Cool Japan (クールジャパンKūru Japan), along with "Gross National Cool" is a concept as an expression of Japan's emergent status as a cultural superpower. Gaining broad exposure in the media and academia, the brand of "Cool Japan" has been adopted by the government of Japan as well as trade bodies seeking to exploit the commercial capital of the country's culture industry. It has been described as a form of soft power, "the ability to indirectly influence behaviour or interests through cultural or ideological means".
Origins
Following the destruction of World War II after American bombings, Japan hoped they could improve their economy
and national image by distributing their pop culture throughout the
world, specifically through Eastern Asia in order to increase their
reputation and alliances with the neighboring countries. As opposed to
their history of being a fierce military power, they were taking the
route of establishing themselves as being a soft power, which they believed would change the perception of their nation. Starting in 1980, after the emergence of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Japan started ramping up their nation branding efforts through releasing a new television series titled Oshin, which was a Japanese soap opera.
The show was well perceived, and this sent an immediate boost in the
image Japan was trying to improve. Through the success of Oshin
and multiple other television shows, the country introduced the idea of
“Cool Japan”, which attempted to harness the success of their pop
culture and distribute that pleasure toward the country’s cultural
perception.
In a 2002 article in Foreign Policy
titled "Japan's Gross National Cool", Douglas McGray wrote of Japan
"reinventing superpower" as its cultural influence expanded
internationally despite the economic and political problems of the "lost decade". Surveying youth culture and the role of J-pop, manga, anime, video games, fashion, film, consumer electronics, architecture, cuisine, and phenomena of cuteness such as Hello Kitty, McGray highlighted Japan's considerable soft power, posing the question of what message the country might project. He also argued that Japan's recession may even have boosted its national cool, due to the partial discrediting of erstwhile rigid social hierarchies and big-business career paths.
Adoption
Taken up in the international media, with The New York Times running a retrospect "Year in Ideas: PokémonHegemon",
an increasing number of more reform-minded government officials and
business leaders in Japan began to refer to the country's "gross
national cool" and to adopt the unofficial slogan "Cool Japan". In a 2005 press conference, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs linked the idea to Bhutan's concept of Gross National Happiness.
The phrase gained greater exposure in the mid-noughties as NHK began a series Cool Japan Hakkutsu: Kakkoii Nippon! which by the end of 2009 had reached over a hundred episodes. Academic initiatives include the establishment of a "Cool Japan" research project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while some western universities have reported an increase in the number of applicants for Japanese Studies courses due to the "cool" effect.
The adoption of Cool Japan has also spurred changes in culture
studies. As a result of the fascination of Cool Japan with Japanese
youth culture and schoolgirls, a new wave of studies called 'girl
studies' focuses specifically on the experience of girls and the
girls-at-heart. Previously a subject of adolescent psychology or
feminism, girl studies emerged from Cool Japan to include an
interdisciplinary analysis of girl culture.
Creative Industries Promotion Office
The Japanese government has identified the culture industry as one of five potential areas of growth. In June 2010, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
established a new Creative Industries Promotion Office to promote
cultural and creative industries as a strategic sector "under the
single, long term concept of "Cool Japan", to coordinate different
government functions, and to cooperate with the private sector". The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced that Japanese pop culture is one of the key elements for Cool Japan and that pop culture includes idol, anime, and B class gourmet (B級グルメ).
The deputy director described its mission as to "brand Japanese products with the uniqueness of Japanese culture". For 2011, it has a budget of ¥19 billion. In fiscal 2008, public spending
on cultural activities was ¥116.9 billion in South Korea, ¥477.5
billion in China, and ¥101.8 billion in Japan, respectively 0.79%,
0.51%, and 0.12% of total government spending. The fund was launched in 2013,
and the Japanese government committed to the Cool Japan Fund ¥50
billion ($500 million) over 20 years, with a target of ¥60 billion ($600
million) via private investor partnerships. However, Nikkei Asian Review
reported that within five years the fund "suffered pretax losses
totaling 10 billion yen ($88.9 million)" and many projects failed to
deliver earnings, and since June 2018 the management is led by former
Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) CEO Naoki Kitagawa.
Traditional Japanese crafts showcased at Maison & Objet, the world's largest trade fair for interior goods and designs, to promote Japan's monodzukuri (manufacturing) culture.
WakuWaku Japan, Japanese satellite television channel that broadcasts Japanese programs to overseas viewers in Asia. It was a joint venture with broadcaster Sky Perfect JSAT
who contributed ¥6.6 billion out of ¥11 billion, but it failed to
expand in multiple markets and generate viewership, with nearly ¥4
billion losses until 2017.
2015
METI starts Nippon Quest, a website to showcase and disseminate unknown Japanese regional specialties to the world.
U.S. cafes focused on Japanese tea, on which was spent ¥250 million for nearly 50% stake.
Funding of the development of content creators for anime and manga outside Japan by KADOKAWA Contents Academy Co., Ltd..
2016
Isetan the Japan Store, a joint venture with Isetan to make a five-floor department store in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to promote Japanese goods and services. However, lack of demand resulted with a loss of circa $4.5 million, and all Cool Japan Fund shares sold to Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings.
2018
The first investment with new management was $12.5 million in Tastemade, becoming a minority shareholder, to support making of content promoting Japanese food and destinations.
