By Michael C.
From the rise of the modern naturist
movement in Germany over a hundred years ago to the present day, opponents
of social nudity have consistently advanced the notion that mixed gender
nudity will unleash rampant lust and unrestrained sexual activity.
This objection comes as no surprise, given our heritage of body and
sex inhibited Victorian mores.
Regardless
of the consistent testimony of naturists for over one hundred years, the
persistence of these unsubstantiated beliefs remains a source of
consternation to naturists everywhere.
Over
the course of the past century, naturists have advocated and practiced a high
degree of moral rectitude, so much so that some have accused them of denying
sexuality. Despite the consistent
practice of non-sexual, family oriented social nudity, a dismissive, “I
don’t believe it,” is all opponents feel is necessary for continuing their
attacks. Patiently, those that
have discovered that sexual behavior and nudity are not intrinsically
connected, continue to rebut critics both by practice and argument.
Americans
are both inconsistent and ambivalent toward the body and our sexual nature.
Shifting back and forth betweens periods of inhibition and license,
society tries to come to terms with these aspects of the self, often stressing
one extreme or the other. The question arises is there a way to end this continual
tug-of-war of either-or thinking offered by partisans of these two choices?
It
would seem that what is needed is a broader context in which our bodies and
sexuality are valued and integrated within a whole person.
Exemplifying this broader context for understanding our human nature,
of which sexual behavior is but a part, is the following quotation from Relationships
in Marriage and Family, (Stinnett and Walters, 1977, p. 222):
…sexuality, in contrast with sex, is
much more than physical attraction and contact.
Sexuality
begins at conception when maleness or femaleness
of the fertilized ovum is determined by the
chromosome content of the fertilizing sperm cell.
Sexuality even involves such factors as
traditional cultural expectations that baby girls
are dressed in pink and boys in blue as well as the
sex-appropriate toys and education each receives.
Sexuality involves all that it means to be a man
or a woman; it is a part of a person’s total
being. Our
sexuality includes emotions, values, moral
and ethical makeup, social relations, ability to use good judgment and
make decisions, physical
desires and fulfillment (emphasis
added). Sexuality cannot be
separated from a person’s total life.
It is not a separate, exclusive component of an
individual. It interrelates with
every other part of life.
Sexuality
is here integrated within the whole of who we are as persons. Notice the italicized sentence above. Intelligence, will, and moral character operationalize in
society how our sexuality will be used. Importantly,
sex as a behavior is to be distinguished from sexuality in general.
These aspects of the self co-exist within the same person at all times,
but sex is not activated or acted on at all times.
As far as can be determined, this is a universal human experience. This is why naturists can with all sincerity maintain that
nude is not lewd and does not equate with sex, nor necessarily be an
invitation to sex.
In
Nude and Natural issue 17.1, French naturist Marc-Alain Descamps addresses the
issue of naturism and sexuality in terms of the polarities of pure lust vs.
Puritanism. He proposed that the
tension between these extremes is resolved with the synthesis advocated by
naturists of full body acceptance. According
to Descamps, the main difference naturists have from others seeking to live in
harmony with nature is that naturists frankly admit their sexuality through
reciprocal sharing the view of their genitals.
This is in keeping with the fundamental principal that the body in all
its parts and functions are valued, normal, and natural.
Descamps
distinguishes naturism from pornography.
He notes that naturism involves the practice of nudity for the habitual
activities of everyday life. It
is the acknowledgment of sexuality as defined above, in all life’s
activities that produces a reunification of the person, and the reintegrated
relationship between the person and society.
Pornography on the other hand, is centered totally on the sexual
organs, and reflects on them only for the purpose of genital activities.
Naturism fosters the unity of the body, where sex is put into its
proper place within the body and social relationships as a whole.
Pornography dismembers the body showing only pieces of it, while making
sex a public consumer commodity. Naturist’s
sexual practices are neither public nor collective and are done in respect of
oneself, and others.
Having
said all the above, there are those that will still accusingly object, “But,
there HAVE to be sexual undertones.” This
is an old canard involving the discomfort felt about the sexual aspects of
certain body parts which by custom must be concealed.
The author of the website “Naked Spirit,” speculates that for many
there is a fear that public nudity is a precursor to public debauchery.
This fear consists of a deep anxiety that the constant interaction of
nude people of opposite gender will cause a certain level of tension or
excitement to build which will result in an increase of promiscuity and the
ultimate collapse of morality throughout our culture.
The author concludes by saying that while such fears are arguable,
“…they seem to be well out of proportion to the actual conditions which
prevail in societies that are more tolerant of nudity.”
In
addition, there are numerous anthropological studies of peoples that
traditionally wore little or no clothing prior to Western contact.
Quite a few retain their clothes freedom as chronicled in the pages of
National Geographic. Several
Amazon basin Indian tribes, both male and female, still roam the jungle
entirely nude, or perhaps with a small string around women’s waists. Many remote Papua New Guinea tribespeople continue to dress
in the traditional penis sheath for men, and leafy apron for women.
The women of Yap Island continue to proudly maintain their top freedom.
Historically, nudity or minimal clothing has been common by both sexes
for a number of tribes in Africa, not to mention top freedom for women in much
of Sub Saharan Africa. These and
other examples not referenced, provide ample objective evidence that the mere
presence of bare skin does not cause the disintegration of society, nor acting
out the potential sexual behavior for which too many people assume nudity is
an inevitable prelude.
It
is again worth considering the definition of human sexuality previously given.
