Nudity: Naked Kids, Past, Present, Future
All kids were
born naked
All kids play
naked