Because mainstream society always associates nudity with sex, and of course sex is taboo. Obviously this is not always the case, anyone can enjoy being naked just for fun.
Also, mainstream society has a certain expectation of but the human body is supposed to look like, and that also causes many people to be ashamed of their bodies.
I grew up in the 60's in Canada and apart from the weather there wasn't any taboo against nudity and on the contrary it was expected and if you were not into it you were unusual. One school teacher showed the class nude holiday photos on the overhead projector without any concerns at all. Parents and families watched nude swimming meets at the YMCA and I wrestled with nude men as a teenager at the YMCA and thought nothing of it.
I grew up on Calgary. I then moved to Toronto. It seemed the same in both places. I have no recollection of anyone ever commenting negatively about nudity. All the change rooms were open with optional cubicles at school and swimming pools. It became legal to be nude in public not too long ago and pristitution is legal. It was only when I moved to England that I noticed a distinct difference in attitudes and a real hysteria about anything to do with nudity or sex. I recall that the Toronto hockey team were forced to allow women journalists into their locker room when they were all naked. I did think that was a bit much. I suppose in a big country, what is the point of having huge open empty spaces s d keeping your clothes on? It seemed pointless and counterintuitive.
Sadly, this was not the case at the Catholic boarding school I attended in the Province of Quebec. All books & reading matter were heavily censored. The only nudity we could see was in the art photos in the Larousse dictionary. Management brought in outside priests to preach that not only was masturbation a grave sin, it would inevitably cause gross birth defects in our children - and they had the photos to prove it. Of course we were terrified but fortunately that only lasted a few weeks.
Of course, management covered up the sexual abuse of its pupils by pedophile clergy that occurred over a fifty year period. With hundreds of victims in multiple institutions, the teaching order tried, unsuccessfully, to conceal its assets when it was successfully sued.
I didn't come across any of that in Calgary. My father had played rugby and told me how the players would take a communal bath after the game. He was naked around the house and would watch TV nude. On holidays he would skinny-dip and it was normal to change on the beach without even a towel to cover up. At school we had to shower in front of our classmates and there was nothing unusual about seeing kids running around in a play park naked. It just wasn't a big deal. I remember watching an interview with an exhibitionist on TV with my mum. He stripped naked as he talked with the interviewer. My mum took me to change in the ladies change room at the Banff hot springs and all the women changed in front of me. I was at my neighbour's house one evening as a child and two girls took their clothes off and played with each other and the boys just watched and enjoyed. That was outside in their car parked in the street. There was a man who used to stand in his front door all the time on the main road totally naked and no one complained. At university my housemate slept naked and always had his door open and I wouldn't dream of criticizing because it was just normal behaviour. My best friend stripped naked at his stag party along with another friend. My wife and I went to a friend's cottage along with others and we decided to get naked have sex on an island in front of their lakefront cottage in sight of everyone. I haven't heard that it has become any different. My university swimming pool now has a nude swim session. There is an annual naked bike ride and I keep up with a few social nudists who are nude around town, not in social hours of course. I'm not saying everyone is always nude, but if anything, things seem more liberal now than when I was there.
You were very fortunate. The R.C. Church had an iron grip on Quebec culture in the 1950’s, albeit a sometimes hypocritical one. I remember that prostitution was open in Montreal, with the girls waving at us from the upper floors of Ste Catherine Street houses as we drove by. Today, the priests have been booted out, the school I attended is now co-ed and no longer owned or operated by the Catholic teaching order. Back in the states, the Boy Scout camp at Baiting Hollow on Long Island, NY had a nude swim day which I just loved. Visiting parents were non plussed, for them I guess it might have been normal. But women could still get arrested for wearing a bikini on Ponquogue Beach in Suffolk County on the Atlantic Coast.
Now that I live in Florida, I discovered that back yard nudity can’t be prosecuted just about everywhere. However, it remains prohibited in many of our wilderness parks. In Pasco County, home to many nudist venues, nudity is NOT even mentioned in any local ordinance, which is a great step forward.
Personally, I support the right of sex workers to ply their trade, albeit taxed and regulated. Nude massage is now allowed by law only in Florida’s nudist resorts, which is kinda dumb when you think about it. It should be permitted and encouraged.
I look forward to the day when non-sexual nudity is a right sanctioned by law, and when clergy are not required to seek covert & predatory outlets for sex.
Textile authoritarianism is perhaps a hand me down from general gentrification: originally, the rich and powerful upperclass were the only ones to wear clothes. Then the textile industry reached a point where nearly everyone could afford clothes, and society has yet to mature past the parasocialization fueled celebrity/idol obsession cultism, where it is common to adopt a desire to mimick the behavior and possessions, the lifestyles, of the famous.
