Does nudity really = sex?
I very frequently see people in the nudist community assert that the general public automatically associate nudity with sex.
I’d like to challenge that assumption because I just don’t think it’s that cut and dry. Nor do I think people actually think that way in this day and age. One hell of a lot of sex takes place with people fully clothed.
I also think there is a fairly high representation of nudity in contexts other than sexual ones. I’m not entirely convinced that people automatically associate the two. Except nudists who seem to a lot.
Going by my own life experiences, the far more prevalent resistance to nudity has more to do with religion and its dogma than associations with sex.
This extends to the notion of social morality which I think is what most people get hung up about.
Broadly speaking I think people have had it instilled in them that nudity is rude. It’s got nothing to do with sexuality per se. It’s got everything to do with what people have been told is acceptable and polite.
I feel that public nudity comes more under the category of not urinating in public than it does not fornicating in public.
It could be the case that nudists have this sexual association because nudist activities throughout the 20th century were done mainly in seclusion.
I think if nudity had of taken place in open areas such as beaches or parks. It would have been more obvious to everyone nothing sexual was taking place.
As it is, nudity has largely occurred in seclusion so it’s inadvertently attracted perverts and sexual predators who have been able to infiltrate and behave in clandestine ways themselves, like hiding in sand dunes etc.
The reason I think this matters is because:
So long as nudists keep promoting this notion that nudity has a close association with sex, it’s only going to reinforce and keep that idea alive
So long as people keep talking about “non-sexual nudity” it’s going to reinforce point 1.
Until nudists and naturists are prepared to be naked in normal public places like regular beaches, parks and bushland. Nudity is always going to have a taboo stigma associated with it.
As I’ve very often said, you’re really not going to have any credibility convincing people nudity is normal and okay so long as everyone, nudists and naturists included, keep behaving like it isn’t okay.
I’m curious about other people’s thoughts on this.
It seems to me that the association between nudity and sex, and the attempts by naturist and other clothing-optional enterprises to break that perceived association, is that those enterprises seem to be the target of those who see such organisations as an opportunity for sexual encounters and activity.
You may well be right, Shane, in that perhaps the majority of people in society do not regard that sex = nudity. Maybe that belief has arisen in the minds of naturist organisations simply because they attract that minority in society who do.
Here on the Hauraki Naturally website we've experienced similar issues. There seems to be a small number who have taken up an interest in living a clothing-optional life, joining clubs and resorts, visiting beaches etc, in anticipation of some sexual component, rather than simply to enjoy being without clothing. For such people, the association between nudity and sex can be the only explanation for the attraction to naturism. It's unlikely that people will join a golf club or hang-gliding club in order to exchange dick pics or discuss their sexual exploits. But a clothing optional site such as this attracts them like flies!
It's a hard lesson to get though. In spite of requests to not use the site, particularly the chat facility, for exchanging photos of erections, spread-legged genitalia of both sexes, and explicit sex talk, some people continue to do so. Another member has left us today because of this.
SO PLEASE TAKE NOTE: Since the recent website audit, we've made some improvements to the way the forums and chat facilities are monitored. While the members' chat continues to remain private between individuals or groups, the contents of the chat log files are subject to key-word scans from time to time. So, please take your sexual interests elsewhere. I can't make it any clearer than that!
Thank you for reading!