Traditional cultural values, warped by puritanism and pornography, have not provided a very balanced view of human body images, much less the widespread opportunity to experience nudity in a relaxed social context. If they've not seen many nude bodies, people often imagine that their own physique can't measure up to a fantasy standard, or perhaps they feel singularly disfigured by the scars of living. Several transforming insights are possible from an initial experience in an unclothed gathering. They might also observe how bodies vary less with age than care and realize that for the moment each is ideal for the being it contains. Many are inspired by a heightened body awareness to pursue a better balance of exercise and nutrition.
Naturists see whole people instead of fragmented fantasy objects.
Breasts, buttocks and genitals have been de-humanized and isolated as marketable sexual objects through the contradictory messages of compulsive covering and titillating exposure. Citizens can still be arrested for revealing what others exploit legally for profit. Such impersonal eroticism has contributed to a particular risk in being female and engendered negative feelings in both sexes about the body's natural pleasure centers. Very few have been taught to actually like the complete body they were born with and are living in. Naturists have learned that once patches of cloth no longer focus attention on that which is hidden, all parts of the body blend together forming the perception of a whole person.