Perhaps someday, a nation will have it's first naturist sovereign (President, minister, whatever relevant leader title). Perhaps then we can start to grow past our self destructive defamation of the human form. Afterwards, we can work towards not using parasocialization to format our lives, towards not being a bunch of lemmings who endeavor to appropriate a norm set by the gentry, eagerly complicit in our gentrification.
In the meantime, as I often close with similar: we live in a scary world of needless textile authoritarianism, of immodestly excessive cloth and extremist enforcement thereof. It's *delightful* (read: sickening)
My eccentric mother raised me and my sister's nudist, i'm the only boy in the family. Ever since we were very, very young, she let us run around naked inside the house. She wanted the best for us and felt that this was the best way to raise us and I am glad she did. Whenever we had nonnudist family or friends over, she made us get dressed. I would wear a shirt and shorts, and my sisters would usually pull a sundress over their heads to cover up. Thankfully our extended family is either nudist, or at the very least, very tolerant to nudity. There was never a time that I was uncomfortable seeing my sisters or mother naked and vice versa even though I was the only boy in the family.
She was very adamant about us being naked whenever we could. She taught us that our bodies were nothing to be ashamed of, and therefore, we shouldn't cover them up for any reason. Our bodies or our privates were not obscene simply for existing. I should not be ashamed or embarrassed about having a penis and my sisters should not be ashamed of having breasts and a vagina. Basically, she had a no clothes policy inside the house, as soon as we got home from school we went to our rooms to undress and do homework. Afterwards, we would come down to socialize with each other in the nude. We loved showering together, and this was/is when we frequently socialized and discussed and talked how about our day. Thankfully we had large roman style bath where we could all fit and talk to each other, where we spent a lot of time together.
We would only put something on if we had to go outside in front of the house. Thankfully our backyard was private and secluded enough so we could run around naked back there. Obviously, this was only an issue when we were living in a non nudist community or resort. We loved going to nudist resorts, i fondly remember the first time that she took us to one. Running around naked in front of other people, and in wide open natural spaces was incredibly fun and exciting for us.
My mother always used to say and still does to this day:
Because mainstream society always associates nudity with sex, and of course sex is taboo. Obviously this is not always the case, anyone can enjoy being naked just for fun.
Also, mainstream society has a certain expectation of but the human body is supposed to look like, and that also causes many people to be ashamed of their bodies.
"Mainstream society" = "the religion of consumerism". An orchestrated religion funded by [those who know better] to sell our bodies back to us.
I grew up in the 60's in Canada and apart from the weather there wasn't any taboo against nudity and on the contrary it was expected and if you were not into it you were unusual. One school teacher showed the class nude holiday photos on the overhead projector without any concerns at all. Parents and families watched nude swimming meets at the YMCA and I wrestled with nude men as a teenager at the YMCA and thought nothing of it.
What part of Canada was this? And do you know whether this was common in most of the country?
I grew up on Calgary. I then moved to Toronto. It seemed the same in both places. I have no recollection of anyone ever commenting negatively about nudity. All the change rooms were open with optional cubicles at school and swimming pools. It became legal to be nude in public not too long ago and pristitution is legal. It was only when I moved to England that I noticed a distinct difference in attitudes and a real hysteria about anything to do with nudity or sex. I recall that the Toronto hockey team were forced to allow women journalists into their locker room when they were all naked. I did think that was a bit much. I suppose in a big country, what is the point of having huge open empty spaces s d keeping your clothes on? It seemed pointless and counterintuitive.
Sadly, this was not the case at the Catholic boarding school I attended in the Province of Quebec. All books & reading matter were heavily censored. The only nudity we could see was in the art photos in the Larousse dictionary. Management brought in outside priests to preach that not only was masturbation a grave sin, it would inevitably cause gross birth defects in our children - and they had the photos to prove it. Of course we were terrified but fortunately that only lasted a few weeks.
Of course, management covered up the sexual abuse of its pupils by pedophile clergy that occurred over a fifty year period. With hundreds of victims in multiple institutions, the teaching order tried, unsuccessfully, to conceal its assets when it was successfully sued.
