Nudity: the anatomy of our feelings

We have always had a difficult relationship with nudity: it is a sensitive point where our biological, social and individual origins converge. Biological dictates the natural need to take off your clothes when it’s hot and put them back on when it’s cold. But nudity in many cases seems socially unacceptable, defiant; religions – regardless of confession – consider it sinful. At the same time, it is idealized, almost deified by art. From these contradictions and individual experiences, including parental upbringing and our own relationship with the body, our perception of nudity – our own or someone else’s – is woven.

Stripped and naked

Nudity can inspire or overwhelm, shock or seduce. “It depends on the context, on the cultural setting of vision,” says culturologist Olga Vainshtein. – In one case, nudity is perceived as a violation of decorum, and in the other – as an object of art. English art historian Kenneth Clark (Kenneth Clark) formulated the difference between nakedness and nudity, (which in our language correspond in meaning to the concepts of “undressed” and “naked”). In the first case, this is a body that still retains traces of clothes, that is, undressed (whereas, in principle, it should be dressed). This is nakedness, implying a violation of social conventions. And in the second, it is nakedness without the seal of clothes, without the seal of sin. It is self-sufficient – like the nakedness of ancient statues.

These representations reflect the idea of ​​the dualism of the divine and the earthly, the pure and the sinful. On the one hand, our civilization has its roots in antiquity: beautiful body shapes have been sung for centuries, from the athletic proportions of men in ancient Greek sculptures to the idealized female body in Renaissance art. On the other hand, we have inherited Christian ideas about the sinfulness, “indecency” of the body. Therefore, the attitude towards the body is always burdened by the contradictions existing in our minds between the ideal and the real. We mentally compare ourselves with the object of art as a standard and recognize our real body as unsuitable for demonstration to others, unworthy.

“Being ashamed of one’s own body, not opening it is one of the methods of society aimed at keeping our biological, animal nature in check,” says social psychologist Yulia Zudina. – Previously, this control was carried out with the help of religion. But let’s take a modern, often discussed problem: the ideal bodies of models cause psychological discomfort in relation to their bodies in ordinary average women. Paradoxically, the same mechanism operates here: mass culture imposes restrictions on our consciousness, making us feel awkward, ashamed of our own body, thus demonstrating the dominance of the social over the biological. In this sense, mass culture has taken the place of religion, the dogmas of which no longer affect a person in the same way as before.

From Adam and Eve

Let us recall the Old Testament legend about the expulsion from paradise: having eaten from the tree of knowledge, the first people received their sight and saw that they were naked. Almost simultaneously with the realization of their nakedness (that is, sinfulness), they invented clothes for themselves – fig leaves. “By interpreting this biblical story, we can see a picture of the development of the human personality,” Yulia Zudina comments. — Staying in the edema of the mother’s womb, a person is in complete, serene merging with the world around him. Being “expelled” from this paradise, he feels the environment as hostile, opposed to him. And as he realizes his own “I”, he feels the need to separate himself from the world, to define the boundaries of himself with the help of a physical barrier – clothing.

The Old Testament history assimilated by Christianity gave rise to the “modesty theory” that dominated our culture for centuries. “In the history of culture, it existed under the guise of a “decency theory,” says Olga Vainshtein. – It was decent to completely hide your body under clothes, while the passion for some of its decorative properties was considered a sin of vanity, frailty. However, clothing is not always conducive to modesty, since even a completely closed body excites desires, awakening the erotic imagination. Therefore, despite the fact that female attractiveness was surrounded by all sorts of prohibitions, fashion has always developed in accordance with its own logic and left enough space for eroticism through the play of forms.

beach demonstrations

The strange thing is a bikini: some 30 square centimeters of fabric can make nudity acceptable. A swimsuit does not change the shape of our body, does not hide any real or imaginary flaws, but for some reason it radically changes both the attitude of others and our sense of self. “Here there are categories of decency laid down in us by upbringing, that is, by society,” says Yulia Zudina.

