In many countries in Europe, being naked in public is not a punishable offense, as long as no one feels molested. Being naked near places where people change clothes is common, and legal in many jurisdictions. Nudity in a public space is often handled by special laws (made for police). In this case, what often happens is the police will fine the offenders, and tell them to go elsewhere. Certain places have started to pass laws, which forbid nudity in certain settings. A well-known case is that of the Canton of Appenzell Inner Rhodes passing a law against hiking naked.
For historical reasons, many English-speaking countries are less tolerant towards naked people. Exhibitionists get sexual pleasure from showing themselves naked or partly naked. In the context of the law, exhibitionism is often handled differently.
Some Western countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, have no laws stopping nude swimming in public areas. In Canada there are many small lakes with few houses or people around. People sometimes swim nude in them. People often swim nude at night or very early in the morning.
In the United States there is no federal (national) law against nudity at national beaches. But sometimes there are local laws that say people cannot be nude. Sometimes local police arrest people on federal lands or beaches. Sometimes police use general laws, saying that nudity is disturbing the peace.
Some people use the nudity as a form of protest, like a movement in the United States that wants equal treatment of bare-chested men, and women. This movement fights for the right of women to be topless. Often this is done with topless demonstrations.
One example that nudity was used as a form of protest, even in the Middle Ages is the story of Lady Godiva. She is said to have ridden through Coventry totally naked, only covered by her long hair. She did this to protest against the high taxes.
Nudity is often used to draw the attention of customers to a given product. That way, nude people or people with very little clothing are often shown on covers of magazines, even if the content of the magazine has nothing to do with nudity. Naked people, sometimes in connection with body painting are used to distribute fliers at events.
This uses erotic stimuli, especially to people of the opposite sex. On the other hand, nudity seems to work all by itself in such contexts. Nudity in public places is rare, and people generally do not expect it. The more it is used however, the less it will act on people. At some point it will have become normal.
Most children do not develop a feeling of shame until they are about five years old. For this reason there have been discussions. These discussions try to answer two basic questions:
Different people have different opinions on the subject.
Works of art, such as paintings, statues, or photographs have shown nude children, or nude children with nude adults. In recent years, showing nude children has become more and more problematic, especially with photographs. In a few cases, photographs taken by parents showing their toddler or small child naked have been seen as child pornography by courts. In May 2008, police in Sydney, Australia, raided an exhibition by the photographer Bill Henson. This exhibition showed images of naked children. The raid was done on allegations of child pornography. Incidents such as this one sent a strong message to the community.
People cannot agree if parents should appear naked in front of their children. Gordon and Schroeder say that there is a wide variation on parental nudity from family to family. According to them, "there is nothing (..) wrong with bathing with children or otherwise appearing naked in front of them". In their opinion, doing so may provide an opportunity for parents to give important information. They note that by ages five to six, children begin to develop a sense of modesty, and recommend to parents who wish to be sensitive to their children's wishes that they limit such activities from that age onwards.
Bonner recommends against nudity in the home where children are showing sexual behaviour considered problematic.
A study by Alfred Kinsey found that 75% of the participants stated that there was never nudity in the home when they were growing up, 5% of them said that there was "seldom" nudity in the home, 3% said "often", and 17% said that it was "usual". The study found that there was no significant difference between what was reported by men and by women with respect to frequency of nudity in the home.
In a 1995 review of the literature, Paul Okami concluded that there was no reliable evidence linking exposure to parental nudity to any negative effect. Three years later, his team finished an 18-year longitudinal study that showed that, if anything, such exposure was associated with slight beneficial effects, particularly for boys.
Different cultures have different opinions on whether children should see people other than their parents, and other children naked. In general the opinions are also different, depending on how old the child is, and what context the nudity is placed in.
Many countries have made laws that should protect children from seeing sex scenes on television by accident. That way, such scenes may usually not be shown during the day. British TV must not show such scenes between 5.30am and 9pm. The time when content not suitable for children may be shown is called "watershed". The Broadcasting Code requires that "Nudity before the watershed must be justified by the context."
Sometimes the nudity of children in front of other children has been an issue. In Europe, it is common that all students take a shower together after sports classes. Usually showering is segregated by sex.
In the United States and some of English-speaking Canada, students at tax funded schools have historically been required to shower with classmates of the same sex after physical education classes. In the United States, public objections and the threat of lawsuits have resulted in a number of school districts in recent years changing policy to make showers optional. Now showering together (sometimes called communal nude showering) after sports is not common anymore at schools in the United States or Canada. Many students wear shorts in the shower. At new schools there are separate (individual) shower stalls (closets) for each student to shower in. At many older schools the showers are never used. Students go to the next class sweaty and smelly. Communal nude showering is still common at colleges, public pools, universities and health clubs.
At some public swimming pools, men and women cannot use the same shower room as boys and girls respectively. (These rules are common in Canada and the United States.)
A court case in the State of Colorado noted that students have a reduced expectation of personal privacy in regards to "communal undress" while showering after physical education classes. According to an interview with a middle school principal, most objections to school showers that he had heard were actually from the student's parents rather than from the student.
The change in thinking also involves issues of bullying, consideration for gay and other LGBTQ students, and body image (such as very big or very thin students feeling uncomfortable when people see them nude.)
Most people feel uneasy or ashamed when they are nude (outside a social context where this is acceptable). This fact has been used both as a means of torture and as a punishment. That way, during witch-hunts, the alleged witches were stripped to discover what was called the witches' mark. It was believed that the devil left this mark as part of the pact the witch had with him. When the mark was found, this was then used as evidence in the trials.
Nakedness can also be part of a punishment or a public humiliation. Torture manuals sometimes make a difference, as men and women react differently when they are disrobed.