In Support of Naturism
For example, indigenous tribes naked except for ear and lip plugs feel immodest when the plugs are removed, not when their bodies are exposed. Likewise, a woman feels immodest if seen in her slip, even though it's far less revealing than her bikini. This also explains why clothed visitors to nudist parks feel uncomfortable in their state of dress. Psychologist Emery S. Bogardus writes: "Nakedness is never shameful when it is unconscious, that is, when there is no consciousness of a difference between fact and the rule set by the mores." In other words, for first-time visitors to a nudist park, there is no hint of embarrassment after an initial reticence, because it is not contrary to the moral norms.
19. Shame comes from being outside mores, not from specific actions or conditions. Because nudity is unremarkable in a nudist setting, nudists may even forget that they are nude--and often do.
20. Psychological studies have shown that modesty need not be related to one's state of dress at all. For the nudist, modesty is not shed with one's clothes; it merely takes a different form.
Psychological studies by Martin Weinberg concluded that the basic difference between nudists and non-nudists lies in their differently-constructed definitions of the situation. It isn't that nudists are immodest, for, like non-nudists, they have norms to regulate and control immorality, sexuality, and embarrassment. Nudists merely accept the human body as natural, rather than as a source of embarrassment.
21. Many indigenous tribes go completely naked without shame, even today. It is only through extended contact with the "modern" world that they learn to be "modest."
They develop an exaggerated awareness of the body. It is as if Adam and Eve's
'aprons' generated the 'knowledge of good and evil' rather than being its
consequence."
Many Amazon rainforest people still live clothing-optional by choice, even given an alternative. The same is true of the aborigines of central Australia.
22. Even in North America, nudity was commonplace among many indigenous tribes prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Lewis and Clark reported nearly-naked natives along the northern Pacific coast, for example, as did visitors to California. Father Louis Hennepin in 1698 reported of Milwaukee-area Illinois Indians, "They go stark naked in Summer-time, wearing only a kind of Shoes made of the Skins of [buffalo] Bulls." He described several other North American tribes as also generally living without clothes. The natives of Florida wore only breechclouts and sashes of Spanish moss, which they removed while hunting or gardening. Columbus wrote of the Indians he encountered in the Caribbean in 1492, "They all go around as naked as their mothers bore them; and also the women." The Polynesian natives of Hawaii wore little clothing, and none at all at the shore or in the water, until the arrival of Christian missionaries with Captain Cook in 1776.
| Previous Page | Next Page |
For example, indigenous tribes naked except for ear and lip plugs feel immodest when the plugs are removed, not when their bodies are exposed. Likewise, a woman feels immodest if seen in her slip, even though it's far less revealing than her bikini. This also explains why clothed visitors to nudist parks feel uncomfortable in their state of dress. Psychologist Emery S. Bogardus writes: "Nakedness is never shameful when it is unconscious, that is, when there is no consciousness of a difference between fact and the rule set by the mores." In other words, for first-time visitors to a nudist park, there is no hint of embarrassment after an initial reticence, because it is not contrary to the moral norms.
19. Shame comes from being outside mores, not from specific actions or conditions. Because nudity is unremarkable in a nudist setting, nudists may even forget that they are nude--and often do.
20. Psychological studies have shown that modesty need not be related to one's state of dress at all. For the nudist, modesty is not shed with one's clothes; it merely takes a different form.
Psychological studies by Martin Weinberg concluded that the basic difference between nudists and non-nudists lies in their differently-constructed definitions of the situation. It isn't that nudists are immodest, for, like non-nudists, they have norms to regulate and control immorality, sexuality, and embarrassment. Nudists merely accept the human body as natural, rather than as a source of embarrassment.
21. Many indigenous tribes go completely naked without shame, even today. It is only through extended contact with the "modern" world that they learn to be "modest."
| Paul Ableman writes: "The missionaries were usually disconcerted to find that the biblically recommended act of 'clothing the naked', far from producing an improvement in native morals, almost always resulted in a deterioration. What the missionaries were inadvertently doing was recreating the Garden of Eden situation. Naked, the primitive cultures had shown no prurient concern with the body. . . . the morality was normally geared to the naked state of the culture. The missionaries, with their cotton shorts and dresses, disrupted this. Naked people actually feel shame when they are first dressed. |
|
Many Amazon rainforest people still live clothing-optional by choice, even given an alternative. The same is true of the aborigines of central Australia.
22. Even in North America, nudity was commonplace among many indigenous tribes prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Lewis and Clark reported nearly-naked natives along the northern Pacific coast, for example, as did visitors to California. Father Louis Hennepin in 1698 reported of Milwaukee-area Illinois Indians, "They go stark naked in Summer-time, wearing only a kind of Shoes made of the Skins of [buffalo] Bulls." He described several other North American tribes as also generally living without clothes. The natives of Florida wore only breechclouts and sashes of Spanish moss, which they removed while hunting or gardening. Columbus wrote of the Indians he encountered in the Caribbean in 1492, "They all go around as naked as their mothers bore them; and also the women." The Polynesian natives of Hawaii wore little clothing, and none at all at the shore or in the water, until the arrival of Christian missionaries with Captain Cook in 1776.
| Previous Page | Next Page |
Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | Bibliography | Source
|
 2005 © NaturalJax, Inc. | About Us | Contact Us | Site
Map Privacy Policy |
| |
 |
|
 | |
|
| |