# Naked Tribes and Sexual Arousal **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 23, 2000, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990 "2000-12-23T12:06:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2000, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/21 "2000-12-29T14:13:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by plnnr \* > I have a theory that I call “The Christmas Present Phenomenon.” One reason that lingerie and sexy clothing work to arrouse us is the idea of what’s hidden under the wrapping. Sure, a woman in beautiful lingerie is exciting, but its taking the lingerie off (unwrapping the present)that adds so much to the experience. Anticipation and imagination is also part of it. Many a year ago, I worked as a pool repairman. One day my partner and I went to a house to fix da pool. On the way around the house, we ran into the 17-y.o.'ish daughter, who was wearing a towel. Waaaaay hot. We talked for a bit, then we went on to the pool and she went back to her sunbathing. She removed her towel to reveal a teeny tiny bikini. Nowhere near as hot as the towel. I tell this story to men, they get it immediately. Most of the women I tell this story to don’t get it at all. Sua ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2000, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/22 "2000-12-29T16:23:31Z")
I sort of talked about this before when mentioning the flick THE NAKED PREY. ishmintingas, give me one example of how they would be able to show bare assed naked people to you in US print or TV. Thats one reason you see them wearing something. duh. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2000, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/23 "2000-12-29T18:24:26Z")
How cooperative of the natives. “We’re going to try and show this documentary in the US, so would you be so kind as to cover up your naughty bits.” Please. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2000, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/24 "2000-12-30T06:38:14Z")
> [@](#): > > ishmintingas, give me one example of how they would be able to show bare assed naked people to you in US print or TV. I don’t understand your question – nor am I sure what you mean by “US print”–newspapers? magazines? books? I read about the Amazonian vaginal crack-enhancing string in books on anthropology I found in a university library, books published by academic presses. There were drawings of the string, photos of women wearing it, and interviews with tribal men who lamented that women weren’t wearing the strings the way they used to. As for the film _The Emerald Forest_, that was a theatrical release and I saw it on rented video. Since many cable channels these days show total nudity, I don’t know what was the point of your post. Anyway, there are very few nude tribes left in the world, none at all outside Amazonia. Modernization has resulted in most of them wearing the castoff rags of the scum of civilization instead of the proud dignity of their naked skin. Aggressive governments in Sudan, greedy land grabbers and prospectors in Amazonia have been destroying their habitat & traditional way of life and committing genocide. Reducing them from a people in harmony with their natural environment and skilled in the lore of plants and animals to merely the lowest despised rung on the scale of our fucked-up modern civilization, fit only for rags and menial labor, alcoholism and prostitution instead of their unique intimate knowledge of their fast-disappearing environment. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2000, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/25 "2000-12-30T16:14:46Z")
ishmintingas, there was a time, probably 70’s when they would show completely naked natives on tv, films & magazines, but not naked white people. ---
**Author:** ![Wyvern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ebca7d/32.png) [@Wyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2000, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/26 "2000-12-30T16:53:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Sheepshead \* > \*\*The good Doctor’s quote is bothering me. I mean, I would think that whenever you see the genetalia of whatever sex you happen to be attracted to, your body would naturally react in an “oh boy, you know what I can do with _that_!” sort of way. And anyway married people have seen each other naked repeatedly yet most continue to be stimulated by each other’s nudity, right? \*\* O.K., I have been married for about six months and lived with my now-husband for over a year before that. In our case, we go around naked a lot when getting ready for work, or just hanging around the house (with the drapes closed, of course). The only time these situation have become sexy is if one of us says something about it or makes a proposition. Maybe this is what groups of naked or semi-nude people do? It not the exposed skin that causes arousal, but suggestions and erotic talk that gets them going. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2000, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/27 "2000-12-30T18:23:26Z")
There are a couple pictures of women wearing the genital string belt published in the article “Brazil’s Waurá Indians”, _National Geographic_, January 1966, p. 142-143. I think there were a few other _National Geographic_ articles in the 1960s that showed it too. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2000, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/28 "2000-12-31T01:19:20Z")
