Nudity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nude woman and man

 

Nudity, or nakedness, is a state of being in which a human person is not wearing clothing, or more specifically not covering their genitals. Modern humans are the only primates that are essentially hairless and the only animals that wear clothing. For humans, nudity and clothing are connected to many cultural categories such as identity, privacy, and moral behavior. 

In Western societies, there are two contradictory cultural traditions relating to nudity. The first comes from the ancient Greeks, who saw the naked body as the natural state and as essentially positive. The second is based upon the Abrahamic religions, which have viewed being naked as shameful and essentially negative. The interaction between these traditions has resulted in Western ambivalence, with nudity representing both positive and negative meanings in individual psychology, in social life, and in depictions such as art.

In Africa, there is a sharp contrast between the attitude toward nudity in Islamic countries and the attitude toward nudity in certain sub-Saharan countries that never abandoned precolonial norms. In China and India the norms regarding public nudity are in keeping with the cultural value of social propriety and human dignity. Japan had a tradition of mixed gender public baths before Western contact began in the 19th century.

Societies use clothing (or the lack thereof) as a marker of social status and may define different standards regarding nudity for men and women. At the extreme, individuals may intentionally violate norms regarding nudity; those without power may use nudity as a form of protest, and those with power may impose nakedness on others as a form of punishment.

Meaning and usage

Although the general term "nudity" may be defined in English as the complete absence of clothing, the meaning of nakedness is culturally complex due to different meanings of states of undress in differing social situations.

Synonyms and euphemisms for nudity abound, including "birthday suit", "in the altogether" and "in the buff". "In a state of nature" is also used by philosophers to refer to the state of humans before the existence of organized societies.

In the United States the legal definition of "full nudity" is exposure of the genitals. "Partial nudity" includes exposure of the buttocks by either sex, or exposure of the female breasts. Legal definitions are further complicated by laws regarding indecent exposure, which generally requires more than exposure, but the intention to offend common decency.

Few broad academic studies of nudity have been made, perhaps because each discipline has its own theoretical orientation and definition of terms. There is little that can be said about nudity in general because each instance takes its meaning from a particular context. Few studies are made of everyday bodily experience. Art historians speak of the metaphorical meaning of nude representations. Sociology and criminology until the middle of the 20th century often studied nakedness, including nudism, in the context of deviance or criminality. However, more recent studies find that naturism has positive effects on body image, self esteem and life satisfaction.

Nudity and morality

Positive associations

Positive associations with nudity include:

• Simplicity, being without artifice or worldliness - Those that reject the world as it is, such as holy men, or those that use nakedness as a protest against and unjust world.
• Honesty, openness - Literally having "nothing to hide", nudity has been used in some forms of group psychotherapy, promoting open interaction and communication.
• Innocence, humility, and childhood - Naturists often speak of their nakedness in terms of a return to childhood.
• Freedom - The liberation of the body is associated with sexual liberation, although naturists tend to downplay this connection.
• Nature and Naturalness - All humans are alike in their nakedness, while clothing represents their differences.
• Authenticity and Truth - Metaphorically, the naked truth, the bare facts.

Negative associations

Negative associations with nudity include:

• Nakedness as Exposure
• Nakedness as a sign of sin and criminality
• Nudity and sex - Whatever claims are made to the contrary, Western culture associates sex and nudity with immorality. 
• Death
• Shame
• Anxiety
• Punishment, humiliation and degradation
• Poverty, wretchedness
• Naked savagery

Nudity and sexuality

The connection between nudity and human sexuality is complex and ambiguous, since it also involves issues of gender identity, body image, and moral judgements concerning what is normal, deviant or even criminal behavior.

Naturists (persons who practice and advocate personal and social nudity) distinguish between sexual and non-sexual nudity. Studies of naturism find that its practitioners adopt behaviors and norms that suppress the sexual responses while practicing social nudity. Such norms include refraining from staring, touching, or otherwise calling attention to the body while naked.

