Fear of nudity

[nuduke]

One could say "person who enjoys non-sexual social nudity", but that's a mouthful.

So let's try and make it easier...say..an acronym...PWENSN...a little adjustment...PENSIONER!  Very apt!

Seriously, and referring to the discussion below on the effect of hippy culture of the 60's, I would say that it has had a profound effect today on society at large.   

The hippy movement brought in a degree of personal introspection and self examination along with a group based social interaction that emphasised more of the anima and less of the collective ego than in the convention driven, more self centred, striving 50s and before.  I think a lot of what we call political correctness, (i.e. the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against)

, the political drive to co exist better, care for less fortunate people such as the starving in Africa and in general a much more caring society was influenced I think by that 60's movement.  Also grasping the right to be an individual or to belong to a different group of people and not be subsumed by the hegemony of narrow options of rigid convention were part of the legacy of the 1960s particularly the Civil Rights Movement and religious and

cultural diversity has gained greater acceptance post-hippydom. 

The assumption that it was right to go to war just because your government said so was deeply challenged in the 60's amid the Vietnam conflict and has I believe contributed towards a more peaceful world (relatively!) or at least a higher degree and incidence of personal pacifism because that was made acceptable.  By the 80's people who had grown up in the wake of the 1960s became not hippies exactly but espoused much of what was positive from the hippy movement thus Band Aid and Live Aid, Children in Need and Comic Relief where entertainment stars led a drive to raise money to care for others in the world that have lesser fortune.  Having stars raise money is nothing new, of course, but in the 40s that was to sell war bonds!
Were the hippies totally successful?  No of course not.  Were their practices all good - equally not.  But my point is that I think the effect of the hippy movement (of the 60's mainly) is one of the most palpable influences on today's more positive morals, opinions and a more caring society.  I also believe that there is something of a counter trend going on in the west with a shift back towards individual selfishness and group nationalism, right wing tendencies etc.  But I hope the spirit of hippydom will ride that storm and emerge again to influence the post right wing world.

[jbeegoode]

See grassroots naturism thread to continue this about how to liberate the world.
Jbee

[reubenT]

There's a kind of fear of nudity that I had for a long time. And it's still there even though I keep over riding it with common sense and intelligence.   I finally realized it was not normal or good and tried to figure out where it came from. As best I can tell it began when I was about 6,  we lived in a one room cabin and baths were done the old fashioned way,  a galvanized tub with water heated in a kettle.  I remember my sister making fun of my nudity, and my mother mildly reproving her.  It was a seemingly innocent thing,  she would just pretend to peek and say  "I see you"    She was something like 3 years older.   But I remember her "fun" causing me the feeling of wanting to hide my nudity.   Maybe it had greater effect because I was very shy in normal life even.   

 Next memory concerning nudity was a few years later when I had developed an unnatural fear of being seen nude.  I guess the early influence had it's effect and without further help it grew into a strange fear that made no sense with no apparent reason for it.   Although I started going nude in nature alone at times, that unexplained fear of being seen nude became an automatic response of sudden fright any time the potential for being seen happened to come around.   When I was nude it might be just a crunch of leaves  or the sound of a vehicle. Anything my mind would interpret as the possible approach of something or someone,  it did not pass through the judgment part of my mind for analysis,  just produced a sudden fear response instantly.   But then, because nude was not part of normal life,  it took on a lust/sex connotation and I lived with that for many years.   Finally I decided it needed to go,  and I fought it, unsuccessfully.    Because I was fighting it in the wrong way.   Then ran into the mychainsaregone website and it made me realize that naturism was the cure.  So I intentionally started trying to reprogram my mind to accept nude as a normal way of life,  going nude as much as possible in work and recreation instead of just when feeling lust inclined. And it worked,  it got my mind away from the lust connotation.    And I ended up going to a naturist resort once and would like to some more. Just what I needed was to be nude with lots of other nude people and no one paying it any attention.  However even to this day that automatic fear response happens when I'm nude and hear something that sounds like someone possibly coming my way,  even though it ends up being a car on the road a half mile away.  But when it happens now my intelligence takes over immediately and tells the fear response it was stupid, no one is coming and it's not supposed to matter even if there was.

