After having read on the subject and thought about it for a while, I now present a short, simplistic, non-annotated and error-riddled treatise on human natural history as it relates to nudity and sex.
One of the many characteristics of life on earth is reproduction. It took a while, but sexual reproduction eventually came into existence and became the main mode of reproduction for more highly developed species. Of course, the creatures didn’t necessarily get together thinking, “It’s time to have some offspring.” No, the drive was to bring the two sexes together so the process leading to reproduction could occur. Therefore, we refer to it as the sex drive.
Of course, the sex drive has been known to make creatures seek out others of their own sex, but that merely confirms the existence of a sex drive, rather than a drive to reproduce.
After billions of years, a creature known as human made its appearance. Like those who came before, humans sought to satisfy their needs for survival: food and shelter from the elements. Like others before as well, humans had a sex drive, which led to reproduction.
And so forth…
As time went on, humans began decorating their bodies in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons, and this included painting, perfume, necklaces and cloth. In time, these pieces of cloth were seen to have protective characteristics against the elements, and a further use for what we would call clothing was discovered.
The wearing of clothes by those who could most easily afford it conferred a certain status on them. When even the poorest of people started wearing clothes, the richer ones sought out the finest cloth possible and the fanciest styles. In time, it was forgotten that some poorer people would have to be naked at times because clothes seemed to be everywhere. Nudity eventually became so uncommon that anyone who would intentionally go about unclothed was considered sick, suspicious, or both.
At the same time, in certain parts of the world, the full process of reproduction came to be understood, and in an effort to control reproduction, and perhaps also to ascertain paternity, rules were drawn up to govern sexual activity. Eventually, the uncommonness of nudity came to make nudity itself sexually alluring and probably added to the suspicion people had regarding those who would not dress. Special efforts were made to cover pretty much everything except the hands and the head.
As years went by, necklines rose and fell, skirt and sleeve lengths varied similarly, and chests could either be exposed entirely, partially or not at all according to the era and the sex of the individual. But the genitals were expected to be covered. When a few movements here and there advocated for nudity, the majority clamped down, often violently. By now, the association of nudity with sex was firmly entrenched.
Fast-forward to the 1900s and a movement which would be called nudism began to gain strength. No longer limited to a particular movement or ideology, it began to appeal to a broader section of the population. Its main enemy: the continued association by mainstream society of nudity with sex. The association between the two seems too hard to break.
Meanwhile, in remote areas of rainforest, there are still human beings who are nude almost all the time and who have no problem containing their sexual urges. They hunt, gather, build huts and small boats, make and use tools, prepare medicines, tell stories, sing, play games, celebrate rites of passage, commemorate the dead; in short, they do everything we do, but they don’t let clothes get in the way.
And what does mainstream civilisation want to do? Civilise them! Often the same way missionaries civilised other peoples: by clothing them!
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