Public Nudity Is Cultural

Public nudity is a cultural thing.

As late at the 1960's people often swam nude. I recall seeing a 1960-era small-town paper of two teens, a boy and a girl, poised to dive in a pool for a race, both naked. Apparently the practice disappeared in the 1970's. See Wikipedia.

I was uncomfortable with the practice, too, but I knew it was normal. We belonged to a nearby swimming club. Men showered nude next to a wall in the men's room with 3 shower heads.

In hindsight, the weird part was just that no one talked about it. There was no acknowledgement of discomfort, no talk about normal fears. There are plenty of ways to look at it that would allay fears.

(To me, this is the weird part about all of schooling- there's no education about understanding ourselves.)

When I was a toddler, I was bathed with brothers. I don't know when it changed and I became hung up about it. I still showered nude at the pool, but uncomfortably. I was exempted from P.E. for asthma, so didn't get over it till college.

I did a course as an adult where adults got up, one at a time, dressed in a bathing suit, and stood on a stage while the course leader instructed the audience to "Look at the body. Look at the knees, the waist..." Between a quarter and a half of the people shook with fear. Some cried! It was all voluntary and the participants for whom it was traumatic got over much of it.

We're weird, pretending bodies are taboo, titillating about seeing some skin, while all walking around naked under our clothing.

It's good to get over it. As they say, "Better titillate than never."