2019
Cool Japan Fund invests US$30 million in American anime licensing company Sentai Holdings, aiming to provide support at the copyright level, and increasing the presence of anime in North America.
Criticism
A 2010 editorial in the Yomiuri Shimbun
argued that the government was not doing enough to advance the
country's business interests in this sphere, allowing South Korea to
emerge as a competitor. The editorial highlighted structural
inefficiencies, with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry promoting "Cool Japan", the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responsible for cultural exchange, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in charge of Japanese foods.
Lecturer Roland Kelts has also suggested that a failure to fully
distinguish, brand and engage the overseas audience and market may mean
that "Cool Japan" is "over".
In 2011, Laura Miller has critiqued Cool Japan campaign as exploiting
and misrepresenting youth subcultural fashion and language. In 2013, Nancy Snow referred to Cool Japan as a form of state-sponsored cultural retreading she calls Gross National Propaganda. Japanese singer-songwriter Gackt
criticized the government in 2015 for having set up a huge budget, yet
"have no idea where that money should go. It’s no exaggeration to say it
has fallen into a downward spiral of wasted tax money flowing into
little known companies", and that such lack of support is causing Japan
to "fall behind its Asian neighbors in terms of cultural exports".
In 2016, Benjamin Boas pointed out that Cool Japan-branded efforts are
often promoted without participation of foreigners, leaving out the
perspectives of the very foreigners that they are trying to target.
In 2017, a senior executive and several other senior male
employees of Cool Japan Fund Inc. were accused of sexual harassment
targeting female employees of the fund. The employees formed a labor union in order to fight against sexual harassment. In the same year, Nikkei Asian Review
journalist Yuta Saito criticized fund's ambitions because their "lack
of strategy, discipline gives rise to unprofitable projects", and
there's possible conflict of interest by the executives. In 2018, Japan Today reported too soon to consider it "grossly incompetent or corrupt", but it's at least "under-performing" for now.
Shunga (春画) is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format. While rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate ukiyo-e. Translated literally, the Japanese word shunga means picture of spring; "spring" is a common euphemism for sex.
The ukiyo-e movement as a whole sought to express an idealisation of contemporary urban life and appeal to the new chōnin class. Following the aesthetics of everyday life, Edo-period
shunga varied widely in its depictions of sexuality. As a subset of
ukiyo-e it was enjoyed by all social groups in the Edo period, despite
being out of favour with the shogunate. Almost all ukiyo-e artists made
shunga at some point in their careers.
Shunga was heavily influenced by illustrations in Chinese medicine manuals beginning in the Muromachi era (1336 to 1573). Zhou Fang, a notable Tang-dynasty
Chinese painter, is also thought to have been influential. He, like
many artists of his time, tended to draw genital organs in an oversized
manner, similar to a common shunga topos. While the literal meaning of the word "shunga" is significant, it is in fact a contraction of shunkyū-higi-ga (春宮秘戯画), the Japanese pronunciation for Chinese sets of twelve scrolls depicting the twelve sexual acts that the crown prince had to carry out as an expression of yin yang.
The Japanese influences of shunga date back to the Heian period (794 to 1185). At this point, it was found among the courtier class. Through the medium of narrative handscrolls, sexual scandals from the imperial court or the monasteries were depicted, and the characters tended to be limited to courtiers and monks.
The style reached its height in the Edo period (1603 to 1867). Thanks to woodblock printing techniques, the quantity and quality increased dramatically. There were repeated governmental attempts to suppress shunga, the first of which was an edict issued by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1661 banning, among other things, erotic books known as kōshokubon (好色本) (literally "lewdness books"). While other genres covered by the edict, such as works criticising daimyōs or samurai, were driven underground by this edict, shunga continued to be produced with little difficulty.
The Kyōhō Reforms,
a 1722 edict, was much more strict, banning the production of all new
books unless the city commissioner gave permission. After this edict,
shunga went underground. However, since for several decades following
this edict, publishing guilds saw fit to send their members repeated reminders not to sell erotica, it seems probable that production and sales continued to flourish. Further attempts to prevent the production of shunga were made with the Kansei Reforms under Emperor Kōkaku in the 1790s.
According to Monta Hayakawa and C. Andrew Gerstle, westerners
during the nineteenth century were less appreciative of shunga because
of its erotic nature. In the journal of Francis Hall,
an American businessperson who arrived in Yokohama in 1859, he
described shunga as "vile pictures executed in the best style Japanese
art."
Hayakawa stated that Hall was shocked and disgusted when on two
separate occasions his Japanese acquaintances and their wives showed him
shunga at their homes.
Shunga also faced problems in Western museums in the twentieth century;
Peter Webb reported that while engaged in research for a 1975
publication, he was initially informed that no relevant material existed
in the British Museum,
and when finally allowed access to it, he was told that it "could not
possibly be exhibited to the public" and had not been catalogued. In
2014 he revisited the museum, which had an exhibition entirely of shunga
"proudly displayed".
The introduction of Western culture and technologies at the beginning of the Meiji
era (1868–1912), particularly the importation of photo-reproduction
techniques, had serious consequences for shunga. For a time, woodblock printing continued to be used, but figures began to appear in prints wearing Western clothing and hairstyles. Eventually, shunga could no longer compete with erotic photography, leading to its decline.
