On the right to be naked

Have you ever thought about the right to be publicly naked? Whether we want it or not, this issue has long been part of the fabric of the legal system, but only in a negative, prohibitive way. Now, we may take a look at this legal problem from the point of view of social sciences.

I recently came across an article published in Res Publica, a “journal of legal, moral and social philosophy focusing on normative analysis of theoretical, practical, and public issues”. The article “The Right to be Publicly Naked: A Defence of Nudism” by Bouke de Vries [1] seems to argue that when public nudity does not pose a health threat, legal restrictions on nudism are unjust. It is contended that the freedom to be publicly naked should be recognized as a distinct legal right. By a ‘right to be publicly naked’, it is meant a “legally protected liberty to be naked in a range of places, including public beaches, streets, squares, and forests”.

The author introduces the reader to the world of what he calls “current anti-nudist laws”. There are various offences under which nudism or public nudity might be circumscribed within modern liberal democratic societies. “These include, but are not limited to: indecent exposure, public indecency, sexual exhibition, disturbances to public order, and threats to public peace”. It is pointed out that these anti-nudist laws and regulations are actively implemented by the relevant state authorities. Using specific examples, the author argues that it “would be mistaken to see these laws and ordinances as relics of Victorian sensibilities” and concludes that “contemporary liberal democracies heavily circumscribe public nudity”, so that “there is little reason for believing that these restrictions are bound to be lifted eventually”.

In order to defend a ‘right to be publicly naked’, the author is trying to “identify the interests served by such a right” and demonstrate that these “are strong enough to merit legal protection”. Two substantial social benefits that arise from the freedom to be naked in public are singled out. First, it promotes individual well-being. This means not only that nudist activities have great recreational value, but also a positive impact of nudism on body image and on life satisfaction of those who practice it. Second, public nudity has expressive value. Besides being a constitutive element of various spiritual and religious worldviews, public nudity is frequently used as a means of protest against “social and political evils”.

When it comes to potential contributions to people’s well-being, the author adduces three kinds of evidence: “testimonial, abductive, and empirical”. He starts with “abundant testimonies that practising nudism can bring pleasures that are neither immoral nor pathological”. Then, it is argued that it would be “difficult to explain why so many individuals practice it and why some are even willing to do so at the risk of incurring legal and/or social sanctions”. “A third source of support for the link between nudism and well-being is provided by empirical studies of the last few decades” that have found that “exposure to (non-exhibitionist) public nudity” can have “positive effects on well-being by promoting people’s body image”.

As for freedom of expression, “nudists and non-nudists often have strong expressive interests in the liberty to be publicly naked”. The author mentions two of them. “One expressive interest is identity-related. For many nudists, the ability to appear naked in public is necessary for expressing their identity, and in so doing, maintaining a sense of personal integrity or wholeness”. “The other expressive interest in the freedom to be publicly naked is communicative. While the ability to express our identity-constituting commitments can matter independent from whether others recognise our identities, such recognition can be pertinent as well”. In particular, nudists and non-nudists are using public nudity as “a means of promoting their moral and political views” and for naked protests which are “often highly effective in attracting public attention”.

Completing the review of possible objections, the article suggests that a right to be publicly naked should be recognized as a distinct right, considering it inefficient to incorporate nudist freedoms into existing rights, or “simply” to “secure them by excluding non-sexual, non-exhibitionist public nudity from existing laws against public indecency, sexual exhibition, and public disorder”.

La bailarina desnuda by Ángel Zárraga (1886–1946)

References
[1] de Vries, B. The Right to be Publicly Naked: A Defence of Nudism. Res Publica 25, 407–424 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-018-09406-z
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11158-018-09406-z

Reformulation of Reality

How relevant is to mention a modern clothing-optional event like World Naked Bike Ride in connection with Lupercalia, an ancient Roman festival (see my previous post [1]; also [2-3])? If we agree with the point of view that “phenomena of the Classical Age” are not “only extremely complex but utterly alien to us”, then we should refrain from labelling them “with modern catchwords like Socialism, Impressionism, Capitalism, Clericalism” [4] (and Naturism, or Nudism as well). However, are the practices of the Greco-Roman culture indeed “immeasurably alien and distant” from “our inner selves”?

‘Culture’ can be defined “as a learned pattern of behavior”, which is a way how people live their lives [5]. It is considered “as a complex combination of actions and mechanisms produced by continuous social interactions, generating processes of sense making and reformulation of the process of reality” [6].

