Naked

Recently, I visited Japan. I celebrated my visit by getting naked in public. No, it’s really not as exciting as it sounds. My friend and I went to the Japanese baths, where I got dressed in a yukata, had my feet nibbled by fish, and generally felt spoilt and relaxed. Oh yeah, and then we got naked together and lay in a hot spring for a few hours.

I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. I was terrified by the prospect of getting my bare ass out in front of so many other people. The judgement! Not only everyone else’s, but my own. I am incredibly uncomfortable being naked. But, of course, no one gave a damn what I looked like when completely de-pantsed. It was very clearly not a big deal. Which prompts me to think – why should it be a big deal? Why do I find it so uncomfortable to be naked?

Now, here’s the part where the debate on nudity gets tricky. Obviously, there is a time and a place for getting your bits out. Equally obviously, it’s upsetting to be ashamed of said bits. But both Victorian prudery and 1970s-style denunciation of it seem antiquated and clichéd. I had a fairly standard, secular, Western upbringing. I’ve been subject to the influence of the media, with all its impossible ideals, and the notion of humility and chastity being the feminine ideal. Both are equally capable of nurturing a desire to cover up and be ashamed. Neither can be held fully accountable. However, the more I’ve thought about this, the more I find the links between knowledge, innocence and shame intensely interesting.

Innocence and ignorance are almost inevitably paired together. To be innocent, one must be ignorant of the slums of the human soul and the evils at the backdoor of the mind. By extension, to have knowledge is to be irreparably tarnished by the world. Thus, youth and innocence are beautifully enchanting prospects. In contrast, knowledge, particularly of nudity and sex, is something of which you must be suspicious.

Yet understanding and knowing our own bodies is, to be quite frank, incredibly important. Sex education is a hotbed of controversy, because no one can really decide how we want to teach our children about how they will naturally develop and change. Religion, morality and a general aversion to introducing children to the scummy adult world of sex and relationships all co-operate to making understanding our biology more convoluted and confusing than it need necessarily be. Sex education can be full of confusing analogies, stiff moral codes or, quite simply, absent from the curriculum. How anyone can possibly be expected to have a healthy relationship with their physicality when they are not encouraged to ask questions or explore themselves is beyond me. Yet adults are uncomfortable answering questions of a biological or sexual nature when they are framed in mouths thought to be unsullied by such realities. It feels shameful to talk of such things to those who still remain sheltered beneath the comforting wing of innocence. So children are often abandoned to the confusing ebb and flow of puberty, yet expected to somehow construct a raft of confidence that will allow them to sail through. No wonder we have such complex relationships with our bodies, and with our naked selves.

Sex worries people, and nudity often represents physical lust. Sexual urges are continually described with conflicting descriptors: ecstatic, joyful, pure, dirty, base, damaging. There have been decades of discourse about the morality of sex, and the ever-intertwined strands of love, lust, and procreation. The differing opinions on every aspect of the complexities of nudity and sex are innumerable, and overwhelming to confront. What is “normal” confuses people still more. Why is mine like that? Are others the same? Is there such a thing as normality? Why? This bodily insecurity can be harmful not only to our self-esteem, but also to our relationships and interactions with other people. Yet sexual knowledge and confidence in nudity are seen to be shameful. It is something tentatively alluded to, and never discussed in polite society. To give someone a ‘knowing look’ is to shame them. To be seen naked can never be empowering, only embarrassing. Girls who are comfortable in their nudity are derogatively decried as ‘shameless’. Is this shamelessness necessarily a bad thing?

I don’t believe the human body is something to be ashamed of, no matter its shape or size. I, like most people, have very complicated feelings about my own nakedness. Being utterly starkers in front of a bunch of elderly Japanese women has prompted me to sit down and try to better articulate these tangled half-thoughts and fears. I do not want to apologetically hide myself in a corner to change at the gym. I will not spend my life having sex with the lights off. My body is a part of myself, as well as an excellent way to transport everything that I am around. I will not disconnect myself from the chunk of flesh I inhabit, and I will not think of it as something shameful. Experience has made its indelible mark on my skin as vividly as on my memory, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.