The art of shunga provided an inspiration for the Shōwa (1926–1989) and Heisei (1989–2019) art in Japanese video games, anime and manga known in the Western world as hentai and known formally in Japan as jū hachi kin (adult-only, literally "18-restricted"). Like shunga, hentai is sexually explicit in its imagery.
Shunga was probably enjoyed by both men and women of all classes.
Superstitions and customs surrounding shunga suggest as much; in the
same way that it was considered a lucky charm against death for a
samurai to carry shunga, it was considered a protection against fire in merchant
warehouses and the home. From this we can deduce that samurai, chonin,
and housewives all owned shunga. All three of these groups would
suffer separation from the opposite sex; the samurai lived in barracks
for months at a time, and conjugal separation resulted from the sankin-kōtai
system and the merchants' need to travel to obtain and sell goods. It
is therefore argued that this ownership of shunga was not superstitious,
but libidinous.
Records of women obtaining shunga themselves from booklenders show that they were consumers of it. Though not shunga, it was traditional to present a bride with ukiyo-e depicting scenes from the Tale of Genji.
Shunga may have served as sexual guidance for the sons and daughters of
wealthy families. The instructional purpose has been questioned since
the instructional value of shunga is limited by the impossible positions
and lack of description of technique, and there were sexual manuals in
circulation that offered clearer guidance, including advice on hygiene.
Shunga varied greatly in quality and price. Some were highly elaborate, commissioned by wealthy merchants and daimyōs, while some were limited in colour, widely available, and cheap. Empon were available through the lending libraries, or kashi-honya, that travelled in rural areas. This tells us that shunga reached all classes of society—peasant, chōnin, samurai and daimyōs.
Production
A man with a Western-style haircut makes love to a woman in traditional Japanese dress in this Meiji-period shunga print
Shunga were produced between the sixteenth century and the nineteenth
century by ukiyo-e artists, since they sold more easily and at a higher
price than their ordinary work. Shunga prints were produced and sold
either as single sheets or—more frequently—in book form, called enpon. These customarily contained twelve images, a tradition with its roots in Chinese shunkyu higa. Shunga was also produced in hand scroll format, called kakemono-e (掛け物絵). This format was also popular, though more expensive as the scrolls had to be individually painted.
The quality of shunga art varies, and few ukiyo-e
painters remained aloof from the genre. Experienced artists found it to
their advantage to concentrate on their production. This led to the
appearance of shunga by renowned artists, such as the ukiyo-e painter perhaps best known in the Western world, Hokusai (see The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife). Ukiyo-e artists owed a stable livelihood to such customs, and producing a piece of shunga
for a high-ranking client could bring them sufficient funds to live on
for about six months. Among others, the world-famous Japanese artist
Hajime Sorayama uses his special hand brush painting technique and hanko
stamp signature method in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to
create modern day shunga art in the same tradition of the past artists
like Hokusai.
Full-colour printing, or nishiki-e, developed around 1765, but many shunga prints predate this. Prior to this, colour was added to monochrome prints by hand, and from 1744 benizuri-e
allowed the production of prints of limited colours. Even after 1765
many shunga prints were produced using older methods. In some cases this
was to keep the cost low, but in many cases this was a matter of taste.
Shunga produced in Edo tended to be more richly coloured than those produced in Kyoto and Osaka, mainly owing to a difference in aesthetic taste between these regions—Edo has a taste for novelty and luxury, while the kamigata region preferred a more muted, understated style. This also translates into a greater amount of background detail in Edo Shunga.
After 1722 most artists refrained from signing shunga works.
However, between 1761 and 1786 the implementation of printing
regulations became more relaxed, and many artists took to concealing
their name as a feature of the picture (such as calligraphy on a fan
held by a courtesan) or allusions in the work itself (such as Utamaro's empon entitled Utamakura).
Content
In the Edo period in Japan, people were used to seeing the opposite sex naked in communal baths, such as the male sansuke in the upper left corner of this woodcut. Torii Kiyonaga.
Edo period shunga sought to express a varied world of contemporary
sexual possibilities. Some writers on the subject refer to this as the
creation of a world parallel to contemporary urban life, but idealised,
eroticised and fantastical.
Characters
By far the majority of shunga depict the sexual relations of the ordinary people, the chōnin, the townsmen, women, merchant class, artisans and farmers. Occasionally there also appear Dutch or Portuguese foreigners.
Courtesans also form the subject of many shunga. Utamaro
was particularly revered for his depictions of courtesans, which
offered an unmatched level of sensitivity and psychological nuance.
Tokugawa courtesans could be described as the celebrities of their day,
and Edo's pleasure district, Yoshiwara, is often compared to Hollywood.
Men saw them as highly eroticised due to their profession, but at the
same time unattainable, since only the wealthiest, most cultured men
would have any chance of sexual relations with one. Women saw them as
distant, glamorous idols, and the fashions for the whole of Japan were
inspired by the fashions of the courtesan. For these reasons the fetish
of the courtesan appealed to many.
Works depicting courtesans have since been criticised for
painting an idealised picture of life in the pleasure quarters. It has
been argued that they masked the situation of virtual slavery that sex
workers lived under.
However, Utamaro is just one example of an artist who was sensitive to
the inner life of the courtesan, for example, showing them wistfully
dreaming of escape from Yoshiwara through marriage.
Similarly, kabuki
actors are often depicted, many of whom worked as gigolos. These
carried the same fetish of the sex worker, with the added quality of
them often being quite young. They are often shown with samurai.