But it reminds me of a program I heard on radio from a man who was a military training advisor,  and he was also called on to investigate some school shootings.  He said the video games that have shooting of people on the screen will train a  young persons mind to shoot first and think later.  When they get past about 16 years old the same video training does not have the same response in the mind,  thought happens first and then shoot. Which takes control by mind decision as to what they shoot at.   Therefore he'd tried his best to get those video games made illegal,  but the companies making them had too much clout with the politicians. It's like children taking military gun training too early end up shooting innocent people without really thinking through what they are doing. 

 It looks like that's what happened to me in respect to nudity,  I got trained in the fear to be seen nude much too early and it programed itself into the automatic response area of my brain.  Which then becomes very difficult to change.   But change has happened to a large extent. 

[jbeegoode]

Fright and flight. I still get some of that, but mostly it is overridden.

Then, there is that uncomfortable feeling at first, when meeting others nude in some situations. It just has to be overcome and the way that that is done is to feel the feelings, just be aware of it and have the rational thought dialog already thought out convincingly.

Sometimes, it comes on the trail. Once it was with two female friends who came over to visit and I was the only one nude. I was feeling self conscious uncharacteristically of me. The feelings just pop out sometimes. Practice makes a huge difference. Being around situations like other nude people accepting me nude, until it become a norm, has helped me dramatically.

We are all taught some of this. If I plan my response and commit to it, I'm not bothered. Nearly always, I have discovered that there is no reason to feel that way. They are old responses that just don't apply anymore.
Jbee

[nuduke]

I never had any trouble separating naturist nudity from sexual nudity.  When naked and I don't want to be sexual, I'm not.  When I do, I am!  When I first ever went to a nudist colony I had all the usual fears about uncontrollable erections and so on but as with everyone else - they never happened and I settled down to some social nudity very quickly.  Two or three hours into that first visit I was sitting on a bench in the sunshine and a most attractive young woman came and sat by me and we chatted. Had she been in a porn video she might well have elucidated a sexual reaction from me but because we were strangers and having a conversation just as if we were on a train or at a bar or something, the matter of factness was just the same and my body reacted well in accordance with the situation albeit that we were both naked.  Afterwards I was really proud of myself for not succumbing to those newbie naturist fears and also the experience helped me to realise that I was a proper naturist after all! 


I think my working life had something to do with it.  I always worked in offices with a very mixed gender occupancy with usually at least 50/50 women and sometimes 90/10.  So I learned to respect my fellow woman as a colleague and collaborator not as a potential sexual partner.  That's not to say there weren't individuals along the way that I would gladly have spent my life with (or at least spent my seed within! :O ) but I learned to put such thoughts aside and get on with the job.  This was not true for some of my male colleagues though who were guilty of making lascivious remarks either away from or even in the presence of colleagues of the opposite gender.  I NEVER did.  It is demeaning and disrespectful to colleagues to do that.  Women rarely or never did this (although I have overheard some pretty lascivious conversations between women about their male colleagues but those conversations tended to be of a derisory, ball shrivelling nature as a response to such male indiscretion to a woman ! ).
John

[jbeegoode]

Lots of women have made compliments through the years, some could be construed as come on, or something appropriate, like, "You have the prettiest blue eyes," or, "You clean up pretty good." Some like "Hey, nice ass," were blatant, but it never insulted me, or made me uncomfortable. I just chose to thank them and be on my way, or not. Colleagues, I just listen and move on.

Now-a-days, more and more, I hold my tongue. Like a friend with a particularly messy muff, came to the sweat shaved one day. I was torn between paying a compliment, or saying nothing at all. I think that she would have been okay with the positive feedback. It grew back messy. People like to feel attractive, or just pleasing, just as much as comfortable and accepted. Nice dress.
Jbee 

[BlueTrain]

I think there are a couple of different issues here with regards to fear of nudity, if I didn't mention it somewhere already. First and obviously, there is the fear of being seen nude, or rather, naked. Naked in English means something a little different from nude. It implies a degree of defenselessness. Or to me it does, anyway. It isn't so much that people are particularly afraid of actually being seen nude, though that is also usually the case, but rather that they fear the embarrassment that comes from others knowing the fact that they were nude under conditions that most people might not think normal. Not abnormal but exceptional. The thing is, it really isn't what we do so much as what we're accused of doing. These days and perhaps always, the accusation is all it takes.

There is also the matter of some people not wanting to see nude people. We may pretend otherwise but I think that may be understandable. The same rationale applies to individuals who are reluctant to let themselves be seen undressed or even briefly dressed. Those who subscribe to the body liberation ideal don't let that bother them.

