Originally posted by AshleyD
reply to post by St Vaast
Apples and oranges, though IMO. Yes of course there are tribes that will engage in at least toplessness while still wearing a loin cloth or what not.
But our society is entirely different. I don't have issues with nude beaches or nude resorts but within the general populace, yes.
Let's face it, in the more developed countries, regardless of religion, clothing has been conditioned. To introduce it to us now because some tribe
somewhere is happy as a clam doesn't fit for us.
Also, you point out they still wear something to cover their loins. In my opinion, that is not full nudity. I 'cover my loins' at the beach by
wearing a bikini and nobody would say I was engaging in public nudity.
I agree that our society is entirely different. The question of course, is 'why' ?
I disagree with your argument that 'because some tribe somewhere is happy as a clam doesn't fit for us'. How do we know it doesn't fit for us?
We haven't tried it.
Are we afraid to try it ? Are we afraid of being seen for what we are, instead of hiding behind artifice ? Are we afraid to see others as they are ?
After all, penisis are as unremarkable as tongues or elbows. Labia are as unremarkable as toes.
You speak of men's 'junk' and bodily secretions as being something you wish no contact with as result of general nudity. Yet don't noses drip and
dribble and require to be 'blown', often in crowded public transport ?
This is all purely hypothetical, this discussion of general public nudity, but if we had all become accustomed, from infancy onwards, to seeing naked
people in the same way we're accustomed to clothed people, so many of our attitudes and behaviours would be different to as they are.
For example, if, since childhood, we had grown accustomed to seeing people's nether regions in the act of clambering up the steps of a bus, or into a
vehicle, we would accept genitalia in the same way we currently accept the sight of people's elbows. And wouldn't we be the better for that ?
Wouldn't it mean that young guys wouldn't spend half their youth with a 'dirty' magazine beneath the sheets ? Wouldn't it mean that when they
met a girl, they'd value her for her real qualities, rather than the size of her breasts ? And wouldn't that bode well when people married ?
Wouldn't it benefit children of that marriage ? Wouldn't it mean relationships were less superficial and had more substance, more worthwhile
foundation ?
For example, I watched the first in a series about a couple who'd become famous in the US upon the multiple birth of their six children. At one
point, the couple were seated on a couch and the husband said, in relation to his wife's changed appearance words to the effect: ' When I met her
she had long blonde hair. Then it got shorter. And shorter. Then it changed colour.' The interviewer asked something and the husband replied: '
I only like blondes'. Now this was a man who had recently become father to eight children all under age 3. Alongside him sat his wife who'd given
birth to his eight children. She was still highly attractive, but in addition she was nurturing eight very young children, running and organising a
home. Yet he preferred blondes with long wavy hair. I would have expected any man who'd fathered eight babies (and who had their welfare, support,
futures to consider) to have different priorities and to regard the mother of his children as cloven to his body by that time .. to feel part of her,
rather than concerned about the colour and length of her hair. I do believe that men even a hundred years ago would have cut off their tongue if it
had uttered something as idiotic, under the circumstances.
But then, a hundred years ago, men weren't having artificial silicone calf muscles surgically inserted in their legs so they'd appear more muscular
and masculine, nor would they have regarded as sane any woman who'd had bags of saline inserted in their chest wall.
General public nudity would be resisted, in my opinion, NOT because of any moral objection but because of general public vanity. And perhaps because
of this, we all need to get in touch with the reality of naked bodies, in all their ages and stages.