Modern Body Shame Vs. Ancient Views Of The Body

[Ameen]

As I am cleaning my apartment this evening, I am listening to some of the DVD audio commentaries to the two season HBO series Rome. This series drew a lot of ire from Those Who Shall Not Be Named because of its nudity (including full frontal nudity), sex, and violence. The filmmakers, a joint British/Italian/American team, hired historians and went out of their way to portray life as it would have been in the two Caesars' time.

 

In the episode I am listening to, Ray Stevenson, who plays Pullo, has just commented:

 

"One of the strange things to get one's head around is that actually we were told or read or what have you that in that time in Ancient Rome, there was basically no body shame. Not that people ran around naked all the time, but basically they had no body shame. There would be body slaves in a room while you were coupling with somebody or something, and you would stand in the street getting oiled or cleaned. You wouldn't bat an eyelid. It's difficult to perceive when we've had 2,000 years of Judeo-Christian culture--and some would say oppression--and to get your head into that mindset of way back then, when that didn't exist, and there was a multi-god thing and life was on the edge of a sword."

 

Good one, Ray, especially the bit about "...and some would say oppression!" (Ray is among the many who proudly bared it all in Roman fashion for more than one scene. I was proud of him since he is middle-aged and paunchy, not one of the young bucks.)

 

Now that I am rewatching the two season and listening to the commentaries, I have twice visited one of my familiar haunts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in New York City, and have looked at the nude Greek and Roman statues with a new eye. I'll post a couple of my photos at the end of this post.

 

I wish I had the Romans' attitude about my body. In reality, I won't even take off my shirt to go swimming. To my friends' amusement, I swim in a t-shirt and shorts. I don't mean a tight speedo; I mean shorts--as in cut jeans. And yet, as I type this post on my computer, I am naked in the privacy of my apartment. I've also been cleaning naked. I think I am a natural nudist, as I love to be nude--just not in front of others.

 

Man oh man oh man, Christianity really did a number on me! I am a walking contradiction! Even when I have sex, it is hard for me to deal with the fact that my partner will see me naked (and this at the same time that I want him to delight in my nakedness). Again, man oh man oh man!

 

How many of you share in my body shame?

 

When (besides in the shower and possibly during sex) are you nude?

 

Do you think Christian attitudes toward nudity continue to influence you, or have you unshackled your mind--and body?

 

I have heard that many Europeans are far less squeamish about their bodies than Americans. In the 1980s when we were in our early 20s, I remember a Swede telling another American friend and me that he had seen all of his friends naked even when he was in high school since one often took public showers in Sweden. My friend and I remarked that we would take sponge baths instead of showers if we lived in Sweden.

 

In my gym, each shower head in the men's locker room has a private stall. You dress and undress there, with your bag of clothes hung just outside, and no one else sees you naked unless you wish it. Some guys do undress completely in the locker room when changing into or our of gym gear, but I wear my dirty clothes home (a quick walk of only five blocks from the gym) and shower and change there. In winter I change my shirt in the locker room but not my pants.

 

I have so much more to say, but let me stop here and first listen to the rest of you.

 

 

 

[Guest Perus32]

I never understood the North American locket room culture...back in Europe we would be naked in the change room with my teammates or showering together, and no one saw a problem with it. There was no hint of shame. Women go topless all the time on the beach, and I hear now a days they go to sauna naked (which i do too), but they don't separate men or women (which i can't).

 

I love wearing small speedos (for swim practices purposes) and tried posing naked in an art class few weeks ago.

 

I was just thinking about women's breasts and how they are not allowed to be seen in public in a western world, but if we think of the tribes in africa, they see no problem with that. I think we shouldn't either...what ever, breasts are just breasts.

 

So I think i don't have the shackles of Christianity, but in terms of sex, erotic/porn videos, sex talk, etc., I still don't have freedom.

[Tabula Rasa]

Ameen, I can definitely relate with you about body shame. Ever since I was a kid, I've felt shame about my body, partly because I've been overweight since I was eight. But it's not just being obese, I think I'd still feel some shame about being unclothed. I can especially relate to you about being shy when it comes to swimming. I've felt somewhat uncomfortable when I've gone swimming about being topless, and have swam more than a few times wearing a t-shirt.