Cultures distributed in time and space around the world are different. But, there are some things that all cultures have in common [7]. It is not surprising, because we “see no evidence that our brains and personalities have changes much since” “modern humans, who looked just like us, emerged from Africa more than 100,000 years ago”. Our “wants, dreams, personalities, and desires have probably not changed much in 100,000 years” [8].

The practices universally available across all cultural traditions include “the events and activities” of days of special significance called ‘feasts’, ‘festivals’ or ‘holidays’ [9]. “Feasting is certainly a widespread, almost universal behavior, and it has persisted for many thousands of years” [10]. “Feasts and festivals, whether religious or secular, national or local, serve to meet specific social and psychological needs and provide cohesiveness to social institutions”. Feasts and festivals “have flourished in both ancient and modern civilizations” [9].

It is believed that “most secular holidays … have some relationship – in terms of origin – with religious feasts and festivals”. Even the modern “practice of vacations … is derived from the ancient Roman religious calendar” [9].

Lupercalia. Based on painting by Annibale Carracci in Palazzo Magnani in Bologna; printmaker: anonymous (ca. 1677)

Of course, the World Naked Bike Ride can be hardly viewed as a successor of an ancient Roman festival, but there is a symbolic correspondence between them. The very abandonment of clothing takes the participants of such events to a reality different from that of everyday life. This, in turn, may sow the seeds of a new common vision of decency, propriety, and obscenity, and give rise to the reality of a society with a more open and tolerant attitude towards nudity.

World Naked Bike Ride Philadelphia 2016

The current list of clothing-optional events in Wikipedia [11] includes Burning Man‎ and naked cycling events‎ (not limited to World Naked Bike Ride), together with 25 others of different kind. Nudist festivals have been gaining popularity. More and more people are discovering that “normal, everyday activities could be made more interesting without clothes on” [12].

References
[1] Lupercalia as an ancient clothing-optional event – Vadimage Blog
https://vadimage.wordpress.com/2020/02/23/lupercalia/
[2] Lupercalia – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupercalia
[3] World Naked Bike Ride – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Naked_Bike_Ride
[4] Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West: The Complete Edition – Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/Decline-Of-The-West-Oswald-Spengler/page/n1/mode/2up
[5] Richard Ibuh, The Kayans, Partridge Publishing Singapore, 2014
https://books.google.com/books?id=K3-IBAAAQBAJ
[6] Emanuele Schember et al., The internal structure of the social representation of culture: an empirical contribution, IJASOS – International E-Journal of Advances in Social Sciences, Vol. I, Issue 2, August 2015
http://ijasos.ocerintjournals.org/tr/download/article-file/89504
[7] Do Different Cultures Have Things in Common? – Anthropology 4U – Medium
https://medium.com/@anthropology4u/do-different-cultures-have-things-in-common-ffd4135d31e4
[8] Michio Kaku, Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, Penguin, 2011
https://books.google.com/books?id=MLkHa1KZF4wC
[9] Feast – Encyclopædia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/feast-religion
[10] Brian Hayden, The Power of Feasts, Cambridge University Press, 2014
https://books.google.com/books?id=gLhUBAAAQBAJ
[11] Category:Clothing-optional events – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Clothing-optional_events
[12] Dillon DuBois, Clothing-Optional Festivals Around the World – The Vacation Rental Experts
https://www.alltherooms.com/blog/clothing-optional-festivals-around-the-world/

Extensions of the Body

“In order to exploit the environment all organisms adapt their bodies to meet specialized environmental conditions,”

wrote Edward T. Hall [1], the anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher, in his book “The Silent Language” [2], in which he analyzed “the many ways in which people “talk” to one another without the use of words”. He gives a few examples of adaptations:

“the long neck of the giraffe (adapted to high foliage of trees), the teeth of the saber-toothed tiger, toes of the tree sloth, hoof of the horse, and man’s opposable thumb”.

The adaptation of the body is not the end of the story. The author continues:

“Occasionally organisms have developed specialized extensions of their bodies to take the place of what the body itself might do and thereby free the body for other things. Among these ingenious natural developments are the web of the spider, cocoons, nests of birds and fish.” [italics added]

Fieldfare by Andreas Trepte

The man “with his specialized body” is not an exception. (The passage below is cited by Marshall McLuhan in The Gutenberg Galaxy [3].)

