Clear Nude: The Lens + the Nude, Issue IV, Summer 2015 ClearNude: The Lens + the Nude, Issue IV, Summer | Page 11

Ruminations on Nudity
by Karen Rayne

N

udity receives a response in the United States – from arousal to outrage,

The distance that we in the United States set between

it is rarely left to its own quiet, inde-

ourselves and our bodies is a rejection of our deepest

pendent movement through space.

vulnerability and therefore our most particular beauty.

Even within the home, the politics of walking from the

There are arguments about the cognitive or emotional

shower to the bedroom without a towel are consid-

or psychological aspects that set humans aside from

ered with interest, or perhaps with shame if you are

other mammals, but they all ignore the most obvious

of a certain age, gender, or body shape. One’s lack

distinction: our physical bodies. It is true that we use

of attire in even that most intimate and private space

our bodies differently than our mammalian cousins: by

of sleep is questioned, as if perhaps you are doing

covering them with clothes because of our advanced

your neighbors a frightful wrong because of the slim

(or repressed) psychological sense of shame, that we

chance that a fire will drive you into the street in a

make and wield increasingly complex tools, that we

dreadfully and embarrassingly exposed state. When

have a proportionally and evolutionarily overly large

more than one generation is involved, the response

brain. But why do we not acknowledge the very physi-

to nudity can become shrill expressions of inherent

cal nature that affords us the ability to conceptualize

impropriety. In shared public spaces, the sight of an-

and theorize about these particular differences? It is

other human’s full set of warm curves and lines can

our bodies that, first and foremost, set us apart from

apparently cause such harm that it is legislated into

the other animals.

small and well marked corners of space, far away from
those deemed vulnerable and religious.

We are our bodies. Rejecting or ignoring them is a
foolish endeavor that only leads to the further dis-

Regardless of their presentation as such, puritanical

connection and disintegration of our communities.

opinions of and restrictions to nudity are hardly univer-

Without our fleshy selves, although they offers such a

sal human values. They come to us by way of our col-

bare covering for our easily injured internal organs and

lective political ancestors, the very religious and con-

identities, we are merely units wandering and alone.

servative forefathers who fled persecution to find their

Acknowledgements of our soft curves and lines and

own soil on which to follow their own beliefs and to do

our needs for kind and gentle human-human touch are

their own persecutions. Across many parts of Europe,

growing in the United States, but we are far from ac-

Asia, Africa, and South America, the worries that emo-

ceptance countrywide. One day, though, perhaps we

tions are tenuous, sensibilities easily offended, and

will be whole, full, contained in our own rights rather

identities at risk, do not overrule the possibility of the

than by layers upon layers of a false sense of control

sun and air caressing our most tender of places. Other

that we currently employ. And then, my friends, we will

cultures do not draw hard, thick squares in art and me-

hold hands and run through the bluebonnets together.

dia over women’s nipples and vulvas or men’s penises

And we can approach a way of being that is right and

and color them in black, turning the entire world into

whole. ‡

their very own fear-based coloring book.

Clear Nude | Summer 2015

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