[pmlnr]

It's a much bigger question why, such a completely natural and normal thing, like nudity, in the supposed to be educated - at least in basic biology - 2025, be made and exclusive thing.

The intro of the 1986 Once upon a time... Life animation series, that's the best human biology educational program that exists to this very day, starts with scenes many would classify as nudity - but it's also essential to the topic and the education it displays.

[Barrin92]

>It's a much bigger question why, such a completely natural and normal thing, like nudity, [...] be made and exclusive thing.

As Nietzsche said, the time has come when we have to pay for having been Christians for two thousand years. That's the simple answer, nudity and sexuality (also entirely natural and normal), have been deemed sinful, you're supposed to avert your eyes from it, and so on. It's so deeply ingrained in Western culture even secularized people still haven't shaken it.

It varies though, being German with half of my family having lived in the GDR, it is funny to see in particular Americans when you talk about nude beaches or mixed saunas and the general Freikörperkultur (lit: free body culture) that was so common and still has carried over.

[aredox]

It is even more amazing when you consider that in the USA, it was normal (for boys) to bath in the nude, indoor but sometimes with spectators, and even to have to show their genitals to the teacher or pool attendant.

This has been completely memory-holed despite the fact many people alive today should remember it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nude_swimming_in_US_indoor_poo...

https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-city/baring-it-all-why-bo...

https://www.npr.org/2006/08/01/5597441/naked-in-high-school-...

[hellojesus]

> it is funny to see in particular Americans when you talk about nude beaches or mixed saunas and the general Freikörperkultur (lit: free body culture) that was so common and still has carried over

How is general nudity of adult men considered by those participants? I always assumed that my nakedness would be perceived as a display of mateability, and I am concerned that my penis size relative to other men would reduce my attractiveness to women.

Note: I am not sure how I compare to others in the general population, as I live the typical American lifestyle. Also, I think Germans are statistically one of the greater endowed populations, so maybe this isn't as much an issue for them.

[bloak]

Most women are not interested in penis size. (Though some are, obviously.)

At a normal nude beach, with all age groups represented, people don't show off an erect penis. (Though there are beaches where that happens.)

Median erect penis length is about 13-14 cm and I don't think there's credible evidence for the median varying much between countries of Europe and North America. (Though there is some evidence for a smaller or larger median in some places outside Europe and North America.)

Does that help? (I'm not an expert but I think I know enough to write what I have just written.)

[hellojesus]

It does to some extent. At least your data is similar to what I've read.

I think the problem is that even if I was one standard deviation above the mean, that's still only about the 68% percentile. So it's expected that 3 of every 10 dudes would be better endowded than me, and I'm sure nude beaches bias in sample towards the more well endowed. So likely I won't be laughed at but won't be a genetic prize, and I'm not sure I'm confident enough (or ever will be) to accept that as public knowledge.

[quantified]

Lots of women understand grower vs shower. So you need to get to grown stage to make that determination. Over the course of a day or two of observation, it will show.

[tremon]

you're supposed to avert your eyes from it

Only if it leads you to sin, right? According to the original, if you can look at a naked body without immediately humping it, you're free to keep looking.

[tjs8rj]

Every civilized culture on earth has norms against public nudity. Objectively there appears to be something more biologically successful about cultures where nudity is reserved for private spaces than those who treat it otherwise

[diggan]

> Every civilized culture on earth has norms against public nudity

Well, not every "civilized culture" has a blanket ban on public nudity, but more of a "there is a time and place you know", like doing sauna naked and swimming naked in rivers/lakes (common in the Nordics at least) or being semi-nude (topless) at public beaches in Spain. Breastfeeding without having to shamefully cover up also seems to be more and more accepted, at least in the countries I frequent (mostly around Europe).

I'm sure there are more examples of "civilized cultures" where it's accepted sometimes to be nude or semi-nude.

[tjs8rj]

A norm is a norm, the normal, the usual. Not the “always”. Every culture has times where nudity is acceptable or encouraged (it’d be ab-norm-al for you to shower or use the bathroom without exposing your genitals).

[walthamstow]

Japanese bathing culture is very nude indeed, but gender-segregated

[Barrin92]

>Every civilized culture on earth has norms against public nudity

Every civilized society has norms for everything, that's the tautological definition of what being civilized means. It's how civilized people define success. But this is not culture (as per Nietzsche) but just the opposite of it. To think the two are synonymous is exactly what he attributes to Christianity.

The Danish mixed nude beach goer is indeed technically less civilized but no less cultured, free, vital or unburdened by social anxieties about her body or conduct, she's strong-willed exactly to the extent that she's uncivilized.

[zakki]

Well, many things are natural. Still we have many rules for it. I.e. naturally stronger animals kill weaker ones. Yet we don't want this happen in the human community.