Stories
Lesbian shunga by Hokusai
Spring Pastimes A tryst between a young man and a boy. See Nanshoku. Miyagawa Isshō, ca. 1750; Shunga hand scroll (kakemono-e); sumi, color and gofun on silk. Private collection.
Both painted handscrolls and illustrated erotic books (empon) often
presented an unrelated sequence of sexual tableaux, rather than a
structured narrative. A whole variety of possibilities are shown—men
seduce women, women seduce men; men and women cheat on each other; all
ages from virginal teenagers to old married couples; even octopuses were
occasionally featured.
While most shunga were heterosexual, many depicted male-on-male trysts. Woman-on-woman images were less common but there are extant works depicting this.[citation needed]Masturbation was also depicted. The perception of sexuality differed in Tokugawa Japan from that in the modern Western world,
and people were less likely to associate with one particular sexual
preference. For this reason the many sexual pairings depicted were a
matter of providing as much variety as possible.
The backstory to shunga prints can be found in accompanying text
or dialogue in the picture itself, and in props in the background. Symbolism also featured widely, such as the use of plumblossoms to represent virginity or tissues to symbolise impending ejaculation.
Clothing
In
many of the shunga the characters are fully clothed. This is primarily
because nudity was not inherently erotic in Tokugawa Japan – people were
used to seeing the opposite sex naked in communal baths. It also
served an artistic purpose; it helped the reader identify courtesans and
foreigners, the prints often contained symbolic meaning, and it drew
attention to the parts of the body that were revealed, i.e., the
genitalia.
Non-realism
Shunga
couples are often shown in nonrealistic positions with exaggerated
genitalia. Explanations for this include increased visibility of the
sexually explicit content, artistic interest and psychological impact:
that is, the genitalia is interpreted as a "second face", expressing the
primal passions that the everyday face is obligated by giri to conceal, and is therefore the same size as the head and placed unnaturally close to it by the awkward position.
Women
entertainers perform at a celebration in Ancient Egypt; the dancers are
naked and the musician wears a typical pleated garment as well as the
cone of perfumed fat on top of her wig that melts slowly to emit its
precious odors; both groups wear extensive jewelry, wigs, and cosmetics;
neither wear shoes - Thebes tomb c. 1400 B.C.
Basalt statue of Cleopatra VII Ptolemaic times
The history of nudity involves social attitudes to nudity
in different cultures in history. It is not known when humans began
wearing clothes, although there is some archaeological evidence to
indicate that clothing may have become commonplace in human society
around 72,000 years ago.[1]
Nudity (or near-complete nudity) has traditionally been the social norm
for both men and women in some hunter-gatherer cultures in warm
climates and it is still common among many indigenous peoples. Anthropologists
believe that animal skins and vegetation were adapted into coverings as
protection from cold, heat and rain, especially as humans migrated to
new climates; alternatively, covering may have been invented first for
other purposes, such as magic, decoration, cult, or prestige, and later
found to be practical as well.
The ancient Egyptians
wore the minimum of clothing, and in a number of ancient Mediterranean
cultures, the athletic and/or cultist nudity of men and boys was a
natural concept. In ancient Rome,
nudity could be a public disgrace and might be offensive or distasteful
even in traditional settings, though it could be seen at the public
baths or in erotic art. In Japan, public nudity was quite normal and
commonplace until the Meiji Restoration. In Europe, taboos against nudity began to grow during the Age of Enlightenment and by the Victorian era, public nakedness was considered obscene. In the early years of the 20th century, the modern naturist movement began to develop.
Paleolithic history
Because
animal skins and vegetable materials decompose readily there is no
archeological evidence of when and how clothing developed. However,
recent studies of human lice suggest that clothing may have become commonplace in human society around 72,000 years ago.
If that is correct, it would mean that for around 128,000 years and the
majority of anatomically modern human history, humans may not have worn
clothes. Some anthropologists believe that Homo habilis and even Homo erectus may have used animal skins for protection placing the origins of clothing at perhaps a million years or more.
Ancient Egypt
Fashions in ancient Egypt
did not change much over the millennia. The ancient Egyptians wore the
minimum of clothing. Both men and women of the lower classes were
commonly bare chested and barefoot, wearing a simple loincloth around their waist. Slaves typically wore nothing. Richer women commonly wore a kalasiris, a dress of loose draped or translucent linen which came to just above or below the breasts. Women entertainers performed naked. Children went without clothing until puberty, at about age 12.
Though the minimum amount of clothing was the norm in ancient
Egypt, the custom was viewed as humiliating by some other ancient
cultures. For example, the Hebrew Bible records: "So shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the prisoners of Egypt, and the captivity of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt". Similar images occur on many bas-reliefs, also from other empires.
In some ancient Mediterranean cultures, even well past the
hunter-gatherer stage, athletic and/or cultist nudity of men and boys –
and rarely, of women and girls – was a natural concept. The Minoan civilization prized athleticism, with bull-leaping
being a favourite event. Both men and women participated wearing only a
loincloth, as toplessness for both sexes was the cultural norm; men
wore loincloths, whilst women wore an open-fronted dress.