“Today man has developed extensions for practically everything he used to do with his body. The evolution of weapons begins with the teeth and the fist and ends with the atom bomb. Clothes and houses are extensions of man’s biological temperature-control mechanisms. Furniture takes the place of squatting and sitting on the ground. Power tools, glasses, TV, telephones, and books which carry the voice across both time and space are examples of material extensions. Money is a way of extending and storing labor. Our transportation networks now do what we used to do with our feet and backs. In fact, all man-made material things can be treated as extensions of what man once did with his body or some specialized part of his body.”

Farmer in rocking-chair reading The Progressive Farmer. “Farmer reading his farm paper” By George W. Ackerman, Coryell County, Texas, September 1931

This can be summarized in the table:

Function	Body	Body Extensions
Weapons	teeth, fist	atom bomb
Temperature control	biological mechanisms	clothes, houses
Rest, recreation, relaxation	squatting, sitting on the ground	furniture
Communication	voice	TV, telephones, books
Transportation	feet and backs	transportation networks

What I learned from this list is that one specialized extension of the human body stands out against the other developments. It is neither shameful nor illegal to squat or sit on the ground, to carry something on your back or to use your voice without touching the phone. But it is extremely undesirable to control your body temperature without clothes on even at comfortable ambient temperatures. It seems ridiculous, especially when one takes into account that the purpose of developing specialized extensions of the body is to free the body.

According to Edward T. Hall, “culture controls behavior in deep and persisting ways, many of which are outside of awareness and therefore beyond conscious control of the individual”. The rich experience taught anthropologists one thing, namely that

“culture is more than mere custom that can be shed or changed like a suit of clothes.”

References
[1] Edward T. Hall – Wikipedia
[2] Edward T. Hall. The Silent Language (Anchor Books, 1973)
[3] The Gutenberg Galaxy – Wikipedia

Nude Humanity

Animals don’t wear clothes. We learnt it from early childhood. At three years old, you could keep asking why your cat didn’t wear “some clothes” [1]. You could even get a scientific answer: “animals don’t wear clothes because, for the most part, they are still restricted to climates where they don’t need them” [2]. If you are a little older, you may begin to ask yourself whether taking off clothes brings a man or a woman closer to an animal or even “crosses border” between a human being and an animal.

Once Jacques Derrida [3], a French philosopher, found himself frontally naked “faced with cat’s eyes looking” at him “from head to toe” [4]. He started thinking about “the property unique to animals, what in the last instance distinguishes them from man, is their being naked without knowing it”. The philosopher continued, “naked without knowing it, animals would not be, in truth, naked. They wouldn’t be naked because they are naked. In principle, with the exception of man, no animal has ever thought to dress itself”. It appears that clothing “would be proper to man, one of the “properties” of man”. “There is no nudity “in nature”. Then new questions arose: “Before the cat that looks at me naked, would I be ashamed like an animal that no longer has the sense of nudity? Or on the contrary, like a man who retains the sense of his nudity?” [4]

Leaving all these childish and philosophical questions aside, we can specify what indeed “distinguishes humans from other animals” [5]. The answer lies in the sphere of mind and it is not restricted to awareness of nudity. According to modern scientific studies,”mounting evidence indicates that, in contrast to Darwin’s theory of a continuity of mind between humans and other species, a profound gap separates our intellect from the animal kind”.

Abraham Maslow [6], an American psychologist, introduced the notion of peak experience, “the most wonderful experience or experiences of your life; happiest moments, ecstatic moments, moments of rapture, perhaps from being in love, or from listening to music or suddenly “being hit” by a book or a painting, or from some great creative moment” [7]. Peak experiences can be described “as moments of maximum psychological functioning”, when a person “feels more intelligent, more perceptive, wittier, stronger, or more graceful than at other times” [7,8].

Maslow considered “the taboos on nudity to be entirely a matter of folkways and customs rather than a matter of ethical or moral principle in any cross-cultural sense” [9]. He “had an established but purely theoretical interest in whether nudity would make people in therapy “an awful lot freer, a lot more spontaneous, less guarded” [10].

In the late 1960s, basing, in part, on Maslow’s ideas about peak experiences, it was supposed that nudism can be “a viable path to personal growth, authenticity and transcendence”. The therapy called nude psychotherapy was developed. The naked body was considered “as a metaphor of the “psychological soul”. “Uninhibited exhibition of the nude body revealed that which was most fundamental, truthful, and real” [8,10-12]. “Although nude therapy has an indisputable tabloid character, it is also rooted in a long-standing academic search for authenticity and ultimate meaning through science” [11].

Despite the controversy concerning nude therapy, it gives an insight that nudity does not interfere, but rather helps to realize the human potential.