I didn't come across any of that in Calgary. My father had played rugby and told me how the players would take a communal bath after the game. He was naked around the house and would watch TV nude. On holidays he would skinny-dip and it was normal to change on the beach without even a towel to cover up. At school we had to shower in front of our classmates and there was nothing unusual about seeing kids running around in a play park naked. It just wasn't a big deal. I remember watching an interview with an exhibitionist on TV with my mum. He stripped naked as he talked with the interviewer. My mum took me to change in the ladies change room at the Banff hot springs and all the women changed in front of me. I was at my neighbour's house one evening as a child and two girls took their clothes off and played with each other and the boys just watched and enjoyed. That was outside in their car parked in the street. There was a man who used to stand in his front door all the time on the main road totally naked and no one complained. At university my housemate slept naked and always had his door open and I wouldn't dream of criticizing because it was just normal behaviour. My best friend stripped naked at his stag party along with another friend. My wife and I went to a friend's cottage along with others and we decided to get naked have sex on an island in front of their lakefront cottage in sight of everyone. I haven't heard that it has become any different. My university swimming pool now has a nude swim session. There is an annual naked bike ride and I keep up with a few social nudists who are nude around town, not in social hours of course. I'm not saying everyone is always nude, but if anything, things seem more liberal now than when I was there.
You were very fortunate. The R.C. Church had an iron grip on Quebec culture in the 1950’s, albeit a sometimes hypocritical one. I remember that prostitution was open in Montreal, with the girls waving at us from the upper floors of Ste Catherine Street houses as we drove by. Today, the priests have been booted out, the school I attended is now co-ed and no longer owned or operated by the Catholic teaching order. Back in the states, the Boy Scout camp at Baiting Hollow on Long Island, NY had a nude swim day which I just loved. Visiting parents were non plussed, for them I guess it might have been normal. But women could still get arrested for wearing a bikini on Ponquogue Beach in Suffolk County on the Atlantic Coast.
Now that I live in Florida, I discovered that back yard nudity can’t be prosecuted just about everywhere. However, it remains prohibited in many of our wilderness parks. In Pasco County, home to many nudist venues, nudity is NOT even mentioned in any local ordinance, which is a great step forward.
Personally, I support the right of sex workers to ply their trade, albeit taxed and regulated. Nude massage is now allowed by law only in Florida’s nudist resorts, which is kinda dumb when you think about it. It should be permitted and encouraged.
I look forward to the day when non-sexual nudity is a right sanctioned by law, and when clergy are not required to seek covert & predatory outlets for sex.
The longer one practices nudism/naturism the sillier all the navel gazing and hand ringing concerning it becomes.
Textile authoritarianism is perhaps a hand me down from general gentrification: originally, the rich and powerful upperclass were the only ones to wear clothes. Then the textile industry reached a point where nearly everyone could afford clothes, and society has yet to mature past the parasocialization fueled celebrity/idol obsession cultism, where it is common to adopt a desire to mimick the behavior and possessions, the lifestyles, of the famous.
Perhaps someday, a nation will have it's first naturist sovereign (President, minister, whatever relevant leader title). Perhaps then we can start to grow past our self destructive defamation of the human form. Afterwards, we can work towards not using parasocialization to format our lives, towards not being a bunch of lemmings who endeavor to appropriate a norm set by the gentry, eagerly complicit in our gentrification.
In the meantime, as I often close with similar: we live in a scary world of needless textile authoritarianism, of immodestly excessive cloth and extremist enforcement thereof. It's *delightful* (read: sickening)
To my surprise some paleolithic women figures, usually interpreted as fertility symbols are wearing aprons.
My eccentric mother raised me and my sister's nudist, i'm the only boy in the family. Ever since we were very, very young, she let us run around naked inside the house. She wanted the best for us and felt that this was the best way to raise us and I am glad she did. Whenever we had nonnudist family or friends over, she made us get dressed. I would wear a shirt and shorts, and my sisters would usually pull a sundress over their heads to cover up. Thankfully our extended family is either nudist, or at the very least, very tolerant to nudity. There was never a time that I was uncomfortable seeing my sisters or mother naked and vice versa even though I was the only boy in the family.
She was very adamant about us being naked whenever we could. She taught us that our bodies were nothing to be ashamed of, and therefore, we shouldn't cover them up for any reason. Our bodies or our privates were not obscene simply for existing. I should not be ashamed or embarrassed about having a penis and my sisters should not be ashamed of having breasts and a vagina. Basically, she had a no clothes policy inside the house, as soon as we got home from school we went to our rooms to undress and do homework. Afterwards, we would come down to socialize with each other in the nude. We loved showering together, and this was/is when we frequently socialized and discussed and talked how about our day. Thankfully we had large roman style bath where we could all fit and talk to each other, where we spent a lot of time together.
We would only put something on if we had to go outside in front of the house. Thankfully our backyard was private and secluded enough so we could run around naked back there. Obviously, this was only an issue when we were living in a non nudist community or resort. We loved going to nudist resorts, i fondly remember the first time that she took us to one. Running around naked in front of other people, and in wide open natural spaces was incredibly fun and exciting for us.
My mother always used to say and still does to this day:
" The only thing you have to wear is a smile" 😃