[thih9]

Naturally stronger animals very often protect weaker ones too, especially within the same species.

I know you’re trying to point out a logical fallacy; but I don’t think it is a good reason to ignore the grandparent commenter’s point.

[JackFr]

The concept of natural vs. non-natural is a human and largely cultural construct.

It’s still a useful word, but it can’t really shoulder the burden of making one argument more rational than the other.

[amiga386]

This is off-topic, but I like pointing out that natural does not mean good, especially to hippies at the supermarket who want to pay more for "organic" foods that "aren't full of chemicals". I sympathise with them, but also wish they'd use more appropriate words, and understand the cost of their luxury beliefs.

Tsunamis, earthquakes, flash floods, tornadoes, locust swarms, plagues are "natural". Amanita muscaria, Dendrobatidae and Boa constrictors are "natural" and will fucking kill you.

I think the better distinction is found in Leviathan, contrasting human society (and its set of social contracts) with the "state of nature" - what human life was like before we formed societies:

> In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

[herval]

Or incest. Or washing your hands...

[krapp]

>It's a much bigger question why, such a completely natural and normal thing, like nudity, in the supposed to be educated - at least in basic biology - 2025, be made and exclusive thing.

Western culture and its morals around sex, gender and nudity are founded on the patriarchal taboos of the Abrahamic religions, whereby human nudity in general, and female nudity in particular (because women are the source of original sin,) is to be considered shameful.

That and we're currently in the midst of a right-wing political reactionary shift against the progressive norms of prior generations (and a moral panic about "groomers" and "pedophiles") which makes censorship of this type far easier.

[tjs8rj]

So China and Japan are abrahamic? India is abrahamic? Every civilization on earth has norms against public nudity. Seems to be something more fundamental than blaming abrahamic religions

[krapp]

The context of this thread and the linked article implies that we aren't discussing every civilization on Earth. I apologize for not explicitly having stated that, sometimes I forget that this is HN, where nuance and context go to die.

Norms against nudity within Western societies - excluding non-Western societies such as in China, Japan and India - are based on Abrahamic religions.

It is true that other non-Western societies also have norms regarding nudity, but those norms are not the same as in the West, and even within the West and other Christianized nations such norms tend to be more permissive than in the US. To give an example, in the US breastfeeding is considered implicitly sexual and thus allowing it in public spaces is controversial, whereas this is not the case in cultures where any display of the female breast is considered to be pornographic. You can even find cultures where public nudity has little if any taboo at all.

So no, other than the strictly physiological need for humans to provide a layer of physical protection around their bodies by means of garments, there is nothing more fundamental going on here. Norms around nudity are entirely cultural.

[tjs8rj]

Norms against nudity being based on abrahamic religions is still wrong.

It’s like saying norms against murder are based on abrahamic religions because the 10 commandments say so.

Cultures the world over have general norms against nudity in nearly all contexts, and also have norms against murder in nearly all contexts. Clearly the driving force that makes humans have norms against nudity or murder is more fundamental than religion.

Abrahamic religions may add a particular flavor to it, but it’s icing on a big cake

Anthropologically, given that every mass civilization that’s ever existed regulated nudity in public settings, there’s likely some sociological advantage to it that enables communities of people to reach scale and endure.

Do you have a single counter example of a large scale human community (10,000+ people) where public nudity was normal?

[jbd0]

> in the US breastfeeding is considered implicitly sexual and thus allowing it in public spaces is controversial

No it's not https://thelactationcollection.com/blog/breastfeeding-in-pub...

[krapp]

Note that I said it's controversial because it's considered implicitly sexual, not that it's illegal. The article you posted literally mentions the social stigma I'm referring to.

[pmlnr]

Japan?! The place where there's a festival of dicks? Lol. It shows how little you've seen of the world.

[jodrellblank]

The USA has people taking part in the World Naked Bike Rides and the Folsom Street Fair, but the USA has "norms against public nudity". The millions of people going outside each day are not naked or expecting to see others naked. That's a "norm" and it applies to Japan as well; clothed is normal, the exceptions are few and constrained to a few places/situations/events.

A photo of a Japanese public space, would you expect to see a) everyone clothed, b) everyone naked, c) roughly 50:50 as people choose for themselves and going naked is a perfectly acceptable thing to do which nobody thinks is weird ? (a), obviously.

[pmlnr]

However, shungas are fine, mangas are fine, and so there's nudity there.

Nudity doesn't only mean people on the street without clothes.

[ryandv]

> shift against the progressive norms of prior generations (and a moral panic about "groomers" and "pedophiles")

Not altogether an unreasonable concern, considering that the International Lesbian and Gay Association at the United Nations was literally allied to NAMBLA and other pro-pedophilia groups, for 15 years [0].

It's only when the Americans threatened to take away the money that something was done about it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILGA_consultative_status_contr...