Once upon a time, a bathing suit completely covered the body and consisted of a special dress, pantaloons just below the knees, bathing stockings and boots made of soft leather. A hundred years ago, only the most daring bathers could afford to enter the water barefoot – so tough were the requirements of decency. With the advent of the industrial revolution, the swimsuit evolved quite quickly, turning from tight-fitting leotards to a semblance of a modern two-piece swimsuit and, finally, to the scandalous mini bikini. This shocking invention belonged to the House of Christian Dior in the person of Louis Reard, who in 1945 presented to the public a swimsuit made of several triangles and ribbons. It was doomed to produce the effect of an exploding bomb, so Rear named it “Bikini”, after the name of the atoll of the Marshall Islands, where the first nuclear tests were carried out. The new fashion was condemned by the church and banned in some Catholic countries – Spain, Italy. “Although bikinis quickly conquered the beaches of France, in the United States, conservative public morality for a long time did not allow this innovation to spread widely,” comments Olga Weinstein. “It wasn’t until the 60s, in the wake of hippieism, that bikinis made their way onto American beaches and became more or less acceptable in terms of decorum.” It is with hippieism and its calls to “let the body go free” that the spread of naturism (nudism) and the more socially acceptable “topless” is associated. The emergence of the monokini, a swimsuit consisting of only tiny panties, coincides with a new wave of feminism, when women asserted their right, on an equal basis with men, to expose their upper bodies in public places for recreation and bathing.

Return to Eden

With the onset of heat, entire colonies of nudists go to the water – they have already mastered the beaches of all inhabited continents. Sometimes on the usual “civilized” beach it happens to meet lovers of complete exposure. “It is such an indescribable, delightful feeling of freedom and dissolution in nature when you swim in the sea without clothes! – says 36-year-old Tatyana. – The contact of water and completely naked, open skin acts cleansing and fills with extraordinary energy. Anyone who has tried it at least once becomes a convinced nudist for many years. 29-year-old Julia absolutely agrees with her: “The very idea that you need to sunbathe and swim in some small synthetic rags seems completely absurd, unnatural. This in itself is unpleasant in the heat, and they still leave white, untanned spots on the body! Merging with nature, feeling like particles of the universe, feeling one with the outside world – this is how naturists describe their experiences, they are the ones they strive to experience again and again. This is a return to a once lost paradise. “In this way, a person is freed from the control of society,” says Yulia Zudina. – His prohibitions constantly affect our nature, and very stressful. Getting rid of clothes, we destroy a kind of thin film that separates our being from the outside world. Immersion in the bosom of mother nature, feeling a complete merger with the environment, is like returning to the serenity of the mother’s womb. At the same time, flirting and promiscuous sex among naturists are no more common than in any other. Or maybe even less often: a completely naked body does not contain intrigue, does not stir up sexual interest.

Man and woman

Female and male nudity is perceived differently by us. According to sexologist Igor Kon, this is partly due to anatomy: the female genitalia are hidden in the depths of the body, while the male genitalia, in contrast, are outside and immediately attract attention. Therefore, male nudity seems more immodest than female, its demonstration and depiction always violates some cultural taboos and causes embarrassment. The frontal image of a naked man in the eyes of censorship is precisely the critical point that separates erotica from pornography. “The demonstration of male genitalia, especially an erect penis, everywhere and everywhere was not so much an erotic gesture as a gesture of aggression and defiance,” comments Igor Kon. – In all societies where power belonged to men, the images of the male and female bodies are polar, and their anatomical features are symbols of gender stratification. They reflect cultural ideas about masculinity and femininity, with a man always acting as a subject, and a woman as an object. In works of fine art, the woman usually poses more or less passively, exposing her teasing nakedness to the appraising gaze of a potential male viewer. As the American writer John Berger said, men act, women show themselves. Men look at women. Women watch themselves while being looked at. This determines not only the relationship between men and women, but also the attitude of women towards themselves. Therefore, worries about how her body looks without clothes are much more characteristic of a woman than a man. She constantly evaluates herself, because traditionally a man chose a companion based on her bodily virtues. A man is more or less indifferent to his bodily virtues, with the exception of one – which is usually called “male”. According to Yulia Zudina, “a man has at least two good reasons to hide his body under clothes: the physical vulnerability of his anatomy and social clichés that make him constantly worry.” The vitality of these clichés reflects the euphemism “male dignity”. Although, it would seem, how can the size and shape of the penis be related to the dignity of a person?