This post may contain Nudity content.
NudityRandom
Only logged in members can reply and interact with the post.
Join SimilarWorlds for FREE »

Socioanthropological analysis of history pt 3

Male nudity
Historically, men and boys bathed and swam nude in secluded rivers and lakes. In England when sea bathing became popular in the 18th century, beaches were initially male only, but with the easier access of the 19th century due to rail transportation, the mixing of genders became a problem for authorities. The addition of "bathing machines" at seaside resorts was not successful in maintaining standards of decency, men often continuing to be nude while women wore bathing costumes. However, public concern was only regarding adults, it being generally accepted that boys at English beaches would be nude. This prompted complaints by visiting Americans, but Englishmen had no objection to their daughters being fully dressed on the beach with naked boys.

In the United States and other Western countries for much of the 20th century, male nudity was the norm in gender segregated activities including summer camps, swimming pools and communal showers based on cultural beliefs that females need more privacy than males. Beginning in 1900, businessmen swam nude at private athletic clubs in New York City, which ended with a 1980 law requiring the admission of women. For younger boys, lack of modesty might include public behaviour as in 1909 when The New York Times reported that at an elementary school public swimming competition the youngest boys competed in the nude.

Hygiene was given as the reason for official guidelines requiring nudity in indoor pools used only by men. Swimmers were also required to take nude showers with soap prior to entering the pool, in order to eliminate contaminants and inspect swimmers to prohibit use by those with signs of disease. During women's weekly swim hours, simple one-piece suits were allowed and sometimes supplied by the facility to ensure hygiene; towels were also supplied.

Compared to the acceptance of boys being nude, an instance in 1947 where girls were given the same option lasted only six weeks in Highland Park, Michigan before a protest by mothers. However, only the middle school required suits, the elementary schools in the same district continued to allow girls to swim nude. The public health recommendation of male nudity continued officially until 1962 but was observed into the 1970s by the YMCA and schools with gender segregated classes. The era of male nude swimming in indoor pools declined steadily as mixed-gender usage became the norm, and sped up following the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Eventually all pools use became mixed-gender, and in the 21st century, the practice of male nude swimming is largely forgotten, or denied as having ever existed.

Gender equality
Social acceptance of mixed gender nudity due to sauna culture is associated with greater gender equality, which is highest in Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden (the US being #53 of 153 countries listed). America and the Netherlands went through the same period of feminist activism in the 1960s–70s, but Dutch men were generally more open to the idea of gender equality, there being a prior history of regarding sexuality as healthy and normal, including nudity not always being sexual.

Private versus public
In thinking about nudity, an important dimension of culture is private-public and the behavior that is normal within each space. In some cultures private means being entirely alone, defining personal space. In other cultures, privacy includes family and selected others; intimate space. Being in public includes potentially anyone as with parks, sidewalks, and roads. Some public spaces are limited to paying customers as with cafés or supermarkets. The meaning of public space changed as cities grew. Between private and public there may be other distinctions that limit access such as age, sex, membership, which define social spaces, each with expectations of shared norms being followed.

In the absence of visual barriers, privacy is maintained by social distance, as when being examined for medical purposes or receiving a massage. Violation of boundaries between doctors and patients is a serious breach of medical ethics. Between social equals, privacy is maintained by civil inattention, allowing others to maintain their personal space by only glancing, not looking directly, as in a crowded elevator. Civil inattention also maintains the non-sexual nature of semi-public situations in which relative or complete nakedness is necessary, such as communal bathing or changing clothes. Such activities are regulated by participants negotiating behaviors that avoid sexualization. A particular example is open water swimming in the United Kingdom, which by necessity means changing outdoors in mixed gender groups with minimal or no privacy. As a participant stated, "Open water swimming and nudity go hand in hand...People don't necessarily talk about it, but just know if you join a swimming club it's likely you will see far more genitalia than you were perhaps expecting." In the 21st century, many situations have become sexualized by media portrayals of any nudity as a prelude to sex.

Sexual and non-sexual nudity
The social context defines the cultural meaning of nudity that may range from the sacred to the profane. There are activities where freedom of movement is promoted by full or partial nudity. The nudity of the ancient Olympics was part of a religious practice. Athletic activities are also appreciated for the beauty of bodies in motion (as in dance), but in the post-modern media athletic bodies are often taken out of context to become purely sexual, perhaps pornographic.

