How Naked Would You Get to Get Attention? The real factors at play in public exhibitionism
Everyone seeks recognition, to a certain extent, but some do so more than others. The recognition you seek may range from positive regard by others for your accomplishments to a desire to contribute to the beauty of the places around you. For others, the desire for attention becomes focused on appearance. In a time when social media makes it possible to be seen by literally millions of people who you don’t even know, that need for recognition may be taking on epidemic proportions. However, there’s also the recognition you get for the way you look by those in your physical presence, whose reactions you can readily see and hear.
The desire for recognition almost certainly is behind the choices people make in their clothing. I work on a college campus, and as a result, am presented constantly with the various stages of dress (and undress) of thousands of undergraduates. A disturbing trend I’ve been noting is the new “dress code” that students, primarily female, adopt for their everyday wear. Although I’m not around very often after dark, I’ve seen plenty of their daytime attire to become concerned. Regardless of how cold the temperature is in the winter time, the average young woman wears a short jacket (or parka) on top and tights on the bottom. The tights, some of which may qualify as yoga pants, vary in degrees of opaqueness from thick and dense to thin and practically see-through. As the temperature warms up, the young women swap the tights for the shortest shorts imaginable, thereby producing a similar effect on the intended audience. What goes on above the waist is often remarkably similar, with even the brightest and most studious undergraduate women wearing plunging necklines in their low-cut tank tops or camisoles. For men, in contrast, the dress code is to hide as much as possible under baggy sweat pants or basketball shorts which reveal practically nothing about their underlying anatomy.
When this trend first became evident, I felt embarrassed for these young women, thinking that they must surely have no idea that by dressing this way, they’re communicating certain messages to the world at large. If someone told them what those messages were, they would surely put on another layer of cover-ups. Now, however, I think that the young women who dress this way (and not everyone does) do so because they want to be noticed and have their bodies admired. It’s as if Facebook exhibitionism has moved into real life interactions, and the further they go to reveal themselves, the more exciting and rewarding it becomes to them. They want those sweat pant clad men to stare at them.
Everyone wears clothes, obviously, to have some sort of visual effect. If not, we would spend all day, every day, wearing various layers of terry cloth or flannel. There’s no true need for men in the business world to wear suits and women similarly to don the corporate uniform. Just throw on whatever is most comfortable. The fact that we don’t behave this way suggests that we are all seeking some sort of effect on others when we get dressed to go out of the house.
Clothes do serve the purpose of covering up the naked body. However, as is clear from the various clothing choices that people make to cover up their bodies (or not), this is not necessarily a desirable outcome for everyone.
Going even further, people who engage in “mediated exhibitionism” seek deliberately to expose their naked bodies on the Internet or in other forms of social media. According to Temple University’s Matthew Jones (2010), there is a difference between nude “theatricality,” where people display their bodies in burlesque shows, and amateur nude performances in public contexts, such as when women go topless in Mardi Gras parades, or college students skinny-dip while on Spring Break
Social norms clearly play an important role in governing whether people take their clothes off publicly or not, then. People who take their clothes off in socially acceptable places, such as that Mardi Gras parade or Mexican beach, are acting at the edges of society’s norms about clothing. As they move further and further away from these situations, including the Internet, they enter the world of “liminal spaces,” which are zones of social interaction in which people can test and experiment with social norms.
When people enter these liminal zones, according to Jones, they may be doing so as the result of deliberate manipulation by the media and other commercial interests. Marketers know they can make money from certain nude performances, and so they legitimize them. Just walk through a Victoria’s Secret store, where videos of lace-clad models play in a continuous loop as consumers wait in line to check out. Promoting the youthful, ideal, and fit body, the media also support the commercial industries that offer corrective action, such as the fitness, diet, and cosmetics marketers. “Thus, social forums that are permissive of public nudity often circumscribe it to approved body types and, in so doing, transform the naked body into an unnatural costume” (p. 256).
Women clearly are more often the targets of marketing attempts to encourage nude displays. The objectification of the female body is widely understood to drive print and media nude or seminude portrayals. Even when amateur nude performances went from live to videotaped events, it was women who were the main focus. Countering this obsession with the youthful naked body are websites devoted to portrayal of naked bodies that don't fit that mold. Websites are proliferating with segments dedicated to particular age and body types such as “MILF’s” (Mothers I’d Like to F) and “BBW’s” (Big Beautiful Women).
Jones doesn’t seem very optimistic about the future of nude postings on the Internet, believing that commercial interests are increasingly taking over the regulation of our sexual expression. On the positive side, though, as amateur online content serves an increasingly diverse audience, this may provide a “grassroots aesthetic” (p. 268) allowing people to feel better about their naked bodies even if these do not conform to the narrowly defined idealized body of the past.
We don’t need, then, to seek explanations of public displays of nudity or near nudity in terms of individual propensities to be exhibitionists. People motivated to conform to what is considered fashionable will wear those revealing tights if they’re women but baggy pants if they’re men.
