Let’s face it, we’re fighting an uphill battle and we’re not gaining ground.
In the early 1920s naturism appeared as something new (while it was something old). During the flower power time nudity was freely quite practised, and even in the 70s and 80s naturist resorts were very common if not mentioned among most people.
So why is naturism/nudism still fighting so hard for acceptance?
Because of this. Money. There is money to be made in clothes. Nudists don’t wear clothes so there’s no money to be made of that group. But clothes aren’t the only thing. As I’ve mentioned before, the porn industry heavily relies on nudity, because that sells. Selling is money. If everyone goes around naked then there’s no incentive to buy something with naked people in it.
Do you agree? Or is the problem somewhere else do you think?
I totally agree. The fashion & cosmetics industries would collapse if nudity became the norm. These 2 industries rely heavily on people’s insecurities about themselves and they blatantly promote body confidence issues to boost their greed for financial profit. As long as they can convince people that they do not have the ‘perfect body’ they will be able to peddle their artificial wares.
God creates new nudists daily, sinners create clothes to hide His masterpieces
I agree to some extent, but it is not a conspiracy by apparel makers and the porn industry. Social nudity will not happen all at once and everywhere. It will first spread at recreation locations. Allowing social nudity at these locations will not make any difference to these industries. Changing attitudes towards nudity is the biggest hurdle that we much jump over. As long as nudity is equated with sex and the site of a naked body is deemed shameful, that is what will suppress acceptance.
I think that more nudity will help the porn industry because it will push the boundaries of acceptance. The adult entertainment doesn’t care about naturism.
Don’t forget the Puritan ethic. It is deeply ingrained in our culture, affecting most political issues; and naturism is certhinly a political issue.
Totally agree with you ! But i suppose i could find many more reasons why! In my opinion it is the “rules” of the society that imply that no nudity is accepted and that’s what make the battle tough!
Reblogged at https://naturistsholiday.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/why-naturism-wont-make-it-as-mainstream/
You need to think broadly, historically and cross-culturally to get close to an understanding of the general social taboo about nudity in public, not just the here and now of western society. If it was the porn/clothing/cosmetics etc industries, then the taboo wouldn’t exist in times and places without those industries – but it did/does. Generally speaking, the habitual wearing of clothing is correlated with settled civilisation, while nudity was frequently the norm among hunter-gather societies in warm parts of the world; Australia, New Caledonia, the Amazon, tropical East Africa. General adoption of clothing, and abandonment of nudity appears to be connected to organised life in towns and cities.
The Minoan civilisation was exceptional in its relaxed depiction of nudity; pretty well all other early civilisations in the Old and New worlds normally depict people wearing the characteristic clothing of their respective cultures, and nudity, if depicted in art at all, is reserved for extreme situations of violence, ritual or eroticism.
Male humans are known to be especially aroused by sexual novelty at the instinctual level. I suspect town populations numbering in the hundreds would result in an awful lot of ‘perving’ at new faces/bodies by men if everyone was nude, which would threaten family-based social order. That element of novelty isn’t there when you are a member of a small family band of 12-20 individuals living mostly by themselves.
The progressive tightening of the taboo against public nudity in Europe over the past few hundred years is but one aspect of a general narrowing down of what is considered acceptable behaviour, of social orderliness and social conformity, generally closely intertwined with organised religion. The major organised religions can be viewed as an ingenious means of social mind control from an anthropological perspective, exploiting humans’ innate herd instinct, sense of guilt or conscience, and the tendency to embody fears and aspirations into quasi-human form as deities and spirits.
Something that interests me is the apparent correlation between climate and liberality in the broad sense, including toward nudity. Societies in parts of the world with a cool temperate, damp, cloudy summer tend to be liberal and individualistic / introverted (e.g. Scotland, Scandinavia and the Baltic, Tasmania, New Zealand, the Pacific Northwest of the US and western Canada) while societies in parts of the world with markedly hot summers are usually the most trenchantly conservative and the most family- and tribe-oriented (e.g. southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, southeastern United States, Queensland)
I don’t think I agree with you when it comes to nudity historically being correlated with civilization. In ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman societies (not surprising since they’re all related), increased nudity was actually a symbol of status. The higher your rank, the less clothes you wore, because you were closer to the gods and the gods were nude. That changed when the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire and the early Christian church turned against nudity as symbolic of earlier pagan times. The Christian church has pretty much been anti-nudity ever since.
lots of really good points made so i do not have anything to add other than, great conversation : )