The sexual nature of nudity is defined by the gaze of others. Studies of naturism find that its practitioners adopt behaviours and norms that suppress the sexual responses while practicing social nudity. Such norms include refraining from staring, touching, or otherwise calling attention to the body while naked. However, some naturists do not maintain this non-sexual atmosphere, as when nudist resorts host sexually oriented events.

Concepts of privacy
Societies in continental Europe think of privacy as protecting a right to respect and personal dignity. Europeans maintain their dignity, even naked where others may see them, including sunbathing in urban parks. In Amsterdam, people are not shy about being naked in their homes, and do not use shades to prevent being seen from outside. In America, the right to privacy is oriented toward values of liberty, especially in one's home. Americans see nakedness where others may see as surrendering "any reasonable expectation of privacy". Such cultural differences may make some laws and behaviors of other societies seem incomprehensible, since each culture assumes that their own concepts of privacy are intuitive, and thus human universals.

High and low context cultures
The concepts of high-context and low-context cultures were introduced by anthropologist Edward T. Hall. The behaviours and norms of a high context culture depend upon shared implicit norms that operate within a social situation, while in a low context culture behaviour is more dependent upon explicit communications. An example of this distinction was found in research on the behavior of French and German naturists on a nude beach. Germans, who are extremely low in cultural context, maintain public propriety on a nude beach by not wearing adornments, avoiding touching themselves and others, and any other behaviors that would call attention to the body. By contrast, the French, in their personal lives, are relatively high context: they interact within closely knit groups, they are sensitive to nonverbal cues, and they engage in relatively high amounts of body contact. French naturists were more likely than Germans to wear make-up and jewelry and to touch others as they would while dressed.

Private nudity
In the early 20th century, the attitudes of the general public toward the human body reflected rising consumerism, concerns regarding health and fitness, and changes in clothing fashions that sexualized the body. However, members of English families report that in the 1920s to 1940s they never saw other family members undressed, including those of the same gender. Modesty continued to prevail between married couples, even during sex. In the United States, a third of women born before 1900 remained clothed during sex, while it was only eight percent for those born in the 1920s.

Individuals vary in their comfort with being nude in private. According to a 2004 U.S. survey by ABC News, 31 percent of men and 14 percent of women report sleeping in the nude. In a 2014 survey in the U.K., 42 percent responded that they felt comfortable naked and 50 percent responded they did not. In that same survey, 22 percent said they often walk around the house naked, 29 percent slept in the nude, and 27 percent had gone swimming nude. In a 2018 U.S. survey by USA Today, 58 percent reported that they slept in the nude; by generation 65 percent of millennials, and 39 percent of baby boomers.

Body image and emotions
Body image is the perceptions and feelings of a person regarding their own body's appearance, which effects self-esteem and life satisfaction. There is evidence that the majority of women and girls in western societies have a negative body image, mainly regarding their size and weight. The sociocultural model of body image emphasizes the role of cultural ideals in the formation of an individual's body image. American ideals for women are unrealistic based upon a comparison of a healthy body mass index (BMI) with the desired BMI, which is 15 percent lower. Cultural ideals are transmitted by parents, peers, and the media. Men and boys are increasingly concerned with their appearance, wanting to be more muscular.

In non-western cultures, body image has a different meaning, particularly in sociocentric societies in which people think of themselves as part of a group, not as individuals. In addition, where food insecurity and disease is a danger, a person growing thinner is viewed as unhealthy; a more robust body is the ideal. The evolutionary perspective is that for women, hip-to-waist ratio with emphasis on the hips and a more curvaceous body is the ideal around the world, while for men it is waist-to-chest ratio. However, westernization of cultures has resulted in an increase in body dissatisfaction worldwide.

Shame is one of the moral emotions often associated with nudity. Shame may be thought of as positive in response to a failure to act in accordance with moral values, thus motivating improvement in the future. However, shame is often negative as the response to perceived failures to live up to unrealistic expectations. The shame regarding nudity is one of the exemplars of the emotion, yet rather than being a positive motivator, it is considered unhealthy. The universality of bodily shame is not supported by anthropological studies, which do not find the use of clothing to cover the genital areas in all societies, but often find the use of adornments to call attention to the sexuality.

