"OMG! PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"-What's wrong with being naked?

[Chance]

A topic was started by an acquaintance of mine, that has grown pretty popular.

"OMG! PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"-What's wrong with being naked? (http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19364663&page=1)

The first post has all the important stuff, and then if you want to read whats happening in the thread, you can start and the later pages and just read till the end... Feel free to start posting help with the many (monotinous) arguments...

One argument I have replied to many times goes something like
well, i must admit it would be entertaining icon_razz.gif that or everyone would become totally body obsessed and compare weight, size, etc. people would cover up in time. humans like to compete and would try to cover their differences.

I would appreciate some help with this one, because all I can think of is:
People realize that very few people have perfect bodies, and they learn to accept theirs the way it is.

But I'm pretty sure that this will seem like an unlikely thing that would happen to some... Another really hard one is "more rape will happen". I haven't really been able to come up with a good argument against this.

[Long Island Frank]

It seems to me that naturists are more body accepting than body obsessed. And some clothes seem designed to draw attention to certain body parts, not to conceal them.

As for nudism increasing the chance for rape.. not among true nudists. But maybe by men/boys who see a nude female only as a sex object.

[nudebushwalker]

LESS rape actually happens, not more, when there is more nudity around -> it is no accident that the more repressed and morally uptight and backward parts of the USA - especially in the 'Bible belt', have far greater levels of sexual assaults, child abuse, wife bashing than the larger world, in general...

Don't believe? Go and search out the crime rates and try to prove me wrong..

http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/smoking.gif

[papanudist]

I agree with nudebushwalker. Thousands of articles have been written about rape being a violent driven crime not a sexual one. Violence im the world has gooten WAY out of hand. I beleive a lot of that blame is tv,movies, and music. I would feel a lot more at ease meeting someone walking down the street naked than with clothes on. Think about it if a person is naked where will they hide their guns and knives?

[nimrod]

Originally posted by Chance:
I would appreciate some help with this one, because all I can think of is:
People realize that very few people have perfect bodies, and they learn to accept theirs the way it is.

To many people are suckered into believing what the media says is the perfect body, and in order to be sexually appealling you must look this way. It is aimed at people with low self-esteem in order to sell a product.

But I'm pretty sure that this will seem like an unlikely thing that would happen to some... Another really hard one is "more rape will happen". I haven't really been able to come up with a good argument against this.

Some anthropologists found a tribe of people and studied them for some time. This tribe did not have clothing, or rape, not even a word for rape. After the scientists left, missionaries found the same tribe and started to <STRIKE>pervert</STRIKE>, I mean convert them, they taught the tribe to ware clothes and about the shame of the human body. When the scientists returned to the tribe, they found that rape became a problem.

[Rabid_Clam]

Rape is a result of being starved for something they cannot get. Nudists simply satisfy much of that so rape becomes nearly a total non issue for us.

[Borntobenude]

Originally posted by nimrod:
Some anthropologists found a tribe of people and studied them for some time. This tribe did not have clothing, or rape, not even a word for rape. After the scientists left, missionaries found the same tribe and started to <STRIKE>pervert</STRIKE>, I mean convert them, they taught the tribe to ware clothes and about the shame of the human body. When the scientists returned to the tribe, they found that rape became a problem.

From the sixteenth century onwards, clothed Europeans regularly encountered naked primitives all over the world. The Spanish in South America came upon naked Indians in Brazil and elsewhere. Captain Cook found naked, or unconcealed, islanders in Polynesia and New Zealand. Later British, French, Germans and Portuguese, among others, came into contact with naked Africans. The results of these meetings were usually lamentable for the simpler cultures. The Europeans exploited them economically and sexually. Sometimes, indeed, they exterminated them. But it was not until the eighteenth and, especially, the nineteenth centuries that they made much attempt to change them. Then came the missionaries, and the first aspect of primitive life to experience their reforming zeal was inevitably the nakedness of the potential new recruits to Christianity. Doubtless most of the missionaries meant well, but they provided a greater force for ruin than the simpler and more brutal traders and explorers.

The missionaries were usually disconcerted to find that the biblically recommended act of ‘clothing the naked’, far from producing an improvement in native morals, almost always resulted in a deterioration. What the missionaries were inadvertently doing was recreating the Garden of Eden situation. Naked, the primitive cultures had shown no prurient concern with the body […]. The missionaries, with their cotton shorts and dresses, disrupted this. Naked people actually feel shame when they are first dressed. They develop an exaggerated awareness of the body. It is as if Adam and Eve’s ‘aprons’ generated the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ rather than being its consequence.

[Chance]

Thank you all

[RichNH]

Yup, and and as far as God is concerned that's the way we return too no matter what they drape on us.

[SpiderThug]

Originally posted by Chance:
Thank you all

Funny, I was starting to think that we are born wearing a formal dinner suit. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/tongue.gif

[nudebushwalker]

.. or extra baggy pants, slung low ?


http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/wink3.gif

[Chance]

an argument on there:

Also, this part being for us ladies, you have more chances to get a sick NOT like Aids but like a yeast infection. Not to mention that that part of your body is very sensitive could you imagine just sitting down in the grass and all this dirt getting shoved up your privates?


Anyone have any idea if being nude does in fact make women more susceptible to these kind of deseases?

I'm also pretty sure that its hard to have dirt 'shoved up your privates'.

