Man is born nude and is everywhere in a state of shame over it just as the Rosseauvian man who is born free,  is everywhere in chains.  This post was inspired by the Lady Godiva blog posted by my friend hardhitter (hardhitter.rediffiland.com), which set me thinking on the subject of nudity.

Lady Godiva rode through the crowded marketplace in the nude because of a dare from her husband.  A wager that he would bring down the taxes in Coventary if she dared to do it. The speculation after the event, which shocked the husband, was whether the lady, who was religious, should be canonized for her social largesse or be deemed a repressed exhibitionist who wanted to seek the attention of her bored husband. The whole dynamics of the male female relationship on the subject of nudity is speculated on. The romantics, many among them monks who vowed  to claim sainthood for  Godiva, circulated  stories of how her ‘purity’ blinded the lecherous and kept her ‘clothed’ because no eyes actually ‘saw’ her in the nude state - a reversal of the Emperor of the new clothes fame.

Children growing up in nudist colonies or even offspring of parents who are mindless of being seen nude by them from birth, will have a lower tickle factor at the sight of nude bottoms or breasts or private parts. Repressed societies that cover up all parts except eyes are likely to be titillated at the sight of an imagined wrist or ankle. All things taboo have  excited and  aroused much more than mere curiosity. Shame has been conditioned early at the cradle stage in human children with the puppy shame business of reprimanding their innocent uncovered bits or with a chee chee… that often stays in the psyche and later emerges as sexual dysfunction of many varieties, not all of them physical.

Anthropologically the Neanderthal was nude but was also too hirsuite to have resembled Adam and Eve in their garden, roaming in idyllic contentment  with strategic fig leaves to shield them from present sinful post-lapsarian eyes. The word ‘pubic’ is associated with hair as clothing and shield. Before pornography, full frontal nudity always meant a glimpse of the bush. In many early cultures, nudity was not frowned upon and the loincloth was the only adornment for the man. The women were often all nude as their sexual organs being internal, were not as fragile as the male ones.

The fall of Man and his ultimate introduction to ‘shame’ for his nudity is seen as his recognition of sin and ugliness. It marked, according to Christian theology, the end of innocence that nudity symbolically represented – an openness and candour as opposed to dishonest concealing. Among Hindus ofcourse all deities are in a dehabille condition and  worshipped in that state. The deification of the linga and yoni are further evidence of the worship of nude genitalia as life forces in keeping with ancient religions the world over, that gave importance to fertility. Newer religions like Islam called for cover up. The arwah for men and the hijaab for women were compulsory and nudity therefore was viewed not just with guilt and shame but as immodest, arrogant and sinful.

Nudity has therefore come about as befitting punishment for those who have erred. From ragging teenagers in colleges, to stripping witches in medieval Europe, and  Jews in Nazi camps to the more recent scandal of US troops at the Abu Gharib prison camp, nudity has been used to humiliate and degrade. Village justice has often been beating men and women in the nude.

Even mythology is witness to the disrobing of Panchali with evil intent. Invincibility has also been associated with nudity of great warriors like Karna, Achilles and Dhuryodhan who had their thighs and heels left vulnerable by their sudden sense of shame – a weakness not a strength.  Orisis killed and dismembered in the nude and strewn to be picked up and put together had one vital piece missing making it an immortal Egyptian myth.

The gods might have been up to all kinds of mischief but it is not for men to deride their nudity with pictures that are deemed lewd and punishable as MF Hussain realized to his chagrin and no amount of pleading that all the hindu gods were nude in the temples has brought down the collective anger. The Danish people are still paying for the defamy brought on Muhammad by getting their consulates bombed randomly years later.

Artists however have a long tradition of nudes. Early Greeks were enamoured with male nudes. A long line of male nudes in Atlas , David, the discus thrower and Vinci’s Vitruvian man have bared it all – a manifestation of physical and moral perfection. The Italians brought in the female with the Renaissance as the symbol of idealism and beauty. Small breasts and swollen abdomens were sensuous in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Giorgione’s  Sleeping Venus. Eve was ofcourse the first female nude covering herself with her hand when her hair was not in use. How the tides have turned in the twenty first century – first it was anatomy forbidding the study of human bodies and now its nudes who are banned for painters in some countries. A loss indeed of primal innocence in the reverse. A corruption and a loss of culture – a malaise of our times and its narrow perceptions.

On the other hand there are nude beaches and colonies, nude dancing and strip news reading, an orgasm of porno films, a leer of flashers, streaking as a form of protest and pleasure, skinny dipping, more and more men and women who want to drop it all, a gymming culture that aims to make the ‘showing’ pleasant. There is advertising, which blatantly uses nudity in all forms to ‘sell’ any and all products, relevance being a non- issue. Then there are strip clubs and near nude fashion shows where wardrobe malfunctions are common, which gets the police force all active and the girls running for cover. There is a subterranean band of activities where all that can be imagined, is rendered possible. The stark truth. The naked truth.

 So is nudity an aspect of the mind? What is the psychology of nudity? Is it a sign of vulnerability or courage? Is it to be viewed as primal innocence or as perverse corruption? Is it to be seen as au naturel and revered or is it to be shunned and punished as vile? Does it excite as only what is taboo can do? Have we created the taboo deliberately to create a dimension of titillation? When a lot of time, money and unabashed energy is spent on vain pursuits to ensnare and attract the opposite sex, why is nudity such a no no?

Anyone care to strip this cloaked mystery and denude nudity? :)