Ancient Greece had a particular fascination for aesthetics, which was also reflected in clothing or its absence. Sparta had rigorous codes of training (agoge)
and physical exercise was conducted in the nude. Athletes competed
naked in public sporting events. Spartan women, as well as men, would
sometimes be naked in public processions and festivals. This practice
was designed to encourage virtue in men while they were away at war and
an appreciation of health in the women. Women and goddesses were normally portrayed clothed in sculpture of the Classical period, with the exception of the nude Aphrodite.
A kouros, an Archaic depiction of the ideal male nude
In general, however, concepts of either shame or offense, or the
social comfort of the individual, seem to have been deterrents of public
nudity in the rest of Greece and the ancient world in the east and
west, with exceptions in what is now South America, and in Africa and
Australia. Polybius asserts that Celts
typically fought naked, "The appearance of these naked warriors was a
terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in
the prime of life."
In antiquity even before the Classical era, e.g., on MinoanCrete, athletic exercise was an important part of daily life. The Greeks credited several mythological figures with athletic accomplishments, and male gods (especially Apollo and Heracles,
patrons of sport) were commonly depicted as athletes. While Greek
sculpture often showed males completely nude, a new concept for females,
Venus Pudica (or partially nude) appeared, for example, the Greek "Nike of Samothrace".
Nudity in sport was very common, with almost all sports performed naked. As a tradition it was probably first introduced in the city-state of Sparta, during the late archaic period.
The civilization of ancient Greece
(Hellas), during the Archaic period, had an athletic and cultic
aesthetic of nudity which typically included adult and teenage males,
but at times also boys, women and girls. The love for beauty had also
included the human body, beyond the love for nature, philosophy, and the
arts. The Greek word "gymnasium"
means 'a place to train naked'. Male athletes competed naked, but most
city-states of the time allowed no female participants or even
spectators at those events, Sparta being a notable exception.
Nudity in religious ceremonies was also practiced in Greece. The statue of the Moscophoros (the 'calf-bearer'), a remnant of the archaic Acropolis of Athens, depicts a young man carrying a calf on his shoulders, presumably taking the animal to the altar for sacrifice. The Moschophoros is not
completely nude: a piece of very fine, almost transparent cloth is
carefully draped over his shoulders, upper arms and front thighs, which
nevertheless left his genitals purposely exposed. In this case the
garment apparently fulfilled a purely ceremonial, priestly function in
which modesty was not an issue.
In Greek culture, depictions of erotic nudity were considered
normal. The Greeks were conscious of the exceptional nature of their
nudity, noting that "generally in countries which are subject to the
barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; lovers of youths
share the evil repute in which philosophy and naked sports are held,
because they are inimical to tyranny;" In both ancient Greece and ancient Rome, public nakedness was also accepted in the context of public bathing.
It was also common for a person to be punished by being partially or
completely stripped and lashed in public; in some legal systems judicial
corporal punishments
on the bare buttocks persisted up to or even beyond the feudal age,
either only for minors or also for adults, even until today but rarely
still in public. In Biblical accounts of the Roman Imperial era, prisoners were often stripped naked, as a form of humiliation.
The origins of nudity in ancient Greek sport are the subject of a legend about the athlete, Orsippus of Megara.
There are various myths regarding these origins; in one Orsippus loses
his loin cloth during the stadion-race of the 15th Olympic Games in 720
BC which gives him an advantage and he wins. Other athletes then emulate
him and the fashion is born.
Nudity in sport spread to the whole of Greece, Greater Greece and
even its furthest colonies, and the athletes from all its parts, coming
together for the Olympic Games and the other Panhellenic Games, competed naked in almost all disciplines, such as boxing, wrestling, pankration
(a free-style mix of boxing and wrestling, serious physical harm was
allowed) – in such martial arts equal chances in terms of grip and body
protection require a non-restrictive uniform (as presently common) or
none. Stadion and various other foot races including relay race, and the pentathlon (made up of wrestling, stadion, long jump, javelin throw, and discus throw). However, even though chariot racers typically wore some clothing while competing, there are depictions of naked chariot racers as well.
It is believed to be rooted in the religious notion that athletic
excellence was an "esthetical" offering to the gods (nearly all games
fitted in religious festivals), and indeed at many games it was the
privilege of the winner to be represented naked as a votive statue
offered in a temple, or even to be immortalized as model for a god's
statue. Performing naked certainly was also welcome as a measure to
prevent foul play, which was punished publicly on the spot by the judges
(often religious dignitaries) with a sound lashing. The offender was
naked when he was whipped.
Evidence of Greek nudity in sport comes from the numerous
surviving depictions of athletes (sculpture, mosaics and vase
paintings). Famous athletes were honored by statues erected for their
commemoration (see Milo of Croton). A few writers have insisted that the athletic nudity in Greek art
is just an artistic convention, finding it unbelievable that anybody
would have run naked. This view could be ascribed to late-Victorian
prudishness applied anachronistically to ancient times. Other cultures
in antiquity did not practice athletic nudity and condemned the Greek
practice.[citation needed] Their rejection of naked sports was in turn condemned by the Greeks as a token of tyranny and political repression.
Greek athletes, even though naked, seem to have made a point of avoiding exposure of their glans, for example by infibulation, or wearing of a kynodesme.
While statues of males often showed complete nudity, female statues often were shown with the concept of Venus Pudica (partially clothed or modest). A prime example is the Nike of Samothrace female statue.
Ancient Rome
Roman Neo-Attic stele depicting a warrior in a muscle cuirass, idealizing the male form without nudity
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 "exposing naked bodies among citizens is the beginning of public disgrace (flagitium)," a sentiment echoed by Cicero.