[Peter S]

I identified immediately with Reuben’s “kind of fear”. I’ve never identified where it came from as it was never a problem as a child - a range of family happy snaps have me running around naked and happy in the garden, on the beach, round the house ... and my sister was never a problem, indeed she often appeared naked in the same pictures.

Nowadays when I head out for a naked cross-country walk I have to overcome some psychological barrier to actually take my clothes off, but once they’re off I’m mostly fine. Mostly, because if I encounter other walkers my first instinct is still to hide or cover up, but I’ve become better at rejecting that instinct and carrying on.

I think the psyche block must have started at primary school, somehow. As I say it wasn’t an issue at home when young, and come secondary school we had communal changing rooms and showers (all boys school) for PE and sports, so it must have been something in between.

[jbeegoode]

Sexualization
It is certainly much about what Bluetrain said just above here. I figure that a lot of the conditioning is media based. Simply the sexualization of nudity. When it is sexual in society, it carries a simple act into other dimensions and connotations. I am nude in unusual circumstance, should be just that, but it is now a sex act and in unusual circumstance. For example, one is to keep their sexuality in its social place. Being nude with others is sexual, homosexual, it is a come on, a prelude to sex. It is exhibitionistic and voyeuristic, or dirty thoughts that give tingles. Children, myself as a child included, will when having no useful sexual outlet and are looking for a sexual outlet may find being naked sexy, and out comes that stash of dad's old playboys when nobodies home. Tanlines show where a forbidden body part is kept, naked.

So with that old garbage in the back of one’s mind, there is a knee jerk reaction. Growing up, getting naked with another guy, was, "Quick dude, before someone sees us. They'll think we're homos." I hope kids are getting past that stuff these days. Another example, a group goes out skinny dipping and the girl’s are then sluts, but there is no sex. So it is not about the act of being nude, but the concern of what others will think. After all, we western humans generally are not too concerned to be naked and alone, until someone else is around us, or we have that fear.

Sexualization of the body is how we imagine ourselves, we identify as sexy, we even do things to be more sexy and enjoy a tease. We are just people without clothes, harmless, until someone comes down the trail and then all the social implications suddenly explode as with the sense of fear.

Law and prejudgement:
Bluetrain wrote, “The thing is, it really isn't what we do so much as what we're accused of doing. These days and perhaps always, the accusation is all it takes.” This is more about the law and prejudgment. Some narrow minded people are fearful. I’m standing there naked and he or she feels defenseless. There is no logic. There is only fear. Something is out of order, and it is confusing. Confusion can be fearful and illogical, so, people often like to be in a safe box.

Privacy:
Privacy is ingrained in us. I’m surprised that only a couple of percent of people object on the trail with the social upbringing we have. Nudity is also a private thing, as we are taught. I’ve been come upon in the wilds a couple of times and people politely try to avoid embarrassing me. There can be fear mixed into either party, but mostly they’re acting in an assumption, or operating in error and neither party really is concerned about the one nude. Privacy issues make people uncomfortable.

Conditioning:
Sometimes, I just don’t want to bother with the hassle. Sometimes, I don’t care. DF and I have in the past decided to just bare it, no backup, but when someone comes down the path, we have been hard pressed to not cover up. It takes practice, conditioning has a hold on us all and conditioning is a key to overcoming inhibitions, like Peter S. describes. This is why DF and I have been experimenting with encounters. We are de-conditioning and exploring fully how we feel during encounters with others when nude. It seems that once we commit enough to grin and bare it, we are watching others reactions more, and also less bothered by what is going on inside of ourselves. We’re more comfortable. Then, sometimes when we’re off guard, the ‘ol knee jerk returns.

I’ll refer to this article:

https://thefreerangenaturist.org/2017/11/01/rethinking-strategies-when-encountering-others/


Here’s an elaboration of the results so far:

https://thefreerangenaturist.org/2017/12/28/hows-that-new-strategy-working-out/

In a situation of walking those isles with the new freedom from arrest in place, that strategy is important in a free person’s personal liberation and how nudes present themselves wholesomely to the rest of the population. We have to go far and wait to be away from the trailhead to get a semblance of that freedom in this country.
Jbee

 

[BlueTrain]

Very good post. Naturally I have comments.