 

In regard to Roman times and how they didn't seem to have body shame, well part of it may have been from their contact with greek culture, who had a great respect for the human body. Also in the greek myths, the gods like Apollo and Zeus oftimes got the hots for mortal women and men, so if mere humans got the gods and goddesses horny, it would seem ludicrous to think the human body was shameful or ugly.

[Loren]

I can relate, too. Since I was a kid, I haven't been comfortable with going shirtless in public. I had a hell of a time with showering in PE class when I got to Junior High. I still don't like to take off my shirt in public.

 

As I was reading your post about Roman attitudes, I was strongly reminded of what little I know of Japanese culture, particularly before it got Westernized. Not that I'm any kind of expert, but I've picked up bits of knowledge along the way. I found the old Japanese culture to be deeply sensible and pragmatic about all aspects of body non-shame. They felt that the body and all its functions is as natural as crops growing in a rice paddy. If it made practical sense to work naked, or mostly naked, they did. Public bathing was perfectly normal. Body functions such as elimination were seen as natural. The Japanese understood that even the local Daimyo takes a dump. Belching after dinner was a compliment to the cook. The cook would actually take it personally if nobody burped at the table. If someone was attracted to their own gender, no-one gave them grief over it. In fact, I've heard that as far as gays in the military goes, it was seen as sound policy that when samurai had romances with other samurai in their unit, to keep those samurai together, so that when they went into battle, they would fight harder to impress and defend each other. Imagine if our military made an effort to keep husbands and wives paired up in their units. Courageous and selfless acts would naturally increase and cowardice and desertion would decrease. The first time I heard about that, I thought, "Well, that makes all sorts of sense!"

 

More than once, on hearing the venom spewed from some damned animal like Dobson or Robertson, I've had the fantasy of putting those men of God into my time machine and saying to them, "I'm sending you back to feudal Japan. Now, you go right up to those fearless, lightning fast, heavily armed samurai warriors and you just tell them what perverts they are. Go ahead. You know Jesus has got your back."

 

It's a lovely fantasy.

 

Of course, the Japanese had some pretty rigid gender roles, but those were clearly understood to have nothing at all to do with the sexuality of the people in those roles. It was seen as a totally separate issue.

 

The more I learned about Japanese attitudes toward the body and it's doings, the more I came to respect how completely sensible and pragmatic the Japanese have been. The whole culture has refused to delude itself about reality. How admirable!

 

 

Another thing I wanted to mention was that the art in your original post reminded me of an amusing thing I heard a long time ago from a historian. Since I was a kid, I always wondered at the heroic Greek and Roman statues of all these exceedingly manly men in which the anatomical realism was phenomenal, every muscle, eyelid fold and beard hair represented with downright photographic faithfulness, and yet these broad-shouldered, square-jawed manly males always seemed to have the genitalia of eight-year-olds. Even as a kid, I thought, "What the hell?"

 

Well this historian told me that it had to do with the social politics of art patronage. It just wouldn't be financially prudent for the artist to have the genitals on a statue of Jupiter outshine the dick of Senator Bullshitius who commissioned it. Especially when the good Senator certainly would be seen nude in public from time to time. You've heard of overcompensation. Well this was reverse overcompensation. It was normal for artists to make absolutely damned sure that no Roman man could ever possibly be embarrassed by the statuary.

 

I guess buttering up the grant committee by slanting a grant proposal is not exactly a modern invention.

[Guest Davka]

I heartily recommend that anyone with body shame spend some time at a nudist colony. Make sure it's a family-friendly, no overt sexuality place. You will find people of all ages and body types wandering around nude, not because they are trolling for partners or showing off their bodies, but because it's just more comfortable than clothing, and they've learned not to care.

 

I expect that the longer you have struggled with body shame, the longer it will take you to get used to a nudist colony. But the freedom is worth it.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I converted around age 11, and my parents (especially mom) seemed pretty prudish about sex and nudity. On the one hand, I was told I could talk to them anytime, but on the other hand it would be a cold day in hell before I'd talk to them about it because of the general vibe I got from them about things sexual. I didn't have shame issues with being naked, though, just being caught by them naked.

 

The only thing that made me uncomfortable in the locker room were the jocks and their harassment which was continual. So being naked and unable to defend myself, and being cornered, was a scary place to be.

