Again, it’s missing the point, just as surely as I’d be missing the point if I opined that seeing women on a construction site made me realize women look better in dresses.
Some of the Turkish baths in Budapest were nude and sex-segregated or “men-” or “women-only”, so, yes, I’ve many times been to those. I don’t think I’ve been to one where all genders were naked in the same place at the same time. I have been on a nude beach in Slovenia, that’s the closest I got. That one was a little nerve-wracking, at first, as there were a lot of very good looking people out there. It wasn’t the stereotype of a bunch of saggy and droopy middle-aged folk.
If you keep it entirely to yourself, then you’re not shaming anybody.
If you don’t keep it entirely to yourself, then yes you are.
“Your body should be kept covered up so it’s out of my view because your body, unlike some others, is ugly” is definitely body shaming. And not naming anybody in particular, but just stating in general terms that some people should hide themselves from view, only leaves everyone or nearly everyone in your audience thinking that maybe or probably you mean them.
“I don’t want to see anybody naked” maybe isn’t; at least as long as it doesn’t turn into “therefore nobody should ever go naked anywhere”. And even the latter can be a religious issue, which if applied in general isn’t body shaming, though it may cause other problems.
“I don’t want to see anybdy naked because all humans are ugly” is, IMO, a form of body shaming, though at least an equalitarian form. But it does carry a strong tone of “there is something wrong with human bodies”; which is a lot of the problem with body shaming.
@thorny_locust, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Yeah, that’s an excellent exposition, @thorny_locust
Thanks, both of you!
I hiked into and up a mountain to a natural hot spring abiut 25 years ago, I think near Olympia, WA? It was in a public park, maybe a National Forest, late at night in winter but it was skinny dipping when we got there. There were a few other parties there before us who had some candles set up and it turned out to be quite a memorable setting: silence, steam rising, snow falling, flames flickering, trees looming. Sulphur smell, lots. But naked bathing/swimming in hot water with strangers and possible (risky) public exposure, yes.
When I started frequenting nude beaches as a teen I felt that way, but what kept me coming back was the realization that it wasn’t so - my acceptance of clothing as “normal” was really just a conditioned expectation (albeit a rather profound one).
Also and separately, to this day, I find clothing vastly more sexualizing than nudity. At the nude beach I found that I noticed people’s faces much more prominently than I did in clothed settings.
However, life has taught me that there is no way to convey these aspects of nudity to folks who haven’t had the opportunity to spend some time without clothing. Sigh.
Olympic Hot Springs, maybe? I loved that place in the nineties.
While it depends on the clothing – quite a lot of clothing appears to me to be designed to call attention to what it’s covering. I find it interesting that places that won’t allow naked swimming will often allow bathing suits that amount to bright colored arrows pointing at the genitals.
I’ve seen an argument that the entire idea of clothing, at least in situations where it’s not preventing freezing to death, is to increase arousal by associating the covered areas with sex.
Hmm, i live in a place that’s sometimes too cold, sometimes too sunny, sometimes too prickly, and sometimes too full of biting insects to want to walk outdoors naked. And i like pockets. That’s certainly one function of clothing, but i think it’s far from the only one.
Other than for protection from the elements, it’s probably the most compelling function. At least it is to me.
If you need pockets for a hot tub, have we got questions for you.
That must be it! The 2.5 mile hike sounds right and it was a short drive from the city. The pool we were in was maybe 10 or 12 feet across and the temperature was adjusted by moving a rock to allow hot water in from the adjacent seep. I fell off a fallen tree-bridge into a creek on the hike back and soaked my clothes.
The spring is accessed by using the Appleton Pass Trail which is about a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) relatively easy hike. In the past, one was able to drive and park at the trailhead. However, due to the removal of the Glines Canyon Dam and subsequent road washout, the road ends at the Madison Falls Trailhead and you must hike an additional 8 miles to the Appleton Pass trailhead.
Where else do you expect me to put my hands? I’m a bashful kinda guy.
There are certainly people who live mostly outdoors in varying situations who wear very little. And pockets started off as separate from clothing. So if we’re talking about origins of clothing, I doubt either of those were the cause.
I agree that they’re both major functions of modern clothing. Most of our skins aren’t hardened to going around unprotected; and pockets moved in at least some cases into the clothes quite a while ago.
That seems like a strawman–no one here at least has suggested anything like that. On the contrary; all the examples so far have been places that one could just not go to if they were offended or otherwise, and in some cases that’s exactly what happened. Yes, I’m sure there are some cretins out there that think the world should just accommodate them wherever they go, and absolutely no one should take these people seriously, but none of them appear to be in this thread.
Maybe isn’t? No, fuck that. It’s just an unequivocal no. No one gets to make demands on how other people think, no matter what the inner reasons are. Nor do they owe anyone an explanation. (And yes, I hope it goes without saying that they don’t get to make demands of others, either)
Most bodies have something wrong with them. Frankly, I wish more people could make the distinction between being wrong in a moral sense vs. being wrong in a medical or other objective sense. The fat positivity movement has done a great deal of damage, IMO. Yes, we should try to avoid shaming people or implying that they’re immoral or whatever. Nevertheless, it is in fact medically bad to be fat and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
Medically bad isn’t the same as aesthetically bad, though. I don’t think the reason people react badly to the fat is out of concern for their medical welfare, though they may justify themselves that way. Rather, it’s because our cultural definition of “beautiful” excludes it.
I’m quite happy with fat people, socially and aesthetically, and for anyone not in a relationship with me, I don’t have standing to voice concerns about their health. I can hold those positions knowing that it’s medically harmful. (I am really judgemental about smokers, though, with similar logic to yours, so there’s that.)
I am, too, but there are lots of things that are normal parts of aging, or at least, common and not medically concerning parts of aging, that i find aesthetically off-putting. Flaps of loose skin on the belly, spots, lumps, scars, things like that. I have plenty of my own, and of course i never comment on those features to any particular person. (unless it’s an alarming-looking spot. My cousin had an early-stage melanoma removed because so many of her friends commented on it. The dermatologist had told her it was fine. She had it removed purely for aesthetic reasons, but the routine pathology report found cancerous cells.)
There’s nothing shameful about being old. I have always been friendly with a number of old people, even when i was young. And of course, now that I’m old i continue to have old friends.
I think the point that people go to nude events for themselves, and not for others to admire their bodies, is the important one. There’s a nude event that a lot of my friends go to that many find emotionally supportive because of the acceptance of bodies with obvious flaws. (And yes, random bumps and scars are flaws, although relatively minor ones.) Which, i guess, does require others to be there and to look, actually. But it’s a different kind of looking, maybe?
yeah, a private hot tub in your backyard? very nice.
a public hot tub with a bunch of randos? no thanks!