From: mack@jasmin.zko.dec.com (Ralph Mack)
Newsgroups: rec.nude
Subject: Re: Women more modest?
Date: 8 Apr 92 02:40:44 GMT
Reply-To: mack@jasmin.zko.dec.com (Ralph Mack)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


I once read an interesting comment that may be relevant to this, that
women in our culture view "society's view" as the view they anticipate
from other women and men view "society's view" as the view they anticipate
from other men.  They may care about what particular individuals of the
other gender who they are (or wish to be) close to feel about their behavior
but fear that represents "the disapproval of society" is directed toward the
perceived attitudes of those of the same gender.

Apparel is particularly sensitive:

Choice of clothing is commonly used to make a statement; we see somebody's face and the way they are clothed before we are introduced and read into that
the approach that needs to be taken with them. How often have you worn 
something that "just isn't you" when meeting someone for the first time and
felt uncomfortable?  We depend upon "sizing people up" by what we see and set
our expectations accordingly before we've even been properly introduced.

Nudity is a form of apparal. It represents a strong sexual symbol.  That the 
link is as easily set aside as formed is only believable once you've spent the 
afternoon nude among ten or twenty people and no longer experience a strong 
sexual response.  Society at large hasn't had the benefit of that experience. 
(The obvious answer is to invite more friends out to the beach!)  The image 
of sex in the west is characterized by conquest and acquiescence rather than mutuality and the degree of exposure represents (in this myth) one's degree
of acquiescence.

I think, then, that some women are more modest because they fear what they 
think other women will think and because social conditioning associates a
wantonness with the behavior.  Being a nudist doesn't necessarily rid you
of this; my wife prefers not to be nude outside of a nudist setting, even 
in relative privacy of our own home, although I wander around the house
nude most of the time.  She's afraid somebody will come to the door; our
paperboy sometimes wanders in with the paper without knocking, etc.

------

I think the experience of social nudity clears us of a lot of cultural
slag.  Having taken the step of physical honesty in shedding clothing helps
in opening up, although a lot of the defensive habits don't go away.  

The sexual response diminishes. On the other hand, I don't think nudity is ever divorced from certain feelings I associate with sexuality; we are aware of others and there is a pleasant, gentle, undirected stimulation in the simple awareness of our own bodies and the bodies of others.  Somehow, there is a deep comfort of being nude together, and this comfort makes us feel sufficient in being simply human.  We're all just ourselves all together on the beach 
enjoying the sun and the breeze and the water on our skin and the congenial 
company of others and that is enough.

Curiously, there are some simple ways in which people express their non-sexual 
affection for one another physically that nudists, at least in New England, 
seldom do, even if they know each other very well. For instance, we seldom ever 
hug when nude. We seldom pack in together but tend to disperse like a gas to 
fill the space.  (Check this out next time you visit the sauna!)  We seem to 
avoid skin even casually brushing skin. Nudity somehow seems to preclude all 
of those warm-fuzzy things that are a part of belonging to one another.  
Interestingly, the kids don't seem to be much affected by this reticence. 
They laugh and play and tumble over each other like fish. The problem, of 
course, is that we respond sexually to touch.

If the association between nudity and sex is in our minds, surely the
association between touch and sex is as well. Surely through hugging those 
good friends who are willing to become comfortable with it and being 
generally as willing to be close as apart, we can lose that cultural slag 
as well, and be the gregarious warm-fuzzy creatures we should feel free to be.

								Ralph
Newsgroups: rec.nude