Psychological issues

Psychological issues involving nudity include the following:

• Exhibitionism: A condition marked by the urge, fantasy, or act of exposing one’s genitals to non-consenting people, particularly strangers;

• Gymnophobia: An abnormal and persistent fear of nudity; and

• Voyeurism: A sexual interest in, or practice of, spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors like undressing or sexual activity.

For some individuals, these feelings and behaviors interfere with normal functioning or well-being and are considered mental disorders.

Prehistory

Evolution of hairlessness

The relative hairlessness of homo sapiens requires a biological explanation, given that fur evolved to protect other primates from UV radiation, injury, sores and insect bites. Many explanations include advantages to cooling when early humans moved from shady forest to open savanna, accompanied by a change in diet from primarily vegetarian to hunting game, which meant running long distances after prey. However, the explanation that may stand up to modern scientific scrutiny is that fur harbors ecroparasites such as ticks, which would have become more of a problem as humans became hunters living in larger groups with a "home base".

Jablonski and Chaplin assert that early hominids, like modern chimpanzees, had light skin covered with dark fur. With the loss of fur, high melanin skin soon evolved as protection from damage from UV radiation. As hominids migrated outside of the tropics, varying degrees of depigmentation evolved in order to permit UVB-induced synthesis of previtamin D₃.

The loss of body hair was a factor in several aspects of human evolution. The ability to dissipate excess body heat through eccrine sweating helped to make possible the dramatic enlargement of the brain, the most temperature-sensitive organ. Nakedness and intelligence also made it necessary to evolve non-verbal signaling mechanisms, such as blushing and facial expressions. Signalling was supplemented by the invention of body decorations, which also served the social function of identifying group membership.

Origin of clothing

The wearing of clothing is assumed to be a behavioral adaptation, arising from the need for protection from the elements; including the sun (for depigmented human populations) and cold temperatures as humans migrated to colder regions. It is estimated that anatomically modern humans evolved 260,000 to 350,000 years ago. A genetic analysis estimates that clothing lice diverged from head louse ancestors at least by 83,000 and possibly as early as 170,000 years ago, suggesting that the use of clothing likely originated with anatomically modern humans in Africa prior to their migration to colder climates. What is now called clothing may have originated along with other types of adornment, including jewelry, body paint, tattoos, and other body modifications, "dressing" the naked body without concealing it.

History

Nudity in ancient Mediterranean cultures

In ancient Egypt, attire was simple. For men, skirts called schenti—which evolved from loincloths and resembled modern kilts—were customary apparel. For women, sheaths called kalasiris were customary apparel; kalasiris were ankle-length sheaths held up by straps. Slaves and laborers were nude or wore loincloths, and children were nude. Nudity was considered a natural state.

Male nudity was celebrated in ancient Greece as in no culture before or since. They considered embarrassment at having to disrobe for sports a sign of barbarism.

Ancient Roman attitudes toward male nudity differed from those of the Greeks, whose ideal of masculine excellence was expressed by the nude male body in art and in such real-life venues as athletic contests. The toga, by contrast, distinguished the body of the adult male citizen at Rome. The poet Ennius (c. 239–169 BC) declared that Flagiti principium est nudare inter civis corpora (exposing naked bodies among citizens is the beginning of public disgrace). Cicero endorsed Ennius' words.

Nudity in early China

In stories written in China as early as the 4th Century BCE, nudity is presented as an affront to human dignity, reflecting the belief that "humanness" in Chinese society is not innate, but earned by correct behavior. However, nakedness could also be used by an individual to express contempt for others in their presence. In other stories, the nudity of women, emanating the power of yin, could nullify the yang of aggressive forces.

Nudity in Japan

Nudity in mixed-gender public baths was common in the Japan before the effects of Western influence, which began in the 19th century and became extensive during the American occupation after World War II. The practice continues at a dwindling number of hot springs (konyoku) outside of urban areas.