Nude with cat on chair by angrylambie1 | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (Creative Commons License)

References
[1] Clare Painter, Learning Through Language in Early Childhood, A&C Black, 2005
[2] Question: why don’t other animals wear clothes?
[3] Jacques Derrida – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[4] Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, Fordham Univ Press, 2009, see also Critical Inquiry, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter, 2002), pp. 369-418
[5] What Distinguishes Humans from Other Animals?
[6] Abraham Maslow – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[7] Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, Start Publishing, 2013
[8] Margarita Tartakovsky, The History of Nude Psychotherapy – World of Psychology
[9] Jessica Lynn Grogan, A Cultural History of the Humanistic Psychology Movement in America, ProQuest, 2008
[10] Nude psychotherapy and the quest for inner peace – Mind Hacks
[11] Ian Nicholson, Baring the soul: Paul Bindrim, Abraham Maslow and ‘Nude psychotherapy’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Volume 43, Issue 4, pages 337–359, 2007
[12] Nude psychotherapy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Faces and Bodies

Sometimes some interesting stuff escapes your attention. Only recently I read about the work by Frans de Waal and Jennifer Pokorny which won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2012 for “discovering that chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually by seeing photographs of their anogenital regions (their behinds)” [1,2]. Chimpanzees “were not only seeing the photographs as representations of chimps they knew, but linked the face and behind by drawing upon a mental representation of the whole body of those chimps” [3,4].

When I pushed a vision of respectable scientists, taking photos of chimps’ behinds in order to share them with other chimps, away from my imagination, I came to understanding that this discovery might hold a key to understanding the purpose of clothing. Among the Hominidae, chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to humans [5]. Someone even calls humans the “third chimpanzee” [6]. Though, one may ask, “What about humans?”

A psychological study done at the University of Texas in 2013 revealed that “people do better at facial recognition when the whole person, not just the face, is presented”. It appears that “when faces are partially obscured or difficult to differentiate, subtle body cues allow people to identify others with surprising accuracy”. “Our work shows that the body can be surprisingly useful for identification, especially when the face fails to provide the necessary identity information,” project supervisor said [7].

It should be taken into account that in the time-scale of evolution clothing is “a relatively new invention”. “Earliest recorded signs of clothing date to 36,000 BCE”. Considering that the use of clothing has a relatively short history, two scientists have assumed that it is possible “that the responses of the brain networks specialized in body perception could show attenuated responses towards bodies wearing clothing” [8]. It indeed turned out that “the human brain showed enhanced visual processing of nude over clothed bodies”. Human visual system has been found to be particularly sensitive to detecting nude bodies. The experimenters discovered that “brain mechanisms specifically devoted to processing visual information” worked more effectively as the amount of clothing on images shown to healthy male and female volunteers decreased from full clothing via swimsuits to nude bodies. The response traditionally assumed to be most pronounced to human faces proved to be even greater to nude bodies than to faces [8].

With all these in mind, we can now suppose that one of the purposes of clothing is to hide one’s true identity and “fool other’s into believing that he or she has is actually someone else”. In culture, the putting on masks attempting to hide one’s true identity is often considered as suspect or even criminal (see, for instance, [9]).  Of course, under certain circumstances, there might be reasons to disguise one’s identity [10]. But, despite the fact that you may “enjoy being someone different”, it’s nice to know you’re still yourself at the end of the day [11].

Siu Ding nude project #1 by Jesse Clockwork | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (Creative Commons License)

References
[1] Frans B. M. de Waal, Jennifer J. Pokorny, Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception, Advanced Science Letters, Volume 1, Number 1, June 2008, pp. 99-103(5)
[2] List of Ig Nobel Prize winners – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[3] Chimps can recognise friends by their behinds – New Scientist
[4] Butts, Faces Help Chimps Identify Friends – National Geographic News
[5] Chimpanzee – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[6] Jared M. Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, Harper Perennial, 2006
[7] Study: People use body cues to help identify faces
[8] J.K. Hietanen, L. Nummenmaa, The naked truth: the face and body sensitive N170 response is enhanced for nude bodies, PLoS One. 2011;6(11):e24408
[9] Christine Matzke, Susanne Muehleisen, Postcolonial Postmortems: Crime Fiction from a Transcultural Perspective, Rodopi, 2006
[10] What are some reasons why someone would want to hide their identity?
[11] David Numeroff, Laura Joffe Numeroff, Why a Disguise, Turtleback Books, 1999.

A modified version of the post with some speculations on human evolution can be found on naktiv.net or DeviantArt.