Is naturism natural?
According to the blogger at The Sovereign State it isn’t. (Note that this is an article from August 2009.)
The writer of that blogpost claims that we were never meant to walk around naked. His statement to prove this is that, “if this were the case, we would have developed fur. We didn’t because we were smart enough to make clothes“. (See second paragraph in the article.)
The second paragraph claims: “In other words, had there existed “naturists” in these latitudes a few thousands years ago, they’d have simply died out.”
There are quite a few comments added to that post, some clearly from naturists.
The basic idea of clothing.
We put on clothes to be warm. In that view the writer of that post is entirely correct. What he seems to ignore (as so many others who are against anything naked unless perhaps it’s porn) is that little bit “to be warm“.
As we all know, most people live in areas that aren’t cold all the time.
Some people even live in areas where it’s never cold, like in Africa or Central and South America.
Does that mean these people, who are known to be naked, are wrong? Should they wear clothes because their naked, naturist appearance isn’t natural?
Lustful eyes.
Another paragraph in that post gives me a lot of reason to believe that this person shows something about himself instead of the average naturist:
I really don’t care if people choose to make themselves look ridiculous by adopting a naturist lifestyle, but some people drag their children into it and that’s what bothers me. Of course they argue that there’s nothing sexual about their perversion, but this is just wishful thinking. Their children, teenage girls most worryingly, are exposed to lustful eyes.
Anyone who reads this and feels him-or herself a proper nudist or naturist will cringe at this. “Ridiculous” isn’t how I feel when I wear no clothes. “Free” is much closer to it. One more chalked up for ignorance and prejudice, folks.
I’ve seen naked children at nude beaches and at resorts. I’ve yet to find kids who are happier than they, despite the watchful eyes of their parents and other adults who look after them. Oh, I mean lustful eyes of course.
Clothes are great.
I’m serious. But only when the conditions call for them.
When it’s hot we don’t need them. Unless you think that an air conditioning system is natural.
Naturism is more natural than most human pass times its how we come into the world & its how we go out
The blog shows his bias and ignorance. Primitive humans did have fur (much more body hair). Evolution reduced body hair along with other physical changes. Clothes came to be about social status more than protection or warmth. Customs and religions in some parts of the world started teaching that parts of the body were shameful or sinful. In nature, there is no shame in nudity. Teaching children that nudity is natural and normal is not a perversion. It is perverted to say that people look at children or teenagers with lust just because they happen to be nude.
He is correct in that clothes allowed us to migrate further north than we would have been able to without clothes, but that’s about it.
All his other arguments are solely cultural and based on flawed (mostly) Victorian era religious arguments.
Arguments that cause many places to still have “morality statutes” and “obscenity laws” prohibiting nudity or even the display of any skin at all (except maybe hands, feet, and (parts of) the face.
We are as western societies so negative and hostile towards Iran and the Taliban about their requirements for clothing style not so much because of those requirements being barbaric (they are) but because our societies are themselves not so different in that regard.
There is in my country a constant push to reinstate “public decency laws” and outlaw bikinis and other “overly revealing clothing”. And that’s a “modern” European country that’s on the face of it no longer ruled by religious zealots…
Public nudity is technically allowed in most places here, but in reality, unless on explicitly marked places, can get you arrested and fined or worse even if you do it in your own garden or home.