Nudity in tropical cultures

In warm climates such Africa and Brazil, complete or near nudity was common for both men and women before contact with Western cultures, leading in the colonial era to the Western stereotype of the "naked savage".

Indigenous peoples in tropical climates

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  Naked African man c.1900
  
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  Four Masai tribesmen, c. 1900
  
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  Indigenous woman in German East Africa, early 20th century
  
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  Kayapo Women, Pará State, Brasil
  

Nudity in Western history

The meaning of the naked body in the societies based upon the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) was first defined by the myth of Adam and Eve: A story of the creation of the first man and woman naked, and unashamed until they ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

The association of nakedness with shame and anxiety became ambivalent in the Renaissance. The rediscovered art and writings of ancient Greece offered an alternative tradition of nudity as symbolic of innocence and purity which could be understood in terms of the state of man "before the fall". Subsequently, norms and behaviors surrounding nudity in life and in works of art diverged during the history of individual societies.

Europe

Although there is a common misconception that Europeans did not bathe in the Middle Ages, public bath houses--segregated by sex--were popular until the 16th century, when concern for the spread of disease closed many of them.

In Christian Europe, the parts of the body that were required to be covered in public did not always include the female breasts. In 1350, breasts were associated with nourishment and loving care, but by 1750, artistic representations of the breast were either erotic or medical.

The Victorian Era is often considered to be entirely restrictive of nudity. However, throughout the United Kingdom in the 19th century, workers in coal mines were naked due to the heat and the narrow tunnels that would catch on clothing. Men and boys worked fully naked, while women and girls (usually employed as "hurriers") would generally only strip to the waist (in some locations, they were fully naked as well). Testimony before a Parliamentary labour commission revealed that working naked in confined spaces made "sexual vices" a "common occurrence".

United States

Public pools

Public swimming pools in the U.S. were the product of municipal reform movements beginning in the mid-19th century. Civic leaders had not intended pools to be used for recreation, but for health and sporting activities. Initially, the working class boys swam in the nude, as they had previously done in lakes and rivers, which also had been segregated by gender. The era of nude swimming in municipal pools ended when mixed-gender bathing was allowed.

Communal male nudity in the United States and other Western countries was not a taboo for much of the 20th century. Historically, males have been more likely than females to be expected to swim nude in swimming pools or to share communal showers in school locker rooms with other members of the same sex. These expectations were based on cultural beliefs that females need more privacy than males do. Social attitudes maintained that it was healthy and normal for men and boys to be nude in the presence of other men and boys. A 1963 article on a swim program in Troy, New York stated that boys swam nude, but that girls were expected to wear bathing suits; the writer of the article found nothing remarkable about these requirements.

General attitudes

In 1974, an article in The New York Times noted an increase in American tolerance for nudity, both at home and in public, approaching that of Europe. However, some traditional nudists at the time decried the trend as encouraging sexual exhibitionism and voyeurism and threatening the viability of private nudist clubs.

Modern societies

Norms related to nudity are associated with norms regarding personal freedom, human sexuality, and gender roles, which vary widely among modern societies. Situations where nudity is accepted vary. Some people practice nudism within the confines of "nudist camps" or clothing-optional resorts, while naturists seek more open acceptance of nudity in everyday life and in public spaces.

Cultural differences

High and low context cultures

High and low context cultures were defined by Edward T. Hall. The behaviors and norms of a high context culture depend upon shared implicit intuitions that operate within a social situation, while in a low context culture behavior is more dependent upon explicit communications. An example of this distinction was found in research on the behavior of French and German naturists on a nude beach. Germans are extremely low in cultural context. They are characterized by individualism, alienation, estrangement from other people, little body contact, low sensitivity to nonverbal cues, and segmentation of time and space. By contrast, the French, in their personal lives as relatively high context: they interact within closely knit groups, are sensitive to nonverbal cues, and engage in relatively high amounts of body contact. To maintain public propriety on a nude beach, German naturists avoided touching themselves and others and avoid any adornments or behaviors that would call attention to the body. French naturists, on the other hand, were more likely than Germans to wear make-up and jewelry and to touch others as they would while dressed.