 

I do wear a speedo when swimming, though I'm told that some pools don't allow that (!). I don't like the baggy shorts that are popular today. I am working hard to get rid of the last vestige of belly fat so I will look as stunning as possible this summer. The Russian friends I have are staunch pentecostal believers, but they have no problem with bikinis and speedos. The pentecostals I knew years ago had to swim with long sleeve shirts and pants, even while segregated from females. (What a dumbass religion! Control, control, control, shame, fear. Grrrrr.)

 

Anyway, I have no problem with nudity today, and I enjoy it. I don't really enjoy seeing chubby hairy people naked, but that is just my own preference. I hope our society can throw off the shackles of Christianity and its false view of reality.

[OpheliaGinger]

Being an overweight female, it should be of no surprise why I would have body shame. I even hate the way my arms look that I refuse to wear short sleeves out in public (even during the heat of the summer). Body shame is one the of lists of reasons why avoid sexual contact with any others.

[godlessgrrl]

How many of you share in my body shame?

 

When (besides in the shower and possibly during sex) are you nude?

 

Do you think Christian attitudes toward nudity continue to influence you, or have you unshackled your mind--and body?

 

Holy fucking shit, I sure as hell shared in it, maybe plus extra for being female. It was far worse when I was a teen than it is now, but there are definitely vestiges of it still around.

 

When I was a teen I reached my current height of 5'3" by the time I was 12. I weighed about 105 pounds soaking wet, I was very thin and petite, with smallish features, and I thought I was the ugliest thing ever to walk the face of the earth. I thought my nose was enormous and needed plastic surgery, I was painfully self-conscious of my developing breasts, I was even more painfully self-conscious of my acne, I thought I was fat and horrible and awkward and just generally disgusting. Yes - I thought I was fat, at 105 pounds. WTF??

 

I was so ashamed of my body in my teens that I did everything I could think of to hide it, all the time. I wore dark loose clothing and covered up from ankles to neck, I tried not to move much, I slouched so nobody would see my breasts, I tried to cover my acne in all the awful harsh creams and makeup my mother brought home to hide it... I hated wearing a bathing suit and I absolutely LOATHED being in any situation where boys might see my body. So I avoided beaches and sports and gym class like the plague. When guys were attracted to me I had no idea why.

 

I still don't see myself as beautiful, but I don't have that crippling body dysphoria anymore. I'll be 37 in about a month, I'm still my same height, and I weight somewhere in the vicinity of 180 pounds. I love good food, good drink, and good sex; I love to swim and do yoga and move around, and I at some point in my 20's I just decided that having extra weight wasn't going to stop me from enjoying anything or being active. With lovers now I sort of do this body challenge thing, where I just stand up and take off my clothes and stand brazen in front of 'em and tell 'em: this is it. This is my body, what it looks like. Take it or leave it.

 

Usually they take it.

 

I walk around on beaches and out in public now with this attitude that I don't give a shit about extra weight, I'm not going to be self-conscious about it and I'm not going to let it stop me from living, and I'm not going to hide it anymore. At the same time it took me an awful long time to be able to go hot-tubbing naked, and I'm still not fond of my plump chin. But I'll take nude baths with lovers, sleep buff some of the time, and wander nude around my house. What usually stops me from going naked these days is that it's fucking chilly and damp here most of the year, not that I'm so ashamed of my body that I can't do it.

 

And yes, I definitely think that Christian attitudes had something to do with it, though not necessarily directly. I wasn't raised in a strictly Christian household, but I do come from a culture that is very puritanical when it comes to sex, as if we have a love-hate relationship with it and can't quite figure out whether or not we want to repress it or exploit it (so we do both). Being female I'm particularly aware of how this impacts women, most prominently in matters of personal beauty.

 

That more or less sums it up.

[noob]

This thread is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First, for some reason, it never occurred to me that men would feel shy about their bodies. It should have. As a society we are bombarded with images of “beautiful” people, both men and women, who wear the right scent, smoke the right cigarettes, eat the right food, and even use the right toilet paper! It’s no wonder that many of us become insecure and uncomfortable with our bodies. And why I would think this is a female only issue is beyond my comprehension. I guess that most of the men I’ve known have given the impression that getting naked is something they enjoy doing at every opportunity!

 

The other reason that I find this topic fascinating is because I am a bit of contradiction. Even though I have never been obese, all of my life I thought I was fat. This message was reinforced by both of my husbands. About a year ago, I was looking though my pictures and I was stunned to realize that I was never really fat. I went through spells where I was chubby, but never really fat. In fact, looking at some of the pictures shocked me. I distinctly remember feeling fat at the time the pictures were taken, yet looking at them now, I actually looked thin. After reading gwenmead’s post, I wonder if this problem is more common than I realized.

