Cav's Place

One of the events that caught my attention earlier this month was the women’s topless march that took place in Portland, Maine. And no, I don’t mean it caught my attention in the sense that it caught the attention of the several hundred mostly male onlookers mentioned in that article, but in the sense that it touched on both the problem of public nudity, which in a way is one of my many pet peeves, and a gender equality issue, which is actually something I do care about despite what some may think and the fact that I oppose affirmative action and other common methods that are supposedly meant to deal with this problem.
Though I did raise an eyebrow at the fact that such a march was organized in a state where the law apparently doesn’t discriminate anyway, the article stating that only exposing one’s genitals is illegal in Maine, regardless of the person’s sex. Admittedly, it couldn’t have been organized in a place where it’d have been illegal and the point was trying to change society, not laws. But the organizer’s attitude seems to be somewhat counterproductive in that case. More on that later.

First, I’m still wondering what do people have against nudity. We all have bodies, right? Astral projection aside, we couldn’t be without them even if we wanted to. Those bodies are, by definition, naked, clothes being something used to cover them up. People are obviously born naked, are frequently naked in the presence of others as children, may get naked when seeing a doctor, may become sick and need others to bathe and dress them, may see each other naked in locker rooms… That said, there couldn’t be anything inherently wrong with the idea of a naked body. Nor could there be anything inherently sexual about it, for the same reasons.
Sure, the sight of a naked attractive person of one’s preferred sex may generate a physical response identified as arousal, but nudity in itself is nether necessary nor sufficient for this response. And besides, arousal is just the body’s way of expressing interest, no different from the various ways in which the mind expresses interest due to a person’s words or actions. I could also include what I believe to be the soul’s way of expressing interest, which is true love, but since there’s no real evidence to either prove or disprove that theory I’ll leave it aside. The point is that all of these things only show that you like or at least are somewhat interested in the person, and I really can’t see anything wrong with that in itself. The way in which you’ll express that interest, if you’ll express it at all, can say a lot about who you are as a person, but that’s an entirely different matter.
On the other hand, the sight of a naked person who’s certainly not attractive can induce undesirable physical responses, but nudity in itself is once again neither necessary nor sufficient, as those responses can also be induced by the sight of a person who wears clothes that really displease the viewer or any number of other things. Not to mention that said responses are just the body’s way of expressing displeasure, no different from the many ways in which the mind expresses displeasure at another’s words or actions. Should we ban anything that can bother people then? Wouldn’t that imply banning absolutely everything?

But this psychosocial connection between nudity in itself and sexuality is a vicious circle. The more society tries to get rid of nudity, explaining that it does so because of its sexual nature, the stronger that connection will become, making arousal an even more common response to the sight of a naked body that’s not particularly displeasing to the viewer, which is likely to fuel the actions puritans even more. In that sense, actions like this march could help a lot by making the sight of a nude, or at least partially nude, person less of an extraordinary event, but the mention of aggressive action aimed at discouraging oglers can shoot the idea in the foot.
It’s perfectly normal for such a display to draw crowds of oglers at this moment in time. The sight is extremely uncommon on city streets, but has the potential of being pleasing, so it’s quite natural for people to seek it out. As the sight will become more common, it will also become less interesting and the number of oglers will naturally start to dwindle. But if people will not be allowed to stare at the display at this point, it will remain a “forbidden fruit” and therefore just as interesting and sexualized as it currently is, resulting in no change. The way to make people stop seeing nudity as inherently sexual is to stop treating it as such yourself, going about your business as if you were clothed and not caring how others see it, as long as they don’t actually do anything to you of course.

As for the gender equality issue, it’s simply that female breasts are seen as sexual organs and male chests are not. The same things that I said about nudity in general apply here too, so I won’t go through it again. But the fact that this march was legal in Maine only goes to show that in certain areas this discrimination exists only at the level of the society and not at that of the law as well. Sure, what actually happens is far more important than what the law states should happen, but it’s a start.
On the other hand, speaking of what actually happens out on the street and not even mentioning full nudity, I doubt that a man wearing nothing but briefs in public would be greeted too warmly, and one simply wearing nothing above the waist would almost certainly draw some odd looks as well. Admittedly, a woman in that situation would likely draw far more attention, but in fact I think it likely that more people would react positively to it than in case of the man, so that discrimination can go both ways.

That said, when a law discriminates in such a situation, it should be targeted and changed. But when it comes to the general public, the general issue of nudity should be the target, making a point of proving that there’s nothing inherently wrong or inherently sexual in not covering certain body parts, regardless of the sex of the person they belong to.
How to do that? Well, one way could be to organize such events, but perhaps without trying to draw attention to the fact even before it happens. But a more effective way would be for those who take part in such actions to split into small groups made up of people of varying ages and genders, both attractive and unattractive, scatter around the chosen city when the weather allows and simply go about their daily business in the nude, or as nude as possible considering the laws that apply to the chosen location, until those will be changed as well. That’s far less likely to be considered an extraordinary event and therefore more likely to really promote the idea that nudity is quite normal.
If people will stare, let them stare. After some time, if this will keep happening, the sight will become less interesting. And no, less interesting on the street certainly does not mean less interesting in the bedroom. I remember a discussion about public nudity that took place among the contestants of the first edition of Big Brother in Romania, which pretty much ended after one of the guys asked the girl who was most opposed to the idea, saying that being able to see certain body parts on the street would deprive them of any special quality they have during intimate moments with your significant other, whether she got aroused when her boyfriend kissed her neck. A body part’s role or “value” is just a matter of circumstance…