Is Nudity Wrong?

[Taure]

I guess the willingness of people to be naked is irrelevant really. It's an interesting point, but a bad argument.

There are many things that people agree are "right" and that they don't do, and many things that people agree are "wrong" and that they do do.

So people's willingness to practice nudity doesn't really have anything to do with whether it was right or wrong in the first place.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Methinks porn is just a wee bit different than nudity.

While porn in and of itself needn't be a bad thing, either. Its dubious nature is mostly due to the "sinner/saint"-dichotomy that's still firmly established in many a head when it comes to female sexuality.

As for nudity: there's nothing whatsoever intrinsically wrong with it. Just seeing where different cultures and ages draw the line between "proper" dress and nudity goes to show how culturally influenced the whole concept is.

Fifty years ago, women wearing trousers was a shocking sight. A hundred years ago, an exposed ankle would suffice. And in some cultures, the nose is treated like an exceptionally private part.

 

[Eudaimonist]

It's interesting to see the number of people who voted "no". I wonder, would all these people be willing to wander around naked in public?

I've gone nude at a nude beach before. I would be willing to walk naked in public as long as nudity was culturally acceptable in that location.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I've gone nude at a nude beach before. I would be willing to walk naked in public as long as nudity was culturally acceptable in that location.

And of course, the outside temperature would have to be acceptable, too.

 

[SnapCount]

This seems to me to be a valid question. There are some who believe that violence is wrong no matter the circumstances, and some who say it depends on the circumstances, and then a very few again who enjoy it whatever the situation.

The analogy is not completely accurate, however. Christians claim to be a moral authority (or at least have access to a moral authority, whether that is God himself, the Bible, or the church) and so the rightness/wrongness of nudity is related to what Christians think of it.

Police people, however, are not a moral force (merely a lawful one), so whether physical force is right or wrong has no link to what the police do or don't do.

You're not getting it. You're being too general.

Are you willing to say that all policemen are hypocrites? Because that is what your logic suggests.

 

[Eudaimonist]

And of course, the outside temperature would have to be acceptable, too.

Maybe that's what's called "natural law".


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Received]

While porn in and of itself needn't be a bad thing, either. Its dubious nature is mostly due to the "sinner/saint"-dichotomy that's still firmly established in many a head when it comes to female sexuality.

A world where men aren't in bondage to insistent sex-thoughts is better than a world where they are. Pornography is a good way of keeping them in bondage (hyperbolic term). Of course, I'm speaking in relation to habit. And maybe the shoe is on the other foot: maybe pornography doesn't corrupt, but the "corrupt" use pornography. Even if this were the case, if pornography wasn't an option the stimulus response would dwindle eventually.

 

[pgp_protector]

I hope nudity isn't wrong.
That or it's going to be a pain to keep taking showers.

 

[Taure]

Are you willing to say that all policemen are hypocrites? Because that is what your logic suggests.

You're not getting it. The focus is not on the policemen, but on the rightness/wrongness of violence. But no, I'm not going to say that policemen are hypocrites, because what policemen do has no relation to the rightness or wrongness of physical force.

So too with this, the focus is not on the Christians but the rightness/wrongness of nudity.

I hope nudity isn't wrong.
That or it's going to be a pain to keep taking showers.

You know that's not what I meant. I was clearly making a point about conservative attitudes about nudity, and how they're inconsistent with the actual beliefs about nudity...

 

[SnapCount]

It's like I have to use Dr. Seuss-talk.

By your logic, (emhasize YOUR LOGIC)

if either violence is Right

OR

violence is WRONG

it would make policeman hypocrites BECAUSE

if it is RIGHT, why are policemen arresting ppl for assault?
if it is WRONG, then why are policemen trained to use force?

 

[Everlasting33]

I've gone nude at a nude beach before. I would be willing to walk naked in public as long as nudity was culturally acceptable in that location.


eudaimonia,

Mark

I am OK with my own nudity but walking around in public ( like at a nudist beach) would make me too uncomfortable! I know everyone is different but I do not know how people have the confidence (if you wanna call it that ) to go around naked in front of strangers/ or friends/family. I guess you have to be brought up with it to become more comfortable with the idea.
I struggle with being so self-conscious that it would be unbearable! I do admire people who are apathetic when it comes to this! Sounds funny, I know!

Interesting thread, though!

 

[SimplyNothing]

Being naked is fine.

Looking at somebody with sex on your mind 'cause they're naked is sinful.

 

[pgp_protector]

Being naked is fine.

Looking at somebody with sex on your mind 'cause they're naked is sinful.

Me looking at my wife naked with sex on my mind is sinful ??

 

[SimplyNothing]

sorry.

Should have added before marriage.

My bad fellas. My bad.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I am OK with my own nudity but walking around in public ( like at a nudist beach) would make me too uncomfortable! I know everyone is different but I do not know how people have the confidence (if you wanna call it that ) to go around naked in front of strangers/ or friends/family. I guess you have to be brought up with it to become more comfortable with the idea.
I struggle with being so self-conscious that it would be unbearable! I do admire people who are apathetic when it comes to this!

There might yet be hope for you (if you are hopeful about such things). I remember that before I started going to the nude beach, I wondered if I would be too self-conscious being nude in front of all the strangers there.

And I was self-conscious... for maybe five-to-ten minutes, at which point all that self-consciousness melted away, never to return. All it took was for me to go through the experience once to have that perception-altering experience.