In answer to the question of “How naked would you get?,” the answer seems to be “as naked as everyone else,” or maybe a little more if you want to be fashion forward. Before you step out the door and leave your private for public spaces, you may want to ask yourself whether you are dressing in a way that fulfills your own desire for self-expression or that of social forces regulating that expression.
Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2016
The desire for recognition almost certainly is behind the choices people make in their clothing. I work on a college campus, and as a result, am presented constantly with the various stages of dress (and undress) of thousands of undergraduates. A disturbing trend I’ve been noting is the new “dress code” that students, primarily female, adopt for their everyday wear. Although I’m not around very often after dark, I’ve seen plenty of their daytime attire to become concerned. Regardless of how cold the temperature is in the winter time, the average young woman wears a short jacket (or parka) on top and tights on the bottom. The tights, some of which may qualify as yoga pants, vary in degrees of opaqueness from thick and dense to thin and practically see-through. As the temperature warms up, the young women swap the tights for the shortest shorts imaginable, thereby producing a similar effect on the intended audience. What goes on above the waist is often remarkably similar, with even the brightest and most studious undergraduate women wearing plunging necklines in their low-cut tank tops or camisoles. For men, in contrast, the dress code is to hide as much as possible under baggy sweat pants or basketball shorts which reveal practically nothing about their underlying anatomy.
When this trend first became evident, I felt embarrassed for these young women, thinking that they must surely have no idea that by dressing this way, they’re communicating certain messages to the world at large. If someone told them what those messages were, they would surely put on another layer of cover-ups. Now, however, I think that the young women who dress this way (and not everyone does) do so because they want to be noticed and have their bodies admired. It’s as if Facebook exhibitionism has moved into real life interactions, and the further they go to reveal themselves, the more exciting and rewarding it becomes to them. They want those sweat pant clad men to stare at them.
Everyone wears clothes, obviously, to have some sort of visual effect. If not, we would spend all day, every day, wearing various layers of terry cloth or flannel. There’s no true need for men in the business world to wear suits and women similarly to don the corporate uniform. Just throw on whatever is most comfortable. The fact that we don’t behave this way suggests that we are all seeking some sort of effect on others when we get dressed to go out of the house.
Clothes do serve the purpose of covering up the naked body. However, as is clear from the various clothing choices that people make to cover up their bodies (or not), this is not necessarily a desirable outcome for everyone.
Going even further, people who engage in “mediated exhibitionism” seek deliberately to expose their naked bodies on the Internet or in other forms of social media. According to Temple University’s Matthew Jones (2010), there is a difference between nude “theatricality,” where people display their bodies in burlesque shows, and amateur nude performances in public contexts, such as when women go topless in Mardi Gras parades, or college students skinny-dip while on Spring Break
Social norms clearly play an important role in governing whether people take their clothes off publicly or not, then. People who take their clothes off in socially acceptable places, such as that Mardi Gras parade or Mexican beach, are acting at the edges of society’s norms about clothing. As they move further and further away from these situations, including the Internet, they enter the world of “liminal spaces,” which are zones of social interaction in which people can test and experiment with social norms.
When people enter these liminal zones, according to Jones, they may be doing so as the result of deliberate manipulation by the media and other commercial interests. Marketers know they can make money from certain nude performances, and so they legitimize them. Just walk through a Victoria’s Secret store, where videos of lace-clad models play in a continuous loop as consumers wait in line to check out. Promoting the youthful, ideal, and fit body, the media also support the commercial industries that offer corrective action, such as the fitness, diet, and cosmetics marketers. “Thus, social forums that are permissive of public nudity often circumscribe it to approved body types and, in so doing, transform the naked body into an unnatural costume” (p. 256).
Women clearly are more often the targets of marketing attempts to encourage nude displays. The objectification of the female body is widely understood to drive print and media nude or seminude portrayals. Even when amateur nude performances went from live to videotaped events, it was women who were the main focus. Countering this obsession with the youthful naked body are websites devoted to portrayal of naked bodies that don't fit that mold. Websites are proliferating with segments dedicated to particular age and body types such as “MILF’s” (Mothers I’d Like to F) and “BBW’s” (Big Beautiful Women).
Jones doesn’t seem very optimistic about the future of nude postings on the Internet, believing that commercial interests are increasingly taking over the regulation of our sexual expression. On the positive side, though, as amateur online content serves an increasingly diverse audience, this may provide a “grassroots aesthetic” (p. 268) allowing people to feel better about their naked bodies even if these do not conform to the narrowly defined idealized body of the past.
We don’t need, then, to seek explanations of public displays of nudity or near nudity in terms of individual propensities to be exhibitionists. People motivated to conform to what is considered fashionable will wear those revealing tights if they’re women but baggy pants if they’re men.
In answer to the question of “How naked would you get?,” the answer seems to be “as naked as everyone else,” or maybe a little more if you want to be fashion forward. Before you step out the door and leave your private for public spaces, you may want to ask yourself whether you are dressing in a way that fulfills your own desire for self-expression or that of social forces regulating that expression.
Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2016