Others argue that the shame felt when naked in public is due to valuing modesty and privacy as socially positive. However, the response to public exposure of normally private behavior is embarrassment, rather than shame. The absence of shame, or any other negative emotions regarding being naked, depends upon becoming unselfconscious while nude, which is the state both of children and those that practice naturism. This state is more difficult for women given the social presumption that women's bodies are always being observed and judged not only by men but other women. In a naturist environment, because everyone is naked, it becomes possible to dilute the power of social judgements.

Naturists have long promoted the benefits of social nudity, but little research had been done, reflecting the generally negative assumptions surrounding public nudity. Recent studies indicate not only that social nudity promotes a positive body image, but that nudity-based interventions are helpful for those with a negative body image. A negative body image affects overall self-esteem, which in turn reduces life satisfaction. Psychologist Keon West of Goldsmiths, University of London found that nude social interaction reduced body anxiety and promoted well-being.

Semi-public nudity
Historically, certain facilities associated with activities that require partial or complete nakedness, such as bathing or changing clothes, have limited access to certain members of the public. These normal activities are guided by generally accepted norms, the first of which is that the facilities are most often segregated by gender; however, this may not be the case in all cultures. Discomfort with nudity has two components, not wanting to see others naked, and not wanting to be seen by others while naked.

In Islamic countries, women may not use public baths, and men must wear a waist wrapper. In some traditional cultures and rural areas modern practices are limited by the belief that only the exposed parts of the body (hands, feet, face) need to be washed daily; and also by Christian and Muslim belief that the naked body is shameful and must always be covered.

Many cultures have a tradition going back to prehistory of communal use of hot water or steam/sweat baths which are usually nude, sometimes with mixed genders.

Using birch branches in a Finnish sauna, 1967
The sauna is attended nude in its source country of Finland, where many families have one in their home, and is one of the defining characteristics of Finnish identity. For Finns, going to a sauna is a ritual with cultural meanings regarding cleanliness, connections to nature, and connection to other people without public roles or sexuality. Saunas have been adopted worldwide, first in Scandinavian and German-speaking countries of Europe, with the trend in some of these being to allow both genders to bathe together nude. For example, the Friedrichsbad in Baden-Baden has designated times when mixed nude bathing is permitted. The German sauna culture also became popular in neighbouring countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In contrast to Scandinavia, public sauna facilities in these countries—while nude—do not usually segregate genders.

The sauna came to the United States in the 19th century when Finns settled in western territories, building family saunas on their farms. When community saunas were built in the 20th century, they eventually included separate steam rooms for men and women.

Korean spas have opened in the United States, also gender separated in areas with nudity. In addition to the health benefits, a woman wrote in Psychology Today suggesting the social benefits for women and girls having real life experience of seeing the variety of real female bodies—even more naked than at a beach—as a counterbalance to the unrealistic nudity seen in popular media.

Changing rooms and showers
The men's locker room—which in Western cultures had been a setting for open male social nudity—is, in the 21st century United States, becoming a space of modesty and distancing between men. For much of the 20th century, the norm in locker rooms had been for men to undress completely without embarrassment. That norm has changed; in the 21st century, men typically wear towels or other garments in the locker room most of the time and avoid any interaction with others while naked. This shift is the result of changes in social norms regarding masculinity and how maleness is publicly expressed; also, open male nudity has become associated with homosexuality. In facilities such as the YMCA that cater to multiple generations, the young are uncomfortable sharing space with older people who do not cover up. The behaviour in women's locker rooms and showers also indicates a generational change, younger women covering more, and full nudity being brief and rare, while older women are more open and casual.

In the 21st century, some high-end New York City gyms were redesigned to cater to millennials who want to shower without ever being seen naked. The trend for privacy is being extended to public schools, colleges and community facilities replacing "gang showers" and open locker rooms with individual stalls and changing rooms. The change also addresses issues of transgender usage and family use when one parent accompanies children of differing gender.

Arts-related activities
Distinct from the nude artworks created, sessions where artists work from live models are a social situation where nudity has a long tradition. The role of the model both as part of visual art education and in the creation of finished works has evolved since antiquity in Western societies and worldwide wherever western cultural practices in the visual arts have been adopted. At modern universities, art schools, and community groups art model is a job, one requirement of which is to pose "undraped". Some have investigated the benefits of arts education including drawing nudes from life as an opportunity to satisfy youthful curiosity regarding the human body in a non-sexual context.

[image/video - please log in to see this content]

 
Post Comment