 

The reason I say I am a contradiction is because even though I was never thrilled with my body, I am bit of an exhibitionist. From the time I was young, I got a huge kick out of running around naked and I always thought it was funny when I “accidentally” flashed someone. I have friends and neighbors who laugh about the way I run around the house in my underwear with the curtains open or how I used to dash from the house to the laundry room (which meant darting outside across the carport) in my underwear. I was so casual about nudity when my nephew was young (I raised him from the time he was almost three) that I had to explain to him when he was six years old that it was not O.K. to stroll through the family room naked when we had a room full of company.

 

So, here I am at age 53 (soon to be 54) and I am not totally thrilled with my aging, pudgy body with a scar on my ass from my recent hip surgery. But, oddly enough, I STILL like to get naked and I still think it is fun to flash! In fact, I am going on vacation this December to Key West and I am hoping I get a chance to get naked (or at least topless) in public for the first time. We’ll see. I don’t think most of the friends I am traveling with will be amused!!! Of course, with ten of us staying in the same house, I suspect the flashing opportunities will abound!!!! (Some of them may not be speaking to me by the time the trip is over.)

 

I love good food, good drink, and good sex...;

Me too!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Neon Genesis]

When I was still in school, I used to feel embarrassed about changing in front of others in the locker room. I used to always try to make it to gym class early so I could change before anyone else got there but I think this had less to do with xtianity and more to do with that I was afraid of the bullies seeing my cock and making fun of me. When I was in middle school, I used to cover up my eyes whenever they showed even brief nudity in movies and TV. I don't worry about nudity in entertainment anymore though and I fully support it and enjoy porn as much as the next guy. I think it was actually anime that helped desensitized me to nudity because nudity appears frequently in anime and you pretty much either have to get used to seeing it or you miss out on a ton of kickass series.

[Guest Perus32]

why do you think its more of an issue in NA compared to Europe where nudity is more accepted, whether in public or in a locker room?

[Naughtyhamster]

Another thing I wanted to mention was that the art in your original post reminded me of an amusing thing I heard a long time ago from a historian. Since I was a kid, I always wondered at the heroic Greek and Roman statues of all these exceedingly manly men in which the anatomical realism was phenomenal, every muscle, eyelid fold and beard hair represented with downright photographic faithfulness, and yet these broad-shouldered, square-jawed manly males always seemed to have the genitalia of eight-year-olds. Even as a kid, I thought, "What the hell?"

 

A former art history professor of mine explained that if you look closely at statues of the enemies of the ancient Greeks they all had large dicks as it meant that they were uncivilized testosterone driven barbarians who couldn't control their sexual urges. On the other hand statues representing Greeks had a small penis to represent their civilized manners and emphasis on muscle and intellect.

[Vigile]

It's not just ancient Rome. I don't think there is much shame here in Russia. A lot of women go topless at the beaches and no one bats an eye. Moreover, men go to the banya (sauna) together and just sit around naked. No one cares nor do they think about it as anything but completely normal. Even when the banya is mixed, everyone just wears a sheet and nothing else. It's not a big deal.

 

In fact, I once ran across a busy street with my friends to go jump naked in a hole carved in the icy lake during a banya session. Again, no big deal.

 

Girls here can walk down the street with see through shirts or skirts in the summer time and not get harassed or ogled. If the same thing happened in the US they would draw a crowd of guys acting like drooling teenagers or even acting like depraved monkeys. I think that speaks a lot to the repression that makes a small sighting some extraordinary event that ends up shutting of brain cells in lieu of more base instincts. Of course the girls are trying to attract attention by dressing that way, but they surely wouldn't do it if they were going to be made to feel like a circus sideshow. Subtly is a more mature response I think.

 

And in India I think it's also more common. When I would get a massage there they would just wrap your privates in a little g-string and often times the masseuse would be the opposite sex.