Nudity and privacy

Societies in continental Europe conceive of privacy as protecting a right to respect and personal dignity. In America, the right to privacy is oriented toward values of liberty, especially in one's home. While Europeans maintain their dignity, even while naked where others may see them, Americans see public nakedness as a surrender of "any reasonable expectation of privacy". Such cultural differences may make some laws and behaviors of the other society seem incomprehensible.

Private nudity

A 1999 survey by the Federation of Canadian Naturists found that 39% of Canadians "have walked or would walk around their houses nude". According to a 2004 U.S. survey, 31% of men and 14% of women report sleeping in the nude, while a 1996 BBC survey reported that 47% of U.K. men and 17% of U.K. women have done so. In a 2019 survey of American sleep habits, only 17% of respondents stated that they slept entirely naked.

Social and public nudity

Attitudes toward public nudity vary depending on culture, time, location, and context. There are particular contexts in which nudity is tolerated, accepted, or even encouraged in public spaces. In Europe, such contexts include nude beaches, within some intentional communities (such as naturist resorts or clubs) and at special events.

Nude woman and man in Malaysia

 

While some European countries (such as Germany, for example) are rather tolerant of public nudity, other nations disfavor or punish public nudity. In the United States in 2012, the city council of San Francisco, California banned public nudity in the inner-city area. This move was met by harsh resistance because the city was known for its liberal culture and had previously tolerated public nudity. Similarly, park rangers began filing tickets against nudists at San Onofre State Beach--also a place with long tradition of public nudity--in 2010.

Nudity in semi-public facilities

Historically, certain facilities associated with activities that require partial or complete nakedness (such as bathing or changing clothes, for example) have limited access to certain members of the public. These normal activities are guided by generally accepted norms, the first of which is that the facilities are most often segregated by gender; however, this may not be the case in all cultures.

Changing rooms

A changing room may be provided in stores, workplaces, or sports facilities, some of which have individual cubicles or stalls affording varying degrees of privacy. Locker rooms associated with sports generally lack any individual space and include showers, thus providing minimal physical privacy. 

Behavior in women's locker rooms and showers varies, but tends toward modesty.

The men’s locker room--which historically in Western cultures had been a setting for open male social nudity--is, in the 21st century United States, becoming a space of modesty and distancing between men. For much of the 20th century, the norm in locker rooms had been for men to undress completely without embarrassment. That norm has changed to involve men wearing towels or other garments most of the time and avoiding any interaction with others while naked. This shift is the result of changes in social norms regarding masculinity and how maleness is publicly expressed; also, open male nudity became associated with homosexuality.

By the 1990s, open showers in American schools had become "uncomfortable", not only because students were accustomed to more privacy at home, but because young people became more self-conscious based upon the comparison to mass media images of perfect bodies. In the 21st century, some high-end New York City gyms were redesigned to cater to millennials who want to shower without ever being seen naked.

Baths and spas

Nude men in sauna

 

The sauna, originating from Finland, is attended nude in its source country as well as in most Scandinavian countries and in the German-speaking countries of Europe. This is true even when a swimsuit must be worn in the swimming pool area of the same complex. The trend in some European countries (Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, for instance) is to allow both genders to bathe together naked. For example, the Friedrichsbad in Baden-Baden has designated times when mixed nude bathing is permitted. Most German (not to mention French, Spanish and Greek) beaches and swimming pools offer FKK (clothing-optional) areas. The German sauna culture also became popular in neighbouring countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In contrast to Scandinavia, public sauna facilities in these countries--while nude--do not usually segregate genders.

In Japan, public baths (Sentō) were once common, but became less so with the addition of bathtubs in homes. Sentō were mixed gender (konyoku) until the arrival of Western influences, but became segregated by gender in cities. Nudity is required at Japanese hot spring resorts (Onsen). Some such resorts continue to be mixed gender, but the number of such resorts is declining as they cease to be supported by local communities.

