Nudity Equals Sex

Socialization is a learning process that begins shortly after birth. Early childhood is the period of the most intense and the most crucial socialization. It is then that we acquire language and learn the fundamentals of our culture. Unfortunately, a part of the socialization process in this country includes people learning from childhood to equate nudism with sex and sexuality and to be conditioned in general to maintain a very juvenile attitude about sex; it's either locker room naughty or the ultimate evil. This is the kind of thing that makes Europeans snicker about us uptight Americans. There are ways to teach children healthy boundaries about their bodies without making them feel uptight about their body or about nudity in general.

Discerning the difference between nudity and sex is difficult for those who have grown up in a society like ours. If you have only been naked to get in the shower or to have sex it is understandable that you would assume that if you are naked around someone else it implies a desire to have sex and would make the same assumption about others. Having been raised in a very religious household, it took me almost four decades of my life to get over the shame that I felt about my own body and about sexuality. Those were some wasted years that I would not want wish on anyone. Much of the American stigma concerning sex and nudity has to do with “traditional Christian values.” America has a lot of those old Puritan influences as well as the biblical view from Genesis 3 that people should be ashamed of their bodies. It is no surprise that the more fundamentally religious people are the more sexually repressed and uptight especially in relation to nudity and sexuality.

In a society that equates nudism with sex and sexuality it is a given that stereotypes will develop and be promoted such as: people who follow the nudism lifestyle are sexually promiscuous and nudists or naturists will have sex with anyone at anytime. Stereotypes predictably lead to prejudice. Whenever society views a group of people that doesn't follow what it feels is the norm in the society than prejudice is always quickly attracted that particular group. No matter how often we naturists and nudists tell people that social nudity is not sexual, they remain unconvinced believing that there is overt sexual conduct in the nudist/naturist environment. Many believe that while we might talk a good non-sexual game, behind closed doors it's all orgies, all the time.

Even when we do our best to overcome the “nude is lewd” idea, there are still too many people who maintain these ideas. This hinders the naturism community. Since the United States is very conservative, there are only a few designated clothing optional beaches and most public lands are simply off limits to naturists and nudists. Naturism can only be practiced in very few private places. Extremely restrictive legislation is another issue that nudists face today.

Our knee jerk reaction has in the past when faced with accusations that sex and nudity are inextricably inter-related and thus going naked amongst other naked people must inevitably be sexually stimulating and arousing is to immediately deny that there is any connection whatsoever between traditional naturism and nudism and sex. The problem with this is we shall never get people to understand that sex and nudity do not normally go hand-in-hand if we continue to deny the obvious truth that sometimes, it does. A better approach might be to say that while nudity does not equal sex, sex is nothing to be ashamed of either.

While American society today is in some ways overly sexual and sex obsessed, in other ways we are a very prudish and sexually repressed society. While pornography is rampant, it is still looked down upon and thus most usually viewed in secret. Millions of Americans don’t talk about sex openly and sex education is America is in most cases very poor and insufficient. These conditions produce as a result a situation where many Americans tend to be more offended by something like Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction than they are about the violence portrayed on the average nightly news.

A general lack of understanding by society in general of what naturism is about is very apparent and it is a given that ignorance of the general population towards naturism affects the naturist community in negative ways. Many non-nudists simply believe that taking your clothing off is sinful and immoral, and teach this to their children. It's from this type of thinking that misconceptions are formed that equates nudism with sex, a corrupt mind and loose morals. Equating loose moral character with nudity is preposterous to naturists but makes sense to those who equate nudity with sex. Education is the only method that can be used to counterbalance these misconceptions among non-naturist people.

Separating sex from nudity honestly isn't the biggest issue. I think we should instead be stressing that communal nudity as practiced is naturism and nudism provide a more modern approach to sex education, destroying the secrecy and mystery of sex, elevating women to equal status with men, and thus abolishing sexual shame, perversion, and repression. We should stress that nudism is not a new phenomenon but has been around for centuries; that being nude is fun and healthy; that after all we are all born nudists and that nudism promotes body acceptance, self-confidence, and freedom. It is also very important that we communicate the fact that nudists are very cognizant that within society it is respectful to take the feelings of your fellow citizens into account and thus we do not advocate the right to be nude in public at any place or time. We also need to communicate that nudity cannot equal sex because of the reality that sexual arousal is much more complex than simply looking at a naked human body. We need to encourage people to learn about naturism and nudism before they condemn it out of hand.

Too often I hear other naturists and nudists say it is a waste of time to try to educate non-nudists and that the “clothes-minded” are in fact close minded, have their minds made up and will never be convinced to see naturism and nudism in favorable terms. I know this is not reality because once I myself only saw nudism in the common stereotypical ways and harbored that same misconception that nudity equals sex. Unless you were raised in a nudist family, you likely could tell a similar story to mine. But at some point, I became open to understanding what naturism and nudism were really about and as a result not only became tolerant of the idea but actually embraced it with a passion. Nudity is not something to be ashamed of, it's something to enjoy. Nudity does not equal sex although sex is nothing to be ashamed of, either. We can hide our bodies, turn them into taboos, try to ignore them, mistreat them, obsess about them, or accept them and even be happy with them. I know which I'd rather do.