 

All this stuff would seem out of place in the US and might bother me more there, IDK, but I'm pretty much a "when in Rome" kind of guy so when everyone else around me is doing it, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

[ShackledNoMore]

This is just weird, but for some reason, as big a number as xianity did on me in many areas, including sexuality, the body shame thing just never really took, even when I was xian. Oh, they tried... My family, society... I am NOT an exhibitionist and I only skirted the limits, but I got reactions that I'll never forget for the rest of my life for doing things like walking from my bedroom to take a shower naked when I was a teenager and... well, in my early 20's there was this neighbor... She was what you'd call "loose." She'd done the deed with all of the willing 2 or 3 male neighbors, but not me, of course. I was a virgin with TONS of baggage. I did answer the door in my underwear, however, for male or female neighbors, unless they were strangers, my landlady, etc. Well after a few weeks, one guy who had knocked her up in a bar moved in with her and became "her guy." Next thing you know, she's knocking on all the other neighbor's doors, but not mine any more. Turns out new boyfriend forbade it because I answered the door in my underwear. Oh, the irony!

 

Anyhoo, years later, I no longer answer the door in my underwear, not because I have even the slightest problem with it, but because it's registered that I am surrounded by a society that has MAJOR hang ups about nudity and it just doesn't work out as well for a person to NOT refrain from these mundane, normal things that happen to push the envelope on society's lunacy.

 

That was sure another thing that confused me when I was deconverting, though. According to the bible, I was supposed to be endowed with an innate shame of my body, of nudity. I thought there was something wrong with me because I really wasn't, that some of my wiring was broken or something. Then I became aware that this hang up about nudity was based on the local culture, another thing that should not be if body shame was universally endowed to humanity. It seemed pretty fishy.

 

The fact is, it's just fundamentally dishonest to condition children with a shame of nudity and then say that we are ashamed of our bodies because it is innate. When I got old enough to know better, I could see the conditioning in action, and see that whether people become ashamed of their bodies has nothing to do with anything inborn, but on how they were conditioned as children.

 

I think that the excuse that some people do not think they are particularly attractive or that they are carrying around some extra weight and therefore are ashamed of their nude bodies is another carryover from the general body shame that did a number on them. Maybe they partially overcame it, but as for the "I don't want to see fat, ugly people naked" assertion, why not(?) when there is no objection to seeing the same people clothed, faces fully exposed, folds of fat revealed in exposed body parts and underneath their clothes. There's not much difference here.

[Vomit Comet]

I'd be 100% comfortable going around naked if I was totally ripped (six pack abs, etc.) and was super hung. In fact, I'd be going out of my way to find opportunities to get naked.

 

I can only feel okay about getting naked in mixed gender company. If I'm in a guy's locker room my butthole clenches up and the rape scene from 'American History X' starts cycling in my head. There's nothing worse than a sea of sausage. Whereas if you stick me on a nude beach in Southern Europe where half the people there are female, and at least half the females are slim and attractive... shit god damn, I'm in hog heaven!!

[Searska]

What really gets me is the fact that guys can walk around a beach in the US topless, and girls get fined for it.

[ShallowByThyGame]

The hardest part of shedding my judeo-christian black and white morality has been sexuality. My parents never let us run around naked for fear of evil perverts getting us. I get angry when I see a couple making out (hell even at weddings), and I know there's nothing wrong with it and love is wonderful but there's this damn deep seated fear of intimacy, even beyond myself because I become jealous of those who are not afraid...I really want to be free like them but my gut clenches nonetheless. (porn and sex are different, when i'm turned on these feelings magically disappear ;P)

 

I've been fighting this longer than I've realized...i remember wandering around nude in private when I was younger just to force myself to be okay with my body. I had a huge big break through one year where I actually went skinny-dipping with some guys and girls, but even though I've made progress I can still feel the emotions there, the fear of being shamed. I mean I've never even publicly mooned anybody I'm so afraid of ... something. I don't even know...stupid irrational brain.

 

I'm getting better, but I wonder if I will even completely lose that horrible feeling.

[RubyHypatia]

Why do some religions "shame our sexuality?" I'm sure it's about control. We women were always suppose to worry that we might cause a man to lust after us. Like they wouldn't anyway. One culture is so concerned about it that their women have to dress like blue ghosts. How ridiculous! Anyway, there's this woman on YouTube who is trying to promote the modesty movement among Christian women and get them to wear hijabs. I made a video response to it: Female Modest Dress

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Good job on the vid! I think it expresses the issues very well.

[RubyHypatia]

Good job on the vid! I think it expresses the issues very well.