It's funny how life can be that way.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

There might yet be hope for you (if you are hopeful about such things). I remember that before I started going to the nude beach, I wondered if I would be too self-conscious being nude in front of all the strangers there.

And I was self-conscious... for maybe five-to-ten minutes, at which point all that self-consciousness melted away, never to return. All it took was for me to go through the experience once to have that perception-altering experience.

It's funny how life can be that way.

Funny. My experiences mirror yours exactly. As a teenager, I was unbearably self-conscious for a while, so much so that I even wore my swim suit in the sauna (which, being a half-Finn, was perfectly weird).
Then I went to the nude beach in my early twenties, and *poof* - the self-consciousness was gone. Not only that, but I also realized how completely un-spectacular and un-scandalous nudity actually is. Seeing all those naked people did nothing to either shame or excite me - they were just people without clothes. And those who struck me as attractive would have been so whether they covered themselves or not.

Another thing sprang to my mind, then: clothing can be a lot more suggestive than plain nudity in many cases. It hints, it insinuates, it draws attention. The plain body, on the other hand, is perfectly honest: it's the shedding of (almost) all the masks we wear, obliterating our status, our wealth, our carefully crafted, artificial self-image.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

A world where men aren't in bondage to insistent sex-thoughts is better than a world where they are.

Why are men so scared of their sexuality, anyway? It seems that for thousands of years, men have been obsessed with the regulation, containment and/or demonization of sex and anything connected to it.
Christianity inherited its anti-sexual (and adamantly misogynistic) streak from the Stoics and the Gnostics. It was passed on to the middle class ideology, and henceforth into our present day, where it affected even feminists for quite a while.

My guess would be that it's about control, about the distribution of power between the sexes. Sexuality is the one aspect of a male's life that does not seem to be easily reined in. It empowers women, and that has always been a touchy issue. Hence, the sinner/saint dichotomy. For hundreds of years, the supreme role model for Christian girls was Mary, the castrated goddess, the all-time virgin, dried up and asexual even in her fertility. Sexuality, on the other hand, pointed to Eve, the Fallen Woman, to the Great harlot of Revelation, or - at the very best - to the Magdalene, turned by tradition into a reformed prostitute, who could only achieve salvation after forsaking her sexuality altogether.

Now, back to pornography: have you noticed that it prospers most in societies that are exceptionally self-conscious or ambivalent with regards to sexuality and/or nudity?
The more sexually oppressive a society gets, the more bizarre blooms does its sexual underground produce. It takes the lure of the forbidden to turn sexuality into something so altogether devious, twisted and bizarre.
I recently read a study on the historical relevance of foot fetishism: it seems that it always blossomed in sexually repressive times, basically as a substitute for other taboo body parts.
Pretty fascinating, don't you think?

Personally, I think pornography is more of a symptom than a cause. Yet it can be subversive, transformative, revolutionary, empowering. It is the antithesis of the neurotic asceticism that gave birth to it, the other side of the coin that refuses to go away, chipping away at the tight regimen that would repress almost all sexual energies in the name of "virtue".

 

[Eudaimonist]

Christianity inherited its anti-sexual (and adamantly misogynistic) streak from the Stoics and the Gnostics. It was passed on to the middle class ideology, and henceforth into our present day, where it affected even feminists for quite a while.

I have to wonder if these unhealthy views towards sexuality are perpetuated by a dichotomized view of human nature, where the mind or spirit is considered the good part of one's nature -- one's "higher nature" -- and the body is considered the bad, "lower" part of one's nature. (My personal view is that we have a deeply intertwined and unified nature of mind and body, and these cannot be bifurcated intellectually without distorting what we really are.)

The history of sexuality in the West seems to swing back and forth like a pendulum, with sexual repression on one end and free love on the other. This would make sense to me if Western culture is locked within the dichotomy, and whenever the excesses of one pole become painfully obvious, the pendulum of culture swings towards the other pole, at which point its excesses become painfully obvious, and the process continues.

If this is the case, then it seems that the only way to get the pendulum to stop swinging, and achieve something healthy, is for the integrated view of human nature to take hold culturally. Perhaps then sex will not be redeemed by being sexless, or by being treated as little more than scratching an itch.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Received]

Now, back to pornography: have you noticed that it prospers most in societies that are exceptionally self-conscious or ambivalent with regards to sexuality and/or nudity?
The more sexually oppressive a society gets, the more bizarre blooms does its sexual underground produce. It takes the lure of the forbidden to turn sexuality into something so altogether devious, twisted and bizarre.
I recently read a study on the historical relevance of foot fetishism: it seems that it always blossomed in sexually repressive times, basically as a substitute for other taboo body parts.
Pretty fascinating, don't you think?

Absolutely. Well freaking said.

 

[Jersey]

This is mainly directed at the Christians, but all can answer.

Basically: is nudity wrong?

If no, then why are Christians so conservative when it comes to nudity? Why do you object to porn? To public displays of flesh? Etc.

And if yes, then why did God make us naked? Why did God deliberately make it so that Adam and Eve - who weren't married, so no escape there - were naked and stayed that way?

I like nudity and I like porn too. I like seeing sexy woman in short tight skirts, low cut tops and thongs on the beaches.



Seems like it's the religious right who is always making such a big deal and fuss over the whole issue. If they had their way, the woman in this country would be wearing burkas everyday.

Gheeshe, Christians, get a grip why don't ya !