> [@](#): > > ishmintingas, give me one example of how they would be able to show bare assed naked people to you in US print or TV ishmintingas was correct in his reply. While you won’t see totally naked people on CBS or any of the other major networks (With a notable exception . . . when \* Schindler’s List \* was aired unedited) you can see plenty of nekkid folks on PBS when they run documentaries on other cultures. TLC and Dicovery Channel often run documentaries on the human body in which they show nudity, as well as The History Channel’s documentary \* History Of Sex. \* The list could go on and on. Print media is also not shy about nudity. \* National Geographic \* comes to mind as a primary example. It also depends on your definition of nudity. The television program \* ER \* had a bit of flack a few years ago when it showed a young woman’s naked breasts. Their arguement was that the nudity was not salacious (the young woman had just had surgery to remove a cancerous lum, IIRC) and the furor died down rather quickly. \* NYPD Blue \* showed a man’s nude buttocks on a few occasions as well. As a further comment on naked people/sexual arousal: Opinions on what is erotic varies greatly throughout cultures and time. In the Victorian era of extreme prudery, the sight of a woman’s exposed ankle was enough to get men hot and bothered because women wore long, concealing dresses, and a lady could only show the tips of her shoes. It’s the RESTRICTION of nudity which makes it erotic. It’s, in a way, the forbidden fruit. I’m sure a man from a Muslim country where women are concealed head-to-toe, and had never been exposed to Western culture and modes of dress, would consider an exposed face, or arm, or hell, even a shoulder to be erotic, simply because it isn’t what he’s used to seeing. While in Amazonia, a guy sees a woman’s breasts every day, to the point where they become as “natural” a part of her as her face, and are no more erotic than seeing the back of a woman’s hand. Just as a sort of example: In \* Memoirs of a Geisha \* (which is one of the more accurate portrayals of the geisha world, I’ve read) one of the geisha explains that the point of the white makeup is to make men more aware of the naked skin beneath. The geisha would leave a tiny margin of skin around the painted mask to exaggerate the effect. So covering what is common to us, the naked skin of the face, actually made the common erotic. ---
**Author:** ![ShakeNBake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e7dd6/32.png) [@ShakeNBake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShakeNBake)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2000, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/29 "2000-12-31T06:58:32Z")
If you’ve ever been around these tribes, as I have, you quickly see that only the youngest breasts are arousing. They don’t wait long for the first child, and the breast break down quickly at that point. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2001, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/30 "2001-01-02T01:17:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ShakeNBake \* > \*\*If you’ve ever been around these tribes, as I have, you quickly see that only the youngest breasts are arousing. > They don’t wait long for the first child, and the breast break down quickly at that point. \*\* I disagree thoroughly, sorry. My lover’s 40, and has fairly large breasts. They began heading south before she was 20. ( And, before both kids ) Personally ( and, arousal is purely a personal thing) I find them wildly arousing- because they’re attached to her, AND because they’re sexy 😃 Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2001, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/31 "2001-01-02T01:48:01Z")
**Lissa** , you’re right about erotic zones of the body being culturally defined. There was an interesting Tamil film from South India, _Rosappu Ravikkaikari_ (1979). Set in the 1920s, it told a story set in a village where the traditional way of life had not changed for thousands of years. The women wore saris with no blouse underneath. Sometimes the sari would shift and expose a bare breast, but no one minded as that was thought normal. Then one day a young villager marries a wife from the big city and she comes to live in the village. She wears a blouse and a petticoat under her sari, and the villagers think something must be wrong with her. They assume she’s a loose woman because she wears these extra adornments instead of the plain simple sari. One village woman gets ideas: she tries wearing a blouse and goes for a walk. Some guys ambush her and attempt to rape her because they thought she was asking for it with this alluring new fashion. So in old-fashioned South India, wearing _more_ clothing, covering the breasts, was considered immoral. Wearing _less_ clothing with occasional breast exposure was the sign of being morally upright and decent. Recall from the Bible, when Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar planned a stratagem to seduce him and get with child by him. She disguised herself as an harlot. How? She wore one of those all-enveloping Middle Eastern veils, like a chador, covering even her face. > [@](#): > > And she put her widow’s garments off from her, and covered her with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which is by the way to Timnath; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife. > > When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot; because she had covered her face. > > And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter in law). (Genesis 38:14-16) The harlots of that time wore _more_ clothing instead of less, to appear sexy. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2001, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990/32 "2001-01-04T03:09:51Z")
Today I found one answer to the OP: “The source of energy that triggers sexual arousal varies from culture to culture. Because we are so accustomed to clothing, our sexual arousal is triggered by its removal. Since Aborigines wear no clothing, they define the cause of sexual arousal differently. For the Aborigines, subtle qualities of atmosphere and natural elements are considered the hidden hand of beings who triggered their sexual appetites. A gentle wind wafting through the pubic hair of a young girl is seen as a natural spirit force inducing the current of erotic energies to flow.” –Robert Lawlor, _Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime_, p. 209-211. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naked-tribes-and-sexual-arousal/46990.md?page=1)