An essay is usually a short piece of writing which is often written from an author’s personal point of view (Wikipedia)
Here are some selected essays from the blog.
A bit more naked than the other
Posted in Science, Society, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudism, naturism, nudity, body,Society, behavior, nakedness, Science, human body, shame, shameful, human, culture,skin, BBC, Horizon, primate, anthropologist, anthropology, ancestor, evolution, civilization,hairless on October 1, 2010
Recently I’ve read about an experiment in nudity, which was filmed by the BBC’s Horizon programme, “to test some of the scientific theories that explain why naked bodies make us so uncomfortable“. The first thing I’ve learned from the article entitled “Can people unlearn their naked shame?” which appeared some time ago on the BBC […]
Tired by Liz_D.S on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Likeness of God
Posted in History, Society, tagged image, nude, naked, nudity, nature, nakedness,woman, Eve, Augustine of Hippo, likeness, God, Mary Magdalen, Susan Haskins, Augustine, clothing, dress, finery, cosmetics, makeup, idol, mask, Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women, women, Creator on September 18, 2010
Clothing alters the image and likeness of God possessed by people. At least Medieval friars were quite sure about that. Susan Haskins in Mary Magdalen: myth and metaphor (Riverhead Books, New York, 1993) mentions Augustine of Hippo, a Latin church father, who fought with vanity considered as one of the forms of the sin of pride. Women who donned their […]
Anthropology
Posted in Science, Society, tagged photo, nude, naked, nudity, Flickr, body, nakedness, energy, human, sharing, hosting, Photobucket, ethology, animal, ritual, monkey, communication, masculinity, hierarchy, dominance, power on August 6, 2010
Terms of Use Agreements for some popular content hosting and sharing services categorically prohibit nudity alongside the racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual, excessive violence, criminal or tortious activity (quoted from Photobucket.com Terms of Use Agreement) and anything like that. On the contrary, the more liberal photo […]
How close can you get? | Flickr – Photo Sharing! By vbratone
Thermodynamics of nudism
Posted in History, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudist, naturist, nudism, naturism, nudity, German, Germany, fkk, body, nakedness, Health, sun, energy, sunbathing, thermodynamics, Maren Möhring, skin, electricity, supply, bath, rays on July 23, 2010
Is there anything common between naturism and thermodynamics? Maren Möhring, the author of Working Out the Body’s Boundaries: Physiological, Aesthetic, and Psychic Dimensions of the Skin in German Nudism, 1890-1930 (in Body parts: critical explorations in corporeality, edited by Christopher E. Forth, Ivan Crozier, p. 229-246), argues in favor of the existence of close links […]
1938: Nudists vs. Scientists
Posted in Health, History, Society, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudism, naturism, nudity, fkk, temperature, body, research, nakedness, Science, Health, human body, human, sunbathing, POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 1930s, Science studies the Nudists, POPULAR SCIENCE, scientist, America, back-to-Eden, cult, sun bathing, weather, enthusiast, worker, scientific, calorimeter, apparatus, DuBois, Hardy, test, insulating, medium, chamber, claim, animal that wears clothes on July 9, 2010
What was the greatest threat for the civilized world in the 1930s? You would be mistaken, if you think about nazism. Actually, it was nudism, at least for someone. ‘Three hundred thousand men, women, and children, in America alone, are nudists,’ informs Edwin Teale in the article which appeared in the POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, February, […]
Health and Joy
Weird Customs
Posted in Society, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudist, naturist, nudity, beach, fkk, weird, nakedness, Google Books, book, camp, Strange Sexual Customs and Practices, custom, practice, strange, culture, tribe, tribal, reader on July 5, 2010
Have you ever attended a nudist beach or spent a week or two at a nudist camp? If the answer is yes, I congratulate you; now you are reckoned among those who carry out Strange Sexual Practices. At least, Hari Dutt Sharma, author of Strange Sexual Customs and Practices published in India (Pustak Mahal, 2007), […]
The Sorcerer and Gallant Ladies
Posted in History, Literature, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudism, naturism, nudity, fkk, nakedness, France, Brantôme, Lives of fair and gallant ladies, Francis I, Henri II, Master Gonnin, Nostradamus, quatrain, undressed, ladies, Renaissance, Europe, Rubens on June 12, 2010
Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme (c. 1540 – 1614) is described as one of the most famous of French writers of memoirs. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) calls him “a doubtful witness” admitting that “he has moreover, no sense of morality, in the modern meaning of the word.” René Doumic, the author of the article on […]
Shame by Joseph Orsillo on Flickr
“Shameful Things”
Posted in History, Philosophy, Science, Society, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudist, naturist, nudism, naturism, nudity, art, fkk, Society, nakedness, feeling, ancient, greek, Homer, Greece, beauty, Larissa Bonfante, Ruth Barcan, aidoia, shame, shameful, defeat, wretchedness, human, exposure, humiliating, symbolic, meaning, symbolize, symbol, stereotype, aesthetic on May 30, 2010
Since several previous posts were dedicated to the attitude towards nudity in ancient Greeks, a few words should be said about the evolution of these ideas. Ruth Barcan writes in “Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy” that the Greek ideal of nudity developed gradually, and was only ever a mainland phenomenon. She quotes Larissa Bonfante (“Nudity as […]
Livia Drusilla and some naked men
Posted in History, Literature, Society, tagged nude, naked, nudity, art, life, nakedness, greek, games, Cassius Dio, Augustus, Roman Empire, Romans, athlete, statue, Montaigne, Livia Drusilla, Livia, Octavian Augustus, Octavian, Roman, Rome, men, heroic costume, costume, Actian Games on May 22, 2010
Livia, in the opinion of the wise, spoke like a great and sufficient Lady, such as she was, in saying that to a chaste woman a naked man is just a statue. (Essays of Michel de Montaigne) Livia Drusilla was the wife of Octavian Augustus. The ancient sources generally portray her as a woman of […]
Fig, not Apple
Posted in History, Literature, Philosophy, Society, fine art, tagged nude, naked, nudity, fine art, History, Adam, nakedness, painting, Ghent Altarpiece, Hubert van Eyck, Jan van Eyck, naturalism, Ghent, Belgium, polyptych, Eve, apple, fig, Augustine of Hippo, Karel van Mander, Mander, scholarship on May 9, 2010
Traditionally it was believed that the Ghent Altarpiece was begun by Hubert van Eyck, who died in 1426 whilst work was underway, and completed by his younger brother Jan van Eyck, but some modern researchers distinguished the hand of only one artist, namely Jan van Eyck, in this painting. This altarpiece is one of the […]
Greek taboos
Posted in Health, History, Philosophy, Science, Society, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudism, nudity, art, History, nakedness, ancient, greek, athletics, Plato, Greece, Athens, warrior-athlete, warrior, athlete, human body, hero, Ruth Barcan, Margaret Walters, Herodotus, Marina Warner, Greek Anthology, The Republic on May 2, 2010
The Ancient Greeks considered their custom of athletic nudity as a marker of their own civilization – one that distinguished them from their own ancestors and from the “barbarians” (Ruth Barcan). The Greeks came to understand the practice of athletic nudity as a “civilized” one: For among the Lydians, and indeed among the barbarians generally, […]
Penthesilea by mypixbox on Flickr
Nudity in Greek Athletics, Part II: Guarded from Many Evils
Posted in Health, History, Science, Society, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudism, nudity, art, History, nakedness, ancient, greek, athletics, Mouratidis, loincloths, Greece, Athens, Théodore Géricault, prehistoric, warrior-athlete, warrior, athlete, Larissa Bonfante, John Mouratidis, Kenneth Clark, human body, energy, hero, Heracles, Olympic Games on April 11, 2010
In my previous post on the subject I’ve already mentioned that the traditional dating of the origin of nudity in Greek athletics to the 8th century B.C. is questioned by some historians. John Mouratidis from the University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece believes that nudity in Greek athletics has a much longer history. It had “its […]
Roman connotations
Posted in History, Science, Society, nudism, tagged ancient, athletics, Augustus, Cassius Dio, Classical, connotation, Greece, greek, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Lacedaemonians, market, naked, nakedness, nude, nudism, nudity, Roman Empire, Romans, slave, Sparta, Spartans on March 7, 2010
In one of my previous posts I wrote that athletes from Sparta were given historical credit for being the first to discard clothing for competition in ancient Greece. It is now generally accepted that this occurred as early as the 8th or 7th century B.C. (see also Aileen Goodson’s “Therapy, Nudity & Joy”). Spartan women […]