In Korea, bathhouses are known as Jjimjilbang. Such facilities may include mixed-sex sauna areas where clothing is worn, but bathing areas are gender segregated; nudity is required in those areas.

In Russia, public banyas are clothing-optional and are usually gender-segregated.

Nude beaches

In a survey by The Daily Telegraph, Germans and Austrians were most likely to have visited a nude beach (28%), followed by Norwegians (18%), Spaniards (17%), Australians (17%), and New Zealanders (16%). Of the nationalities surveyed, the Japanese (2%) were the least likely to have visited a nude beach. This result may indicate the lack of nude beaches in Japan; however, the Japanese are open with regard to family bathing nude at home and at onsen (hot springs).

Scandinavia is cited as the most open-minded region in the world regarding nudity and regarding sexual attitudes and behaviors. However, this openness does not extend to child pornography or sexual misconduct. There are many clothing-optional beaches in Denmark and Norway, but only Sweden allows nudity on all beaches.

Non-Western traditions

In India, priests of the Digambara ("skyclad") sect of Jainism and some Hindu Sadhus refrain from wearing clothing to symbolize their rejection of the material world.

HRH Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini of Eswatini (centre), dancing at Umhlanga, 2006. She wears a red feather crown, distinguishing her as a royal female.

 

In sub-Saharan Africa, full nudity or nudity below the waist is the norm among some ethnic and family groups--including some Burkinabese and Nilo-Saharan (e.g. Nuba and Surma people)--in daily life or on particular occasions. For example, at highly attended stick-fighting tournaments, well-exposed young men use the occasion to catch the eye of prospective brides. The assertion of post-colonial culture has resulted in the adoption of traditional dress for certain events, such as the Umkhosi Womhlanga (Reed Dance) by the Zulu and Swazi.

In Brazil, the Yawalapiti--an indigenous Xingu tribe in the Amazon Basin--practice a funeral ritual known as Quarup to celebrate life, death and rebirth. The ritual involves the presentation of all young girls who have begun menstruating since the last Quarup and whose time has come to choose a partner.

Gender differences

In Western cultures, shame is the result of not living up to the ideals of society with regard to physical appearance. Historically, such shame has affected women more than men. With regard to their naked bodies, the result is a tendency towards self-criticism by women, while men are less concerned by the evaluation of others.

In many European counties women may sunbathe without covering their breasts.

 

In much of the world, the modesty of women is a matter not only of social custom but of the legal definition of indecent exposure. In the United States, the exposure of female nipples is a criminal offense in many states and is not usually allowed in public. In the United Kingdom, nudity may not be used to "harass, alarm or distress" according to the Public Order Act of 1986.

The "topfreedom" movement promotes equal rights for women to go topfree in public on the same basis that would apply to men in the same circumstances. The term topfree rather than topless is advocated to avoid the latter term's perceived sexual connotations.

Breastfeeding in public is forbidden in some jurisdictions, not regulated in others, and protected as a legal right in public and the workplace in still others. Where public breastfeeding is a legal right, some mothers may be reluctant to breastfeed, and some people may object to the practice.

Children

A nude woman, child, and man (the nude family) at Lake Senftenberg in the 1980s

 

In their study on the effects of social nudity on children, Smith and Sparks conclude that "the viewing of the unclothed body, far from being destructive to the psyche, seems to be either benign or to actually provide positive benefits to the individuals involved. One psychiatrist recommends that parents allow nudity as a natural part of family life when children are very young, but to respect the modesty that is likely to emerge with puberty.

Gordon and Schroeder report that parental nudity varies considerably from family to family. They contend that "there is nothing inherently wrong with bathing with children or otherwise appearing naked in front of them", noting that doing so may provide an opportunity for parents to provide important information. They note that by ages five to six, children begin to develop a sense of modesty, and recommend to parents who wish to be sensitive to their children's wishes that they limit such activities from that age onwards.