 

Thanks! I might do another video on the subject. Veiled Glory, the lady trying to promote hijab and head to toe clothing for Christian women, made a video: Women Formerly known as Sexy In it she knocks makeup, manicures, and people who wear Old Navy clothes. I believe she referred to us as "androgynous Old Navy drones." I'll call my video, "So What's Wrong with Sexy?" After all, it's how we attract a mate. And I'm thinking about doing another one about religions that "shame our sexuality." I'm going to need more insight on this subject so I will need to get more opinions.

[woodsmoke]

This is just weird, but for some reason, as big a number as xianity did on me in many areas, including sexuality, the body shame thing just never really took

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

 

I've never had the physique of a Greek deity and I probably never will. Genetics just weren't quite that kind to me. My stomach's shaped kind of odd so I've always looked like I have a bit of a gut, even when I weighed 140 as a teen (which is about the least I could weigh and still be healthy). Even so, I've never had the slightest issue with being naked. I've always maintained the walk from the bedroom to the shower to the bedroom shouldn't have to be a modest one, though I'll make it so if my roommate's home, and I can't count the number of times I've walked downstairs in the buff while he's not home only to realize after I've been down there for 10 minutes or more that the curtains on our big front window are open and all the neighbors could get an eye-full - which is not to say I then close the curtains or hurry back upstairs to put some clothes on, as I do nothing of the sort. I've also been known to answer the door in my PJs (which is really about the only time I actually wear them, as I sleep nude). Truth be told, I'd be naked a lot more often than I am if I didn't live with my roommate.

 

I'm totally jealous of you folks who live outside the U.S. and don't have to deal with this in relationships. I know it's not necessarily (nor even usually) her fault, but few things turn me off to a woman quicker than body shame. My ex-girlfriend was pretty damn good looking, but she had serious body shame. Had terrible posture, wanted the lights to be off before she'd take any clothes off, would cover up her breasts even while we were fucking, wouldn't do several positions because she was embarrassed of how she thought she looked... Even knowing she probably hated it as much as I did, it just aggravated the hell out of me and was one of the reasons I broke it off. I just can't be with a woman who thinks there's something inherently wrong with her.

[Ameen]

I've been away from the board for a spell, but I wanted to thank all of you for your insightful comments.

 

Ironically, Photobucket must have the most body shame, as it has deleted the first picture in my first post, saying that it goes against Photobucket's standards. (A 2,000 + year-old statue displayed proudly in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the three greatest art museums in the world?!!) I have reloaded and reposted the picture; let me know if you can't see it.

 

@ Perus32: A professor friend of mine showed an anthropoligical film in his univeristy about life about traditional, non-technological cultures, and a couple of students complained to his boss about the bare breasts on South American and African women. His rebuttal is that perhaps they should only film traditional cultures that dress in corporate attire...

 

@ Tabula Rasa: I love your point about the beauty of a human body that gives ancient gods the hots!

 

@ Loren: I had no idea that genitalia on ancient muscle men was depicted in such a manner so that the power elite's flesh members would not pale in comparison to the marble's! Now I have something to check the next time I go to The Met...

 

@ Davka: Truth to tell, I have always wanted to visit a nudist colony for just that reason, and I deeply respect people who are proud of their bodies as they are regardless of age and weight.

 

@ Fuego: I live in Brooklyn, where we have many Russians, and I can tell you that most are not shy about stripping around the same sex or going to a public bath. Even in my gym, as soon as I see a crowd of naked men chatting, my first thought is that they must be Russian. As I get closer, I listen for the language. More than half the time it is indeed Russian (or, perhaps, another Slavic language, as we also have many Poles and people from the former Yugoslavia in the area).

 

@ OpheliaGinger: I have less than an ideal body, but I feel much better about it when I am with someone who also has less than an ideal body. Granted, I go for men and not women, but I have been with heavy men and did not bat an eyelash. Their embrace was warm and their personalities right--and one even sang to me in beautiful baritone!

 

@ gwenmead: You know, once a year in high school we had to be weighed, after which a doctor would check our privates. I always made sure to cut gym class that day, and our (pre-computer) paper bureacuracy was so bad that no one even noticed that in my four years in high school I never had these 'necessary, important' tests.

 

@ noob: Yes indeed, I look at pictures of myself when I was much younger and wonder why I thought I was so fat and ugly. Here's one of me, scanned from a photo, in 1990 at age 24--and I thought I was repulsive. The pose was my friend's (the photographer's) idea, and he was right. Modern advertising full of pretty people does indeed shatter self-esteem...