[Centauri4]

To the acquaintence of Chance:

I disagress with the idea that naked humans natural tendancy is to "compete" with each other or that some advantage might be gained by covering any part of the body, except out of need for defense against environmental conditions or physical aggression.

Clearly I have seen more "competition" between humans that are normally clothed, as in the case of high school locker room showers. I never witnessed a case of those who were confident while unclothed trying to cover themselves, and those who remain clothed did so out of embarassment. I was one of the clothed and being inexperienced in the 'ways of the [adult] world' and always "put down" because I was not athletic or on a sports team, I was mostly terrified of showering. I had little self confidence during the years I was required to participate in Physical Education (P.E.) and I avoided it as soon as it was optional. Looking back this is an unhappy memory and I wish I knew then what I know know; some twenty-three years, two months and twenty-seven days later! (but who's counting...)

I do not regret my high school days. What I regret most is not being introduced to naturism and nudism sooner as I feel certain I would have enjoyed them even more in my preteenage and teenage years.

Natural curiosity about the human body was ALWAYS there, at least as far back as I can recall, and I clearly remember being happy about the discovery of my first pubic hair and thinking, "Wow! The 'world' of adults is right around the corner for me now!"

Surprisingly, as I think about it now, I too became "shy" at some point after the onset of puberty but I do not recall a specific or single event that made me feel so. Maybe my inexperience at being a teenager and suddenly being surrounded by slightly older and "obviously" more experienced teens (10th grade in Virginia) was psychologically intimidating; or maybe my personality was just introspective and introverted (perhaps as a result of the end of my parents marriage and related turmoil).


In agreement with Chance:

It seems a person would have to "try" and 'injure' themselves deliberately in order to have dirt or grass shoved into any part of their body (including but not limited to the nose, ears, mouth, vagina and rectum).

Yeeeoww! -ch

[Chance]

Hmm... another argument to which I am stumped.

What about the spreading of STD's.

Would contact with others increase the chance of spreading STDs?

[simonsebs]

From what I understand most STDs are only spread through bodily fluids. Also they die when exposed to air. But still that's why they always say to sit on towels.

[walter05]

Simonsebs;

It depends on the STD. Herpes can live a little longer, and I suspect other STDs can as well. It is also possible to get an autoimmune transmission.

For example, suppose a male has herpes and is not aware and urinates. He holds his penis while urinating. When finished, he does not wash his hands adequately. Then a few moments later, he shakes hands with another male. Shortly after that male goes to urinate. The second male could transmit the virus to his penis.

However, autoimmune transmissions are extremely rare. It is also true that sitting on a seat with a bare bottom where someone infected with a STD also sat is extremely rare.

Chance;

It is reasonable to be concerned with STDs. The best way to avoid them is not to have sex with someone other than in a committed monogamous relationship with someone who is disease free. At the same time, avoid touching private parts of others. If you follow these precautions and practice general hygiene you should be fine.

[nudebushwalker]

Sand and dirt can just as easily end up in a pair of briefs, swimmers or shorts - this is actually a personal hygiene issue, and simply is not dependent on whether a person is nude or not - and sounds more like the sort of nonsense you could hear from individuals with absolutely no first-hand experience of surfing or swimming in creeks and rivers..
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[Florida Cracker]

Well, here in Florida we have LOTS of sand and lots of grass, too! And I have sat on the beach and in the grass many times nude and have never gotten either one "up my privates." I do prefer the grass to be soft grass, though!
Florida Cracker

[nudebushwalker]

It's not sitting on the sand or grass that gets that sand (or the seeds..) into the swimmers (or shorts or briefs, or exposed orifices for the unfortunate minority (then it's more likely to be some people's mouths, rather than the other end of their body..http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/wink3.gif ) - it's when you're out in the surf (or creek, or river..), getting pummelled by the breaking surf, or swimming in water that has sand or silt suspended in it; and I've seen some bad windy afternoons on a beach too...
Don't know if you ever see real surf in Florida, but people in California or Hawaii (or Mexico, or Brazil, or Thailand, or a dozen other places..) would know the sort of conditions I'm referring to..
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[chuckincville]

Chance, Great Topic!
"OMG! PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"-What's wrong with being naked?[/URL] was great reading!

As "newbe" I have thouroughtly enjoyed all the posts!

Would love to get my hands on some source information posted by:
Borntobenude - source of your quote?
Nudebushwalker - stats on crime - espc. "bible belt"?
Nimrod - source of anthropoligists example?

If you can't remember the source could you point me in the rightdirection with suggestions for a starting point?
Thanks All
Chuck

[Florida Cracker]

Nudebushwalker, I think the subject included sitting on the beach AND swimming in sandy surf. And yes, we have the conditions you describe. Surfing is VERY big on the east coast of Florida. In fact, a national competition is held every year at Sebastian Inlet. I have swam in sandy surf many times nude and never had a problem. When I am forced to wear a suit, it always fills up with sand.
Florida Cracker

Florida Cracker

[nudebushwalker]

And we've (i.e. both of us..) just provided the counter-argument for when someone brings up that hypothetical argument against going nude - only ever had sand trapped when wearing some type of swimmers, never experienced that problem when swimming or body-surfing nude...
http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/beam.gif

[ And let's remember - when you look at the original - it looks like it started as a topic of debate between (young?) teenagers, and some of the arguments raised against nudity there were pretty asinine, ignorant, juvenile, and some of those arguments even look like weak attempts at witless pot-stirring by a couple of people who aren't aware of their own (intellectual and sophistication..) limitations..].