Psychologist Barbara Bonner recommends against nudity in the home if children exhibit sexual play of a type that is considered problematic. In a 1995 review of the literature, Paul Okami concluded that there was no reliable evidence linking exposure to parental nudity to any negative effect. Three years later, his team finished an 18-year longitudinal study that showed that, if anything, such exposure was associated with slight beneficial effects, particularly for boys.

Depictions of nudity

Images of a man and woman attached to Pioneer 10 as part of a message to any extra-terrestrial intelligence the space probe might encounter.

 

In a picture-making civilization, pictorial conventions continually reaffirm what is natural in human appearance, which is part of socialization.

In Western societies, the contexts for depictions of nudity include information, art and pornography. Any ambiguous image not easily fitting into one of these categories may be misinterpreted, leading to disputes.

Nudity and the law

Limits of the depiction of nudity are based upon the legal definitions of indecency and obscenity. Although obscenity is defined as the portrayal of violence or sexuality in a manner that is offensive to community standards, the lack of any one community standard reduces the legal definition of obscenity in the United States to the application of a test known as the Miller test. In 1973, the Supreme Court in Miller v. California established the three-tiered Miller test to determine what was obscene (and thus not protected) versus what was merely erotic and thus protected by the First Amendment.

Depictions of child nudity (or of children with nude adults) appear in works of art in various cultures and historical periods. These attitudes have changed over time and have become increasingly frowned upon, especially in the case of photography. In recent years, snapshots taken by parents of their nude infant or toddler children were challenged as child pornography.

The Venus of Willendorf made between 24,000 and 22,000 BCE.

Art

The nude human figure has been one of subjects of art from its Paleolithic beginnings, and a major preoccupation of Western art since the ancient Greeks. One often cited book on the nude in Western art history is "The Nude: a Study in Ideal Form" by Lord Kenneth Clark, first published in 1956. The introductory chapter makes (though does not originate) the often-quoted distinction between the naked body and "The Nude". Clark states that to be naked is to be deprived of clothes, and implies embarrassment and shame, while a nude, as a work of art, has no such connotations. This separation of the artistic form from the related social and cultural issues was largely unexamined by classical art historians, but became a focus of social and feminist critiques in the 1970s, when classical nudes of women were seen as symbolic of male objectification of female bodies. The debate over objectification has continued, recently energized by the #MeToo movement.

Lucien Freud was one of a small group of painters who continued to create nude works in the 1970s when it was unfashionable. However, by the end of his life Freud's works had become icons of the Post Modern era, depicting the human body without a trace of idealization, as in his series working with an obese model.

Photography

The nude in photography includes scientific, commercial, fine art, and erotic photography.

Film

Audrey Munson in Inspiration (1915)

Rather than showing nakedness as a normal part of everyday life, nudity in films has generally exploited the mainstream public's interest in sexuality, with increasingly explicit portrayals. Films with nude scenes made during the Pre-Code era were generally erotic, including those using the pretext of being ethnographic documentaries to show unclothed natives in jungle settings. This led to a backlash between 1934 and 1960 when the enforcement of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) production code severely censored not only nudity, but all topics related to sexuality. Social change in the 1960s lead to the adoption of the current rating system. Nudity is one of the factors in the system, with even the briefest nudity earning a film a PG-13, and male nudity being rated R (adults only).

Nudist films

Many films have used the nudist camp setting as pretext for showing nudity without addressing the reality of naturism. Films made by naturists to promote their lifestyle are not widely distributed.

Television

Broadcast television in the United States has restrictions on profanity, indecency, and obscenity that generally prohibit all nudity, although the limits were pressed with some productions such as NYPD Blue, which featured partial nudity. The legal test for community standards becomes "I know it when I see it"; therefore, rulings may be case by case in response to viewer complaints. Cable television, as a paid subscription rather than a public service, may broadcast content deemed indecent or profane, but not obscene.