un.geniert 2010 – Juni – Academic Athletics by Wolf Brüning on Flickr
No! a Spartan maid could not be chaste…
Posted in Health, History, Science, Society, nudism, tagged Academic Athletics, ancient, Andromache, Athenians, Athens, athletics, Edgar Degas, Elis, Euripides, games, Greece, greek, Hera, Heraea, naked, nakedness, nude, nudism, nudity, Olympia, Plato, Republic, Sarah B. Pomeroy, Sextus Propertius, Sparta, Spartan, Spartan women, Wolf Brüning, Young Spartans exercising on February 7, 2010
No! a Spartan maid could not be chaste, e’en if she would, who leaves her home and bares her limbs and lets her robe float free, to share with youths their races and their sports,-customs I cannot away with. Is it any wonder then that ye fail to educate your women in virtue? (Andromache By […]
Young Spartans exercising by Edgar Degas
Nudity in Greek Athletics, Part I
Posted in Health, History, Science, Society, nudism, tagged ancient, Athenians, athletics, Dionysios of Halicarnassos, Greece, greek, Hippomenes, Homer, Ionia, Lacedaemonians, loincloths, Megarians, Mouratidis, naked, nakedness, nude, nudism, nudity, Plato, Spartans, Thucydides on January 31, 2010
Ancient Greek athletics is often associated with nudity. My knowledge on this subject was always incomplete and fragmentary. Now I’m going to dedicate a few posts to the phenomenon of nudity in Greek athletics in order to arrange the information I found recently. My main source will be the article “The Origin of Nudity in […]
Medieval theology: types of nudity
Posted in History, Philosophy, Society, nudism, tagged nude, naked, nudity, Medieval, nakedness, Pierre Bercheur, theology, dark ages, nuditas naturalis, nuditas temporalis, nuditas virtualis, nuditas criminalis on January 7, 2010
Medieval theologians had a mania to classify everything according to strangely invented rules. Nudity defined as ‘the lack of clothes‘ was also an object of their intent look. In general, four types of nudity were invented. In the fourteenth century Pierre Bercheur who was a monk of the Benedictine order codified the types of nudity […]
Hard to make the right choice by MaraB
Worshiping the Sun
Posted in Health, History, Philosophy, Society, nudism, tagged Akhenaten, Akhetaten, Amarna, Aten, Aton, Egypt, History, naked, nakedness, naturism, naturist, Nefertiti, nude, nudism, nudist, Pharaoh, sun on January 1, 2010
Long before the era of holiday’s commercialization has come, in the coldest and darkest days of the year, the people all over the world welcomed the rebirth of the sun. I think I must not miss an opportunity to write a few words about the Sun Worship in these short-sun days, especially because it has […]
Normality
Posted in Philosophy, Society, nudism, tagged behavior, body, confidence, conformism, experiment, fkk, good, Is It Normal?, isitnormal, naked, nakedness, naturism, naturist, normal, normality, nude, nudeness, nudism, nudist, nudity, online, photo, photograph, picture, safe, safe(r) mode, site, sleep, social, Society, survey, tradition, unscientific, website, weird, Wikipedia on August 23, 2009
What does it mean to be normal? Most people thought about it. (A sudden quote from J. Krishnamurti: For most of us, thought is a means to change. Through thought we hope to change, through ideas we hope to transform ourselves…)
Among the definitions that can be found in a short article in Wikipedia I like […]
Schiermonnikoog bord
Evil and Body
Posted in History, Literature, Philosophy, nudism, tagged Adam, Bertrand Russell, body, De divisione naturae, Erigena, evil, heresy, heretical, Johannes Scotus Erigena, Medieval, Milan Kundera, naturism, naturist, Neoplatonist, ninth century, nudism, nudist, nudity, Periphyseon, philosopher, The division of nature, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, theologian, willpower on July 29, 2009
Milan Kundera mentioned, by the way, in his “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” that Johannes Scotus Erigena, the great ninth-century theologian … believed … that Adam’s virile member could be made to rise like an arm or a leg, when and as its owner wished. I decided to check this information.
Johannes Scotus Eriugena (c. 815–877) […]
Nude man by t-maker
The naked truth
Posted in Flickr, Photography, nudism, tagged Vadimage, photo, image, t-maker, Photography, nude, naked, nudist, naturist, nudism, naturism, nudity, Flickr, photograph, Heinrich Heine, Heine, poet, Pictures of Travel, naked under clothes, beneath the clothes, nudeness, naked truth on July 3, 2009
[…] I decided I must know unambiguously who was the first to tell the world the truth that we are all naked under our clothes. It was not difficult to find out that a similar saying was ascribed to German romantic poet Heinrich Heine […]
Vadimage Blog 