Regarding fear of nudity, I do not think that narrow-minded people are necessarily afraid of nudity. There are those who are merely busy-bodies, who feel the need, if not the right, to pry and spy on other people's business. It is certainly true there are those who wring their hands and say the country is going down the tubes and how they wish it was when America was great, be it 1910, 1928, 1939, 1950, 1957, 1964, 1968, etc. Some people had it great during those years but hardly everyone.

Regarding sexualization, you can't sexualize people. That's the way people are. You can't blame the media because people were that way before there was a media. True, there are influences and that's unavoidable because that happens in the absence of media. Unfortunately, there are all the rules that society makes up, and they're all different from place to place (and I mean they can be different fifty miles away). It's also true that many of the rules are vague and meaningless and mostly unenforceable by law--but not by society generally. People can still be ostracized for breaking some rule. It is hard to understand because in our anything but classless society, each level has it's own rules. It seems like those at the very top and those at the very bottom get away with more than the ones in the middle. That also seems to apply to codified law, too, especially at the top, up there above the law.

I'm not so sure that privacy is a natural concept. I doubt it was in primitive societies nor under relatively primitive conditions. In other words, different conditions come with different expectations of privacy, even though different individuals will also have different expectations. So, when real privacy is absent, such as in the bay of a barracks room shared by thirty men, you manage by not staring, not looking, not showing off and so on. That is, if you want to get along with the group. That's true in the big world, too. Of course, there are those who ignore the unwritten, if not unspoken, rules, and who make bad neighbors. By the way, I have also had the same experience of people trying not to embarrass me out in the woods when I was seen nude.

[jbeegoode]

Media has been at it for a very long time. Examples of influence are bodies in fashion, Barbie figures, or Playboy boobs. It has been said that it would seem to a young guy on the internet that women never had pubic hair. As I mentioned before, the tanlines were a thing back when and still this pops up theses days. Yes, we can say that all of the sexual tricks and trips that are seen browsing the internet were there before the internet. Today, these things are exploited more, they're out there and accessible.

Other sexual, social and cultural expressions of sexuality are in our lives and maybe more so for the younger ones. Fashion has been tantalizing for decades, less and less repressed and more and more exploitative and sexual.

Now, we have a personal space shift, some of it bad, some of it good. Some of it is safety for the squeamish and damaged. It can go all the way to repressing the emotional expression of those more liberated. Some of it is a greater expression of sexuality. All are seeking balance.

The media supports the premise that a naked body it a sex object, as skin means sex. Then, skin as sex is pulled in many ways, fetish wear, control trips, rough, anger and love. Nude bodies are always about sex.

Seen skin is made to be more sexually stimulating by the media and the culture that it represents, or creates.

If one sees over and over that nude is about sex, is associated with sex, then eventually the idea that that is the case wears off on people. They need to see a body as wholesome and natural and they don't get to see that. They don't get to see real naked people, they see idealized beauty, worshiped and packaged.

When you strip away the social and cultural trappings, there are real imperfect bodies. Then sexual response is triggered by healthy sharing, like emotion and intimacy and more unconditional acceptance of each other, cuddling and bonding as people. Without the trappings that the media sells us, we are less triggered as objects, projected expectations, and any manner of crazy ideas about who we are, the others are, or reality.

So, Bluetrain, I disagree there. I also disagree that cultural differences can be different not just 50 miles away, but in the next room, and in this day and age from individual to individual and then the confusion inside the individual. An individual has many roles to play and believe in. We travel through different zones wit different rules.

Still, I don't want to portray the media as just evil and sexual websites as something that needs to be eradicated. To each his own. I don't know how to balance simple nudity and sexual expression in the media. I do know a few tricks that would help. I do recognize a problem. I do know that if law didn't get in the way that a better balance could naturally be found. Instead of lumping naturism in with sex, tossing the baby out with the bathwater, or making the two opposites the same.
Jbee

[rrfalcon]

I think there are a couple of different issues here with regards to fear of nudity, if I didn't mention it somewhere already. First and obviously, there is the fear of being seen nude, or rather, naked. Naked in English means something a little different from nude. It implies a degree of defenselessness. Or to me it does, anyway.

I've heard it put as, "Nude is unclothed and confident in yourself. Naked is unclothed and vulnerable.  Nekkid is unclothed and up to something!" :-)

[BlueTrain]

Maybe that's what people are really afraid of.

[nuduke]

Why have we got 2 current topics, one Gymnophobia and this one Fear of Nudity.  It's the same subject.  Very untidy topic origination there!  Let us merge them and be efficient and economical!
John