Even
if
there is some undefined “sexual undercurrent” when people are together
nude, it is part of the human condition. This presumed “sexual undercurrent” is unavoidably
present in all people in all settings, including clothed ones, whether at
work, the mall, or church. It
seems that those insisting on clothing make the assumption that their clothing
eliminates the presence of a “sexual undercurrent,” and prevents or at
least minimizes the possibility of sexual misbehavior.
However, given the near universal presence of clothed people in daily
life, one must wonder what then accounts for all the pre marital and extra
marital sex going on in this country, plus astonishingly high rates of
STD’s, and unwed births. In
fact, if association or correlation is looked at, then it is reasonable to
consider that the presence of clothing of various types has a more powerful
relationship with lust and inappropriate sexual behavior than has simple
nudity. However, correlation does
not prove causation. Human behavior is never so easily determined.
Additional variables have to be considered.
Whatever the reasons, one thing is certain, naturists are not the
cause.
All
human societies recognize that sexual urges have the potential to be very
destructive and they devise ways to channel them through various customs and
taboos. Social norms attempt to
curb jealousy and lust which if unchecked, have the potential to lead to
discord, violence, and even murder. In
much of the world the dominant culture has responded to our sexual nature with
the demand that our sexual anatomy always be covered in order to avoid
unseemly behavior. This demand
for covering has included the female breast, a secondary sexual
characteristic. The unfortunate unintended consequence of defining the sight
of the body as shameful is to foster a dehumanizing obsession with just those
parts of the body deemed the most in need of covering.
Lust
is a concern that we have to be clear in what we are talking about so as not
to lead to confusion. Lust is not
natural interest in another person, nor simple appreciation for beauty, nor
the body’s feelings of arousal related to sexuality, and not even the sexual
passion we feel with the person we love.
These reactions are all a combination of how we are created, plus
social conditioning. Lust is a
self centered objectifying of a person strictly on a sexual basis for self
gratification. In Love and
Responsibility, Pope John Paul II clearly articulates this same
understanding:
…there
is a difference between immodesty in feelings on the one hand and reflex
sensual reaction to the body and sex
as a ‘possible object of enjoyment’ on the other.
The human body is not in itself shameful, nor for the same reasons
are sensual reactions, and human sensuality in general.
Shamelessness…is a function of the interior of a person, and
specifically of the will, which too easily accepts the sensual reaction and
reduces another person, because of the person’s ‘body and sex,’ to the
role of an object for enjoyment.
The
author of “Naked Spirit” argues that naturists recognize the importance of
an orderly and safe society. However,
naturism provides a different way to deal with our sexuality.
Instead of relying on clothing to enable a polite denial of what we all
know is really there, there is an open acknowledgment of our sexuality without
obsession over it. This is done
in the belief that as humans, we have the capacity to act in a civilized
manner even when our sexual identity is plainly out in the open.
The author adds, “We can be what we are without having to act on it
in ways that dredge up the darker side of our animal passions.”
This
“middle ground” approach is not to err on the side of recklessness.
Naturism is a sub-culture whose norms allow people to interact with
each other in normal everyday activities without the mere exposure of the
genitals inciting a mass orgy. Mutual participation by both genders ends the voyeur factor,
normalizing the experience, and creating a new equilibrium out of which body
acceptance, that is, the belief in the essential goodness of the body in all
its parts and functions, can emerge.
Body
acceptance is the rejection of the age old dualism of body and spirit, in
which the body is viewed with disgust and abhorrence at worst, and suspicion
at best. Naturism calls for the
healing integration of self, both body and spirit.
It calls for dealing with sexuality as a force that is respected and
valued, revealing it to be something that should neither be completely
repressed nor exploited. When sex
is enjoyed privately between two people who love each other it is enriching,
fulfilling its highest purpose both for procreation and bonding.
Developing
proper respect for the body is a moral good in and of itself in that it
properly orients us toward ourselves and to others.
Naturist can whole heartedly endorse the moral position espoused by
Pope John Paul II in chapter III of Love and Responsibility, where he
writes the following:
Dress
can, of course, help to accentuate the sexual values in different ways on
different occasions, irrespective of the congenital or acquired dispositions of a
particular individual. The
accentuation of sexual values by dress is inevitable, and is not necessarily
incompatible with sexual modesty. What
is truly immodest in dress is that which frankly contributes to the
deliberate displacement of the true value of
the person by sexual values, that which is bound to elicit a reaction to the
person as to a ‘possible means of
obtaining sexual enjoyment’ and not ‘a possible object of love by reason
of his or her personal
value.
This
does not, however, mean that physical shamelessness is to be simply and
exclusively identified with complete or partial nakedness.
There are circumstances in which nakedness is not immodest.
If
someone takes advantange of such an occasion to treat the person as an object of
enjoyment, (even if his action is purely internal) it is only he who is guilty of
shamelessness (immodesty of feeling), not the other….
Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with
regard to the value of the person, when its aim is to arouse concupiscence, as
a result of which the person is put in the position of an object for
enjoyment. What happens then may
be called depersonalization by sexualization.
But this is not inevitable.
Naturism
asserts that it is possible to enjoy a greater non-sexual intimacy with those
around us without
that
relationship becoming erotic. This
reality has been a part of our world for as long as humanity has walked the
earth. As the writer of “Naked
Spirit” contends, the recognition of this type of closeness is a very
important part of our development and sustenance, deepening our experience of
life, enhancing our appreciation of whom and what we are.
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