Public nudity might be offensive or distasteful even in traditional settings; Cicero derides Mark Antony as undignified for appearing near-naked as a participant in the Lupercalia festival, even though it was ritually required.
Negative connotations of nudity included defeat in war, since captives
were stripped and sold into slavery. Slaves for sale were often
displayed naked to allow buyers to inspect them for defects, and to
symbolize that they lacked the right to control their own bodies.
The disapproval of nudity was less a matter of trying to suppress
inappropriate sexual desire than of dignifying and marking the citizen's
body. Thus the retiarius, a type of gladiator who fought with face and flesh exposed, was thought to be unmanly. The influence of Greek art, however, led to "heroic" nude portrayals of Roman men and gods, a practice that began in the 2nd century BC. When statues of Roman generals nude in the manner of Hellenistic kings
first began to be displayed, they were shocking—not simply because they
exposed the male figure, but because they evoked concepts of royalty
and divinity that were contrary to Republican ideals of citizenship as embodied by the toga. In art produced under Augustus Caesar, the adoption of Hellenistic and Neo-Attic style led to more complex signification of the male body shown nude, partially nude, or costumed in a muscle cuirass. Romans who competed in the Olympic Games
presumably followed the Greek custom of nudity, but athletic nudity at
Rome has been dated variously, possibly as early as the introduction of
Greek-style games in the 2nd century BC but perhaps not regularly until
the time of Nero around 60 AD.
At the same time, the phallus was depicted ubiquitously. The phallic amulet known as the fascinum (from which the English word "fascinate" ultimately derives) was supposed to have powers to ward off the evil eye and other malevolent supernatural forces. It appears frequently in the archaeological remains of Pompeii in the form of tintinnabula (wind chimes) and other objects such as lamps. The phallus is also the defining characteristic of the imported Greek god Priapus,
whose statue was used as a "scarecrow" in gardens. A penis depicted as
erect and very large was laughter-provoking, grotesque, or apotropaic.
Roman art regularly features nudity in mythological scenes, and
sexually explicit art appeared on ordinary objects such as serving
vessels, lamps, and mirrors, as well as among the art collections of
wealthy homes.
Respectable Roman women were portrayed clothed. Partial nudity of goddesses in Roman Imperial art, however, can highlight the breasts as dignified but pleasurable images of nurturing, abundance, and peacefulness. The completely nude female body as portrayed in sculpture was thought to embody a universal concept of Venus, whose counterpart Aphrodite is the goddess most often depicted as a nude in Greek art. By the 1st century AD, Roman art showed a broad interest in the female nude engaged in varied activities, including sex.
The erotic art found in Pompeii and Herculaneum may depict women, performing sex acts either naked or often wearing a strophium (strapless bra) that covers the breasts even when otherwise nude. Latin literature
describes prostitutes displaying themselves naked at the entrance to
their brothel cubicles, or wearing see-through silk garments.
The display of the female body made it vulnerable; Varro thought the Latin word for "sight, gaze", visus, was etymologically related to vis, "force, power". The connection between visus and vis, he said, also implied the potential for violation, just as Actaeon gazing on the naked Diana violated the goddess.
One exception to public nudity was the baths, though attitudes toward nude bathing also changed over time. In the 2nd century BC, Cato preferred not to bathe in the presence of his son, and Plutarch
implies that for Romans of these earlier times it was considered
shameful for mature men to expose their bodies to younger males. Later, however, men and women might even bathe together. Some Hellenized or Romanized Jews resorted to epispasm, a surgical procedure to restore the foreskin "for the sake of decorum".
Japan
Fishermen of Misaki, 1904
Sumo
wrestling, practiced by men in ceremonial dress of loincloth size that
exposes the buttocks like a jock strap, in general is considered sacred
under Shintō. Public, communal bathing of mixed sexes also has a long history in Japan. Public toplessness was generally considered acceptable as well until the post-WWII US occupation when General Douglas MacArthur passed edicts requiring women to cover their breasts and banning pornography that contained close-up shots of genitalia.
Public nudity was quite normal and commonplace in Japan until the Meiji Restoration. Commodore Matthew Perry's
interpreter Rev. S. Well Williams wrote "Modesty, judging from what we
see, might be said to be unknown, for the women make no attempt to hide
the bosom, and every step shows the leg above the knee; while men
generally go with the merest bit of rag, and that not always carefully
put on. Naked men and women have both been seen in the streets, and
uniformly resort to the same bath house, regardless of all decency. Lewd
motions, pictures and talk seem to be the common expression of the
viler acts and thoughts of the people, and this to such a degree as to
disgust everybody."
After the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government began a
campaign to institute a uniform national culture and suppress practices
such as public nudity and urination that were unsightly, unhygienic, and
disturbing to foreign visitors. Mixed gender bathing was banned.
Enforcement of these rules was not consistent and most often occurred in
Tokyo and other major cities with a high number of foreign visitors.
Despite the lack of taboos on public nudity, traditional Japanese
art seldom depicted nude individuals except for paintings of
bathhouses. When the first embassies opened in Western countries in the
late 19th century, Japanese dignitaries were shocked and offended at the
European predilection for nude statues and busts. However, Japanese
students traveling to Europe to study became exposed to Western art and
its frequent nudity. In 1894, Kuroda Seikia was the first Japanese
artist to publicly exhibit a painting of a nude woman grooming herself.