 

 

@ Neon Genesis: Yes indeed, Christianity did a number on me, and I used to object strongly to nudity even when I thought what I was looking at was hot.

 

@ NaughtyHamster: Hmmmm.... The smaller the penis the more civilized the person. George W. Bush must be enormous.

 

@ Vigile: The only U.S. equivalent I can think of is Mardi Gras, and that's only in New Orleans. You can see a lot of private parts there.

 

Also, when I was in Madison, Wisconsin for a vacation in 2004, there was some male nudity during the Halloween Parade--but then the police put a stop to it.

 

 

 

 

 

There was a guy dressed as a penis and a young woman dressed as a dirty tampon:

 

 

 

 

Some great drag queens too!

 

 

 

@ ShackledNoMore: Very interesting idea about very fat people in clothes vs. out of clothes.

 

@ Vomit Comet: Hee hee. I got a good chuckle out of your post. I guess that's sexual orientation in a nutshell. Put me on a beach with a naked Jennifer Aniston, Tyra Banks, Scarlett Johansson and friends, and I'll be bored to tears. Yet, put me on a beach with a lot of naked guys, and even if they are only average Joes I'll be in Heaven.

 

@ Searska: I agree 100%! What a double standard! You know, I actually used to say "topless guys" when I was younger--until my mother corrected me. It did not make sense to say "topless" if women showed their breasts but not to say it if men showed theirs.

 

@ ShallowByTheGame: I hear you, and I know I feel the same way. Best of luck from one also going through it.

 

@ Ruby Hypatia: Oh my! What some Christians won't post!!! Good for you for your rebuttal!

 

@ woodsmoke: I'm sorry about the ex, but otherwise... My hat's off to you! What a cool post! I wish I felt the same way about being nude, given that I am usually nude in the privacy of my own apartment.

[white_raven23]

This is just weird, but for some reason, as big a number as xianity did on me in many areas, including sexuality, the body shame thing just never really took

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

 

Me too!

 

Though not without society trying VERY hard! I felt the insults behind the peer pressures, but the momentary shame was always followed by considerably more anger and I continued to "rebel" even when my feelings were still being hurt.

 

Now I think back on the little girls trying to get dressed while keeping their towels wrapped around them after swim practice, and I feel bad for them.

 

My mother has tried to shame me (yes, even as an adult) being naked in the privacy of my own apartment with the blinds all drawn still gets me slapped with "exibitionist" every now and then.

[woodsmoke]

Man, if being naked while home alone with the blinds drawn makes you an exhibitionist, there's not a word in the English language extreme enough to describe me.

[VacuumFlux]

That was sure another thing that confused me when I was deconverting, though. According to the bible, I was supposed to be endowed with an innate shame of my body, of nudity. I thought there was something wrong with me because I really wasn't, that some of my wiring was broken or something. Then I became aware that this hang up about nudity was based on the local culture, another thing that should not be if body shame was universally endowed to humanity. It seemed pretty fishy.

 

I have never had innate body shame, and I too wondered what was wrong with me that I didn't. That was part of the curse in the Garden, something that every human thereafter is supposed to experience. Did that mean I wasn't quite human?

 

Because I had no innate shame but "knew" I was supposed to, I was extra careful to stay covered. I shared a room with my sister (I am female), and when we'd get ready for bed or get dressed in the morning, we'd carefully turn our back to each other to dress and not turn around until we were both ready. In high school, we were all very good at changing shirts without ever completely taking one off. I suppose my family isn't as weird about nudity around the house at they might be; my dad will sit around in his underwear and mom would stick her head out the bathroom/bedroom door and announce "don't look!" so she wouldn't have to bother with clothing just to make three steps across the hall.

 

Now I've decided that even that bit of carefulness is silly. I like my body (much more so than my face; mine's round and i prefer oval shapes). I hate the way clothing prevents me from feeling the wind. I avoid shoes as soon as it gets warm enough out (big city though, so I do wear sandals most of the time) and I hate when it gets cold enough I have to cover my arms. I often end up showering after everyone else has gone to bed and don't bother with sleeping in clothes. If my mom knew I sleep naked, she'd be horrified (I currently have a room all to myself so I have no idea why it should matter). Every so often I toss some pajamas in the laundry so she doesn't suspect anything. I would love to be able to walk around naked but I am not an exhibitionist (I only enjoy the attention when I know that no one will be in the least bit bothered by my body).