Rules in Europe are less restrictive, with the first nude appearing on TV in Holland in 1967 and the UK broadcasting a documentary about naturism in 1979. Music videos that include nudity appear on TV in Europe, but are edited or otherwise censored on American TV.

Television and radio regulations in many countries require broadcasters to avoid transmitting images or language considered inappropriate for children from 5:30 am to 9 pm (the so-called "watershed"). In the United Kingdom, the Broadcasting Code states, "Nudity before the watershed must be justified by the context." In the U.S., the safe harbor rule forbids depictions of nudity between the hours of 6 am and 10 pm. Violators may be subject to civil legal action and sanctions if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) determines the broadcaster did not meet its standards of "decency". "Material is indecent if, in context, it depicts or describes sexual or excretory organs or activities in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium."

Performance

Nudity may be used as a part of live performances, such as dance, theater, performance art and nude body painting.

Dance

Dance, as a sequence of human movement, may be ceremonial, social or one of the performing arts.

Partial or complete nudity is a feature of ceremonial dances in some tropical countries. However, some claim that modern practices may be used to promote "ethnic tourism" rather than to revive authentic traditions.

In Western traditions, dance costumes have evolved towards providing more freedom of movement and revealing more of the body; complete nakedness is the culmination of this process. Some modern choreographers consider nudity one of the possible "costumes" available for dance. Others see nudity that expresses deeper human qualities through dance as working against the sexual objectification of the body in commercial culture.

While nudity in social dance is not common, events such as "Naked Tango" have been held in Germany.

Theater

A well-known performance that included nudity was the Broadway musical Hair in 1968.

Erotic performances

Models posing on stage nude was a feature of tableaux vivants at London's Windmill Theatre and New York's Ziegfeld Follies in the early 20th century. English law did not allow nude actresses to move on stage, but allowed them stand motionless to imitate works of art.

There is a long history of striptease and other sex shows. There is a more recent history of nudity at semi-public events, such as Folsom Street Fair and Nudes-A-Poppin'.

Protests

People taking part in the World Naked Bike Ride in London

 

Nudity is used to draw public and attention to a cause, sometimes including the promotion of public nudity itself.

Curse of nakedness

In Africa, women have used stripping naked on purpose as a curse, both historically, and in modern times. The idea is that women give life and they can take it away. The curse initiates an extreme form of ostracism, which anthropologist Terisa Turner has likened to "social execution". The curse extends to foreign men as well, and is believed to cause impotence, madness or other similar harm. The threat has been used successfully in mass protests against the petroleum industry in Nigeria, by Leymah Gbowee during the Second Liberian Civil War, and against President Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast.

Imposed nudity

Historical treatment of the poor and insane

In England during the 17th to 19th centuries, the clothing of the poor by Christian charity did not extend to those confined to "madhouses" such as Bethlem Royal Hospital, where the inmates were often kept naked and treated harshly.

Nudity as punishment

In some situations, nudity is forced on a person. For example, imposed nudity (full or partial) can be part of a corporal punishment or as humiliation, especially when administered in public. 

For example, in 2017, students at a girls' school in the north-east Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh were forced to undress as a form of punishment, police say. Although not as common as corporal punishment, it is not unusual for stripping to be used as a form of punishment in Indian schools.

Torture

Prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad (Iraq), including forced nudity, was widely condemned.

 

Nazis used forced nudity to attempt to humiliate inmates in concentration camps. This practice was depicted in the film Schindler's List (1994).

In 2003, Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad (Iraq) gained international notoriety for accounts of torture and abuses by members of the United States Army Reserve during the post-invasion period. Photographic images were circulated that exposed the posing of prisoners naked, sometimes bound, and being intimidated and otherwise humiliated, resulting in widespread condemnation of the abuse.

Strip search

A strip search is the removal of some or all of a person's clothing to insure that they do not have weapons or contraband. Such searches are generally done when an individual is imprisoned after an arrest, and is justified by the need to maintain order in the facility, not as punishment for a crime.