The work caused a public uproar, but gradually nudity became more
accepted in Japanese art and by the 1910s, it was commonplace and
acceptable as long as pubic hair was not shown. By the 1930s, pubes were
accepted as long as they were not overly detailed or the main focus of
the picture. However, pornographic art that featured graphic depictions
of nudity and sexual acts already existed in Japan for centuries, called
Shunga.
In traditional Japanese culture, nudity was typically associated
with the lower class of society, i.e. those who performed manual labor
and frequently wore little when the weather permitted. The upper class,
for comparison, were expected to be modest and fully clothed, with fine
clothing in particular considered more erotic than nudity itself. After
the Meiji Restoration, upper-class Japanese began adopting Western
clothing, which included underwear, something not part of the
traditional Japanese wardrobe except for loincloths worn by men.
Underwear was, however, not commonly worn in Japan until after
WWII despite the government's attempts to impose Western standards. The
disastrous 1923 earthquake
in Tokyo was widely used as a pretext to enforce them, as government
propaganda claimed that many women perished because they were afraid to
jump or climb out of ruined or burning buildings due to their kimonos
flying open and exposing their privates. In reality, it had more to do
with lack of proper building standards and traditional Japanese homes
being constructed with flammable paper and wood; moreover, there was no
evidence that women were concerned about accidentally exposing
themselves, especially since the majority of Japanese at this time still
wore traditional outfits with no undergarments.
After WWII, when Japan was occupied by the Allied military,
public nudity was more extensively suppressed and Western clothing,
which included boxer shorts, briefs, brassieres, and panties, became
normal.
In some hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates, nudity (or near-complete nudity) has been, until the introduction of Western culture or Islam, or still is, the social norm for both men and women.
Complete nudity among men and complete or near-complete nudity among women is still common for Mursi, Surma, Nuba, Karimojong, Kirdi, Dinka and sometimes Maasai people in Africa, as well as Matses, Yanomami, Suruwaha, Xingu, Matis and Galdu people in South America. Many indigenous peoples in Africa and South America train and perform sport competitions naked
Nuba people in South Sudan and xingu tribe in the Amazon region in
Brazil, for example, wrestle naked, whereas Dinka, Surma and Mursi in
South Sudan and Ethiopia, arrange stick fights. From around 300 BC Indian mystics have utilized naked ascetism to reject worldly attachments. Indian male monks Digambara practice yoga naked (or sky-clad, as they prefer to call it). With the ever-increasing influences of Western and Muslim cultures, these traditions may soon vanish though.
In some African and Melanesian
cultures, men going completely naked except for a string tied about the
waist are considered properly dressed for hunting and other traditional
group activities. In a number of tribes in the South Pacific island of New Guinea, men use hard gourdlike pods as penis sheaths. Yet a man without this "covering" could be considered to be in an embarrassing state of nakedness. Among the Chumash people of southern California, men were usually naked, and women were often topless. Native Americans of the Amazon Basin usually went nude or nearly nude; in many native tribes, the only clothing worn was some device worn by men to clamp the foreskin
shut. However, other similar cultures have had different standards. For
example, other native North Americans avoided total nudity, and the
Native Americans of the mountains and west of South America, such as the Quechuas,
kept quite covered. These taboos normally only applied to adults;
Native American children often went naked until puberty if the weather
permitted (a 10-year-old Pocahontas scandalized the Jamestown settlers by appearing at their camp in the nude).
Ibn Battuta (1304–1369) judges the character of the people of Mali:
Among their bad qualities are the
following. The women servants, slave-girls, and young girls go about in
front of everyone naked, without a stitch of clothing on them. Women go
into the sultan's presence naked and without coverings, and his
daughters also go about naked.
In 1498, at Trinity Island, Trinidad, Christopher Columbus found the women entirely naked, whereas the men wore a light girdle called guayaco. At the same epoch, on the Para Coast of Brazil,
the girls were distinguished from the married women by their absolute
nudity. The same absence of costume was observed among the Chaymas of Cumaná, Venezuela, and Du Chaillu noticed the same among the Achiras in Gabon.
Recent history
Nude adult human female (at a Nude Ban Protest in San Francisco)
In Europe up until the 18th century, non-segregated bathing in rivers and bathhouses
was the norm. In addition, toplessness was accepted among all social
classes and women from queens to prostitutes commonly wore outfits
designed to bare the breasts. During the Enlightenment, taboos against nudity began to grow and by the Victorian era, public nakedness was considered obscene. In addition to beaches being segregated by gender, bathing machines were also used to allow people who had changed into bathing suits
to enter directly into the water. During the 1860s, nude swimming
became a public offense in Great Britain. In the early 20th century,
even exposed male chests were considered unacceptable. During this
period, women's bathing suits had to cover at least the thighs and
exposure of more than that could lead to arrests for public lewdness.
Swimwear began to move away from this extreme degree of modesty in the
1930s after Hollywood star Johnny Weissmuller
began going to beaches in just shorts, after which people quickly began
copying him. After WWII, the bikini was first invented in France and
despite the initial scandal surrounding it, was widespread and normal by
the 1960s.
Sport in the modern sense of the word became popular only in the
19th century. Nudity in this context was most common in Germany and the
Nordic countries.
