Nudity, sex, and shame

This is my fourth post on the documentary What's The Problem With Nudity?

This is the part I found more difficult to write about as I had to put myself back into a textile frame of mind. In my opinion, nudity does not mean sex, and any perceived link between the two is learned, not innate. But the documentary is rather reflected the general opinion that nudity must somehow be associated with sexuality, and that for textiles, being undressed would be almost the equivalent of a sexual encounter.

Despite all their good intentions, the volunteers could not escape, at least initially, the intense emotions brought about by mere nudity.

Is there a reason for these emotions, at least for those who associate nudity with sex? UCLA professor Dan Fessler, believes there is.

Fessler says a minor exposure of the body will make you feel embarrassed. But a more serious case of exposing one’s self will bring about shame, and Fessler believes shame in this case is a self-defense mechanism. When a person doesn’t live up to the rules regarding modesty and his or her behaviour becomes known to others, that person will feel great shame. This shows the person who broke the rules recognizes that he or she has done wrong and is asking not to be punished for this.

All human beings have a certain degree of modesty, even in cultures where nudity is the norm. Fessler says this could be due to our highly developed brain. The brain of the newborn is not fully developed. Despite rapid development during the first year of growth, a child remains fairly helpless and dependent for a number of years. Therefore, the human mating strategy is one where a couple pairs for life (theoretically) to properly care for the children.

But humans are more social than the average primate. We live in large populations, and we cooperate with many people. There is a more or less constant temptation for both sexes to cheat on their partner. The documentary suggests that shame brought about by nudity discourages most people from breaking social rules.

The authors of the documentary say the naked human body is a supreme sexual advertisement. The mere sight of a naked body may send a dangerous message, we are told. Nudity is a threat to the basic social contract, an invitation to revolt. Exposing one’s person, body and sexual persona can lead to prohibited sexual behaviour which may disrupt the social fabric. Therefore, the shame of nakedness encourages us to remain faithful to our partner and do our part to raise children.

However, an experiment undertaken by the volunteers in the documentary shows a different possibility. At one point, all eight participants were in the same room, and four of them had to undress one of the other four, and this happened in plain sight of all involved. Then, they were given green, yellow and red paint. They were to paint the body of the person they had undressed using green to show the parts that were alright to touch, yellow for the questionable parts, and red for those that were off-limits. Organisers expected to see a fair amount of yellow and red. But after two days of casual nudity, green paint was used abundantly, even in the genital areas. After all this time spent together where at least some of them were naked, the volunteers had become generally comfortable with nudity. Not all to the same extent, but there had certainly been a change in their perceptions.

Pictures from of the last day of filming showed the volunteers at ease while completely naked at a wine and cheese reception. Their attitudes and inhibitions had changed, which shows that we are not born with modesty. We are therefore free to move the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not. As long as everyone agrees, we can develop new rules and avoid the risk of committing an offense," just like at a nudist centre," to use their own expression.

At the house where the experiment was filmed, after two days of nakedness in each other’s presence, the volunteers had created their own rules. And according to their rules, nudity was mostly okay.