usually naked, and women were often
topless.
Native Americans of the
Amazon Basin, usually went nude or nearly nude; in many tribes, the only clothing worn was some device worn by men to clamp the foreskin shut. However, other similar cultures have had different standards. For example, other native
North Americans generally avoided total nudity, and the Native Americans of the mountains and west of
South America, such as the
Quechua, kept quite covered.
In the ancient culture of Southern Asia, there is a tradition of extreme ascetism that includes full nudity, from the
gymnosophists to certain holy men in present Hindu devotion.
In
Islam the area of the body not meant to be exposed in public is called the awrah, and while referred to in the
Qur'an, is addressed in more detail in
hadith.
- For men, interpretations differ. Some interpretations state the awrah to be from the navel to the knees. Others state that only the genitals and the anus need to be covered.
- Some strict interpretations of Islam require women to observe purdah, covering their entire bodies, including the face , on threat of severe punishment. A perhaps more common interpretation, however, is to cover everything but the hands and face.
The example of the
Turkish baths, where men go to get washed by other men, and women to get washed by women, is good example of how some Islamic cultures do not accept the strictness of the above interpretations.
Still very different traditions exist among, for example, Sub-Saharan Africans, partly persisting in the post-colonial era. Whereas some tribes and family-groups including some Togolose and Ethiopian tribes still commonly parade fully naked or without any covering below the waist , amongst Bantu people there is often a complete aversion from public nudity— thus, in Botswana when a newspaper printed a photograph seen here: of a thief suffering lashes on the bared buttocks imposed by a traditional chief's court, there was national consternation, not about the flogging but about the 'peeping tom'. The Ugandan Kavirondo tribes, a mix of Bantu and Nilotic immigrants, traditionally went practically naked, but the men adopted European dress.
In various cultures children can go publicly naked while adults don't, usually till an age or ceremony considered the start of adolescence or of adulthood. An example of a
rite of passage in a Benin tribe, traditional body
scarification on the head is performed on a small child while completely naked, but a boy being initiated as an adult bares only the torso .
Attitudes toward nudity vary greatly within East Asia: China and Korea tend toward the conservative side by Confucian tradition, while highly westernized Hong Kong is much more liberal. Gender-segregated communal nudity is acceptable in public baths, in countries including Japan and South Korea. North Korea tends to be more strict compared to other countries when it comes to exposure of skin for women, such the exposure of a shoulder. In Japan, most public baths were mixed gender until the Meiji period. The stricter gender separation rules were introduced during a time when Japan was taking various steps to modernise itself. Most of the newer
sento are gender segregated, but the popularity of public baths in general dropped considerably, with mixed public baths becoming more rare, except in rural areas that still permit it by law.
Unlike some western countries,
Japanese public schools generally don't have showering facilities, only cold pool showers, where children generally take off their
swimsuits to rinse off chlorine. Japanese boys and men feel comfortable in traditional thong-type wear that shows the buttocks in public, such as the
Fundoshi or the
sumo wrestling equivalent.
Despite the relative prevalence of traditional attitudes for adults in China, however, children continue to wear open shorts, permitting them to more easily relieve themselves. In the preparations for the 2008
Beijing Summer Olympics, some have called for the end of the traditional permissiveness for adult males to go shirtless in public during warm weather.
See also
References
Sources and references
- Rouche, Michel, "Private life conquers state and society," in A History of Private Life vol I, Paul Veyne, editor, Harvard University Press 1987 ISBN 0-674-39974-9
- Brandom, Robert, "Critical Notice of Blind and Worried", Theoria 70:2-3, 2005.
- &
External links
- Single nudist's views & observations about nudity in the media.
Further reading
- Storey, Mark Social Nudity, Sexual Attraction, and Respect Nude & Natural magazine, 24.3 Spring 2005.
- Storey, Mark Children, Social Nudity and Academic Research Nude & Natural magazine, 23.4 Summer 2004.