In 1924, in the Soviet Union,
an informal organization called the "Down with Shame" movement held
mass nude marches in an effort to dispel earlier, "bourgeois" morality.
During the following decade, Stalin rose to power and quickly
suppressed the radical ideas which had circulated in the early years of
the Soviet Union. Nudism and pornography were prohibited, and Soviet
society would remain rigidly conservative for the rest of the USSR's
existence. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a much more liberated social climate prevailed in Russia and naturist clubs and beaches reappeared.
The geographically isolated Scandinavian countries were less affected by Victorian social taboos and continued with their sauna culture. Nude swimming in rivers or lakes was a very popular tradition. In the summer, there would be wooden bathhouses,
often of considerable size accommodating numerous swimmers, built
partly over the water; hoardings prevented the bathers from being seen
from outside. Originally the bathhouses were for men only; today there
are usually separate sections for men and women.
For the Olympic Games in Stockholm
in 1912, the official poster was created by a distinguished artist. It
depicted several naked male athletes (their genitals obscured) and was
for that reason considered too daring for distribution in certain
countries. Posters for the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, the 1924 Olympics in Paris, and the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki also featured nude male figures, evoking the classical origins of the games. The poster for the 1948 London Olympics featured the Discobolus, a nude sculpture of a discus thrower.
In the early years of the 20th century, a nudist movement began
to develop in Germany which was connected to a renewed interest in
classical Greek ideas of the human body. So-called Freikörperkultur
(FKK) clubs sprung up during this period and started moving the German
public away from much of the Victorian modesty codes they had inherited.
During the 1930s, the Nazi leadership either banned naturist
organizations or placed them under the control of the party, and opinion
on them seems to have been divided. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels considered nudity decadent while Heinrich Himmler and the SS endorsed it.
Male nudity in the US and other Western countries was not a taboo
for much of the 20th century. Social attitudes maintained that it was
healthy and normal for men and boys to be nude around each other and
schools, gymnasia, and other such organizations typically required nude
male swimming in part for sanitary reasons due to the use of wool
swimsuits. Movies, advertisements, and other media frequently showed
nude male bathing or swimming. There was less tolerance for female
nudity and the same schools and gyms that insisted on wool swimwear
being unsanitary for males did not make an exception when women were
concerned. Nonetheless, some schools did allow girls to swim nude if
they wished. To cite one example, Detroit
public schools began allowing nude female swimming in 1947, but ended
it after a few weeks following protests from parents. Other schools
continued allowing it, but it was never a universally accepted practice
like nude male swimming.
During the 1960s, there was a growing body of opinion that boys
should not be required to swim nude if they didn't want to, partially
from higher postwar living standards that created more expectations of
privacy and also from complaints that the supposed unsanitary nature of
wool swimwear did not seem to pose a problem with girls. By the 1970s,
most schools and gyms in the US had become gender-integrated which put
an end to nude swimming.
After WWII, communist East Germany
became famous for its nude beaches and widespread FKK culture, a rare
freedom allowed in a regimented society. By comparison, naturism was not
as popular in West Germany, one reason being that the churches had more
influence than the secularized DDR. Following the reunification of Germany
in 1990, FKK declined in popularity due to an influx of more prudish
West Germans to the East as well as increased immigration of Turks and
other socially conservative Muslims.
In 1957, Arkansas
passed a law to make it illegal to "advocate, demonstrate, or promote
nudism." The law applies to both public spaces and private property.
During the 1960s-70s, feminist groups in France and Italy lobbied
for and obtained the legalization of topless beaches despite opposition
from the Roman Catholic Church. Spain would eventually permit
toplessness on its beaches, but only after the death of
ultra-conservative Catholic dictator Francisco Franco
in 1975. While public nudity is not a major taboo in continental
Europe, Britain and the United States tend to view it less favorably,
and naturist clubs are not as family-oriented as in Germany and
elsewhere, with nude beaches being often seen as meetup locations for
homosexual men cruising for sex.
Nowadays, most European countries permit toplessless on normal beaches
with full nudity allowed only on designated nude beaches. Despite this,
it is quite normal in many parts of Europe to change clothing publicly
even if the person becomes fully naked in the process, as this is taken
to not count as public nudity.
An occasional—often illegal—naked sideshow is when a member of the public uses a sports venue to perform as a streaker.
Streaking became more popular in the 1970s. It was not until the 1990s
(and after) that nudity became expected at major public events, such as Bay to Breakers and the World Naked Bike Ride.
Due to the desexualized and sex-negative approach by some contemporary
nudist groups, some observers have suggested that 21st-century nudism
has experienced a tinge of prudification.
Children
In many
cultures in history, there were few taboos on children being publicly
naked although the point at where it becomes unacceptable has varied
between the toddler stage and up until puberty is attained around the
ages of 11-12 (see the above example of Pocahontas). In some Western
countries since the late 20th century, public attitudes have come to
consider any child nudity past the infant stage unacceptable. This has
even extended to the idea of covering prepubescent girls' chests at all
times in spite of the absence of breasts. As a consequence, in the US
and Britain, nude babies and children have largely disappeared from
advertisements and other forms of media even though they were
commonplace prior to the 1970s. In one of the more notable advertising
examples, the famous Coppertone Logo,
which depicted a small girl having her swimsuit pulled down by a dog to
expose her tan lines, was changed during the 1990s–2000s to reveal far
less skin.
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