Why is nudity still such a big deal in 2003?

[Boreas]

I have been reading some of the threads concerning the law, exposing children etc. They all seem to go the same direction. I am sure that if this thread goes anywhere it will do the same.

I would love to know why nudity is even an issue in our society. We can watch shows or go to the beach and see people, especially women, in very tiny bathing suits. How is that more modest than nudity?

Anyone got any profound answers? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[Boreas]

I have been reading some of the threads concerning the law, exposing children etc. They all seem to go the same direction. I am sure that if this thread goes anywhere it will do the same.

I would love to know why nudity is even an issue in our society. We can watch shows or go to the beach and see people, especially women, in very tiny bathing suits. How is that more modest than nudity?

Anyone got any profound answers? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[S.M.A.]

I'm not a philosopher, though I am an amateur observer of the human condition, so here goes:

There's always going to be an antagonistic force that tries to ruin everything. When someone attempts to do some good or enlightened, there is always the threat that someone or something will sabotage that particular effort. In the case of nudity, ignorant and closed-minded individuals will always be our most irritating obstacle.

Maybe someday, nudity will gain mainstream acceptance. For now, we should face any conflict that comes our way head-on, and hopefully, through thick and thin, we shall eventually succeed.

[Griffin]

Surely, "Naked World," the newly released 80-minute documentary about photographer-artist Spencer Tunick that began showing Sunday Nov. 2 on HBO and has been shown across the various HBO channels since is a powerful and palatable look at the human body en masse. His globe-trotting photography, gettng as many as 4,000 people for a shoot of bodies in Melbourne, Australia, and notable assemblages and expanses of bodies in Montreal, Sao Paulo and London give casual, non-naturist viewers a wonderful, narrated examination of how natural the body is. The large still photos that eventually make art galleries are awesome. What adds to the power of the documentary are the many shoots of a single individual or a small group in poses that showcase the beauty, infinite variety and textures of bodies. Hope you get to see it. It is a great follow-up to Tunick's "Naked States" produced a couple years back in which he photographed nudes in all 50 states. We cannot underestimate how many will see either documentary and be disarmed of their objections about nudity -- or at least gain a new awareness and consciousness. Tunick is an important force, even if in the "Naked States" project when he photographed a naturist group at an Atlantic beach, many participants turn him off by being such obnoxious exhibitionists and not understanding his art intents.

[Ren]

Any time something is different, ignorance will swat it down. It's an easy escape, because it allows one never to have to put deep thought into a subject. The Philippines and Pakistan would get mocked by closed-minded people who think the US is all that great, but those two countries have had women heads of state.

The US was built by Puritans who were too pious for England, learned to oppress natives of this land, believed any woman who wasn't staid to be a witch (killing them), brought slavery to the fore, leading to suppression of a people here for a couple hundred years, stole almost all the land from the Indians and took what they wanted from Mexico, suppressed women till the 1920s, chose prohibition for a while, granted civil rights just forty years ago after finding loopholes to suppress even more, and will not elect a President who isn't a WASP (no minorities, gays, Jewish/Muslim/Buddhists, 1 Catholic).

The only enlightenment in the US comes from the piles of theoretical gold that makes us rich. So, in our society, everything will be blown out of proportion to the issue at hand. And if it's different, it will be shot down.

We still have to discuss nudity in 2003 for the same reason we have to discuss anything that involves a freedom: no one wants to think or be logical.

If ignorance is bliss, why bother?

[namedun]

That was way off topic, but I totally agree with you Ren. The US is one of the largest, most succesfull paradoxes of all time.The land of the free, who's "founding fathers" were all white protestant slave owners who just wanted to get away from paying English taxes.
Is it so surprising that in "the land of the free" one can be arrested, fined, jailed for excersising the most fundamental form of freedom (body freedom)?

Namedun [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

[Guest]

S.M.A

"I'm not a philosopher..."

That fact became evident when I read the rest of your posting.

"There's always going to be an antagonistic force that tries to ruin everything."

That's a distortion. The reality is that for every force for change there is a force working against that change. And this is how it should be because not every change is for the better.

"When someone attempts to do some good or enlightened, there is always the threat that someone or something will sabotage that particular effort".

Good for who? The change you want may be good for you and your particular interests but it certainly isn't good for me and those of my persuasion. And "enlightened"? About what? Your preference for engaging in social nudity is just that - a personal preference. The fact that my preference is to avoid nudity doesn't make you any more enlightened than me.

"In the case of nudity, ignorant and closed-minded individuals will always be our most irritating obstacle".

In other words you and those who agree with you are right and those who dare voice a contrary view are, by definition, ignorant and closed-minded. That attitude portrays the worst form of chauvinism and intolerence.

"Maybe someday, nudity will gain mainstream acceptance".

Maybe. And maybe not. Hopefully it won't.

"For now, we should face any conflict that comes our way head-on, and hopefully, through thick and thin, we shall eventually succeed."

There are plenty of us who don't share your dream and we too have voices and will be heard. As for eventually succeeding..dream on!

Griffin

Victoria artists painted nudes. Photographers have taken pictures of nudes since the inception of their art. Please don't confuse an acceptance of nudity portrayed in an artistic medium as a signal that most people will begin to accept nudity in public. They won't.

As for Mr Tunnick's work - I don't regard it as art at all. He just takes bizarre photographs and titilates interest (and media attention) by getting his subjects to be nude. I don't think most people would want his pictures in their homes. When the novelty wears off people will, I predict, lose interest in him.

namedun

"Is it so surprising that in "the land of the free" one can be arrested, fined, jailed for excersising the most fundamental form of freedom (body freedom)?"

That's because one man's freedom is another man's restriction. All laws are restrictions on freedom in one way or another.

Society doesn't stop you being naked - it just says that you shouldn't impose your nudity on others who prefer not to see it when in public. If that seems unreasonable then I'm sorry - I don't think it is.

Stu

[soofreeemateomanian]

Namedun, you have no idea what you are talking about with the founding fathers thing. John adams had no slaves and risked his life for freedom. They could pay the taxes, but it was the principle. It was taxation without representation and as we pleaded they wouldn't stop. You should be more appreciative for them or you couldnt even sit in your house nude with the shades down without being arrested and hung. If the founding Fathers were so selfish, how come they didnt make themselves king and gotten all the money they wanted?

[Guest]

"You should be more appreciative for them or you couldnt even sit in your house nude with the shades down without being arrested and hung."

Yeah! Here in Olde England if you sit in your house nude with the shades down you will be arrested and hung (or should it be hanged?). So there!

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Stu

[soundman]

quote:

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Originally posted by stu2630:
[qb]...you shouldn't impose your nudity on others who prefer not to see it when in public.
Stu [/qb]

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Okay.
I prefer not to see you. You are imposing yourself on me just by being your clothing obsessed self.
Do I have a right not to see you and make to go away? Or should I just look the other way and let you be?

[Guest]

soundman

If you can see me all the way from Bakersfield, CA, then you either have an extraordinarily powerful X-ray telescope, or you have secreted yourself somewhere in my private study.

Have you NO respect for my privacy? Shame on you! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_mad.gif[/img]

Stu

[aunaturelone]

quote:

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and will not elect a President who isn't a WASP (no minorities, gays, Jewish/Muslim/Buddhists, 1 Catholic)

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You missed Jefferson who wan't a Christian by any measure. In fact he created the "Jefferson Bible" which has all references to Christ's divinity deleted. He considered the Bible to be entirely history and phlilosophy.

Quite a number of the founders were not Christians in any practical sense although they would have all be born into Christian families. They subscribed to a branch of religious philosophy called Deism which holds that God does not interfere in the affairs of the material world and man has to figure out for himself the way to go.

Off hand, Franklin was another and Thomas Paine was an out and out atheist at times. I think there were some Unitarians - and one got elected president along the way - but I'm too lazy to do the research to find out who.

While we were nation of Christians and certainly the Ten Comandments were an important basis for our laws, we were never meant to be an officially Christian nation. Much of the thought behind the first amendment came from the excesses and abuses of the Puritans and the witch trials in New England.

BTW, the famous phrase, "wall of separation between church and state" came from a letter by President Jefferson to a local religious college. It isn't in the Constitution but is used as a guide to the intent of the religious freedom clause of the first amendment.

[aunaturelone]

quote:

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John adams had no slaves and risked his life for freedom.

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Quite right. The founders who were residents of Virginia and points south were usually slave holders since that was how one could accumulate wealtrh and influence. Not all however, and there were still southerners at this time who owned property and hired free blacks to do the labor. Those from the north were usually NOT slave holders, they were members of the new merchant class and most opposed slavery. John Adams, Sam Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Tom Paine, Paul Revere were all not slave holders and favored an abolitionist stance.

All slaves who fought in the revolution on the colonists side were given manumission. They then were able to work to buy their families out of slavery.

Many, like Jefferson, who did own slaves bitterly regretted it later in life. They knew it was wrong, they knew it was a cancer on the United States but they were weak. Some freed their slaves (like Franklin) and repented while some (like Washington and Jefferson) didn't.

The issue of slavery very nearly scuttled the new republic before it even got started. Ben Franklin raised the abolition of slavery during the constitutional convention and only his death prevented a fight that could have led to the disintegration of the union almost as soon as it had started.

I don't believe anybody had a profit motive in fomenting a revolution since most leaders were rich to begin with. It was entirely ideology and a desire for self determination. The people were ready for a change and the revolution almost created itself. Attempting to seize the guns of the colonists at Concord and Lexington was just the last straw.

Most of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence lost everything they owned and many lost their lives but none lost their sacred honor.

[Trailscout]

Still_Boreas,

Your opening comment is a very astute one and has not been successfully refuted by our opponents.

We see ourselves nude daily and do not object.
We are nude and among nude people of our own gender as we undress in locker rooms.
Couples are frequently nude in the privacy of their home.
We see our children nude when we bathe them.
Doctors, nurses, and many artists see nude people on a regular basis.
Nude photographs, nude sculpture, and paintings of nude figures abound in art galleries, books and the media and few if any object.

With all these instances of acceptable nudity and depictions of nudity, one simply cannot blanketly assert that nudity is objectionable.

It is very difficult to explain why we regard nudity as good, beautiful and wholesome in many situations, but not at the beach, where as you say, nudity is nearly achieved in today's minimal swimwear.

[Bob S.]

The Founding Fathers had their good qualities as well as their bad.

"You should be more appreciative for them or you couldnt even sit in your house nude with the shades down without being arrested and hung"

Ever been to Arkansas? You may not be hung, but just don't let their be anyone else in your house other than your immediate family while you are naked or you are a criminal.

"Off hand, Franklin was another and Thomas Paine was an out and out atheist at times. I think there were some Unitarians - and one got elected president along the way - but I'm too lazy to do the research to find out who."

Both Adams, Filmore, and Taft were Unitarians. We have even had 2 Quakers; Hoover and Nixon.

And Boreas, I also do wonder why nudity is regarded as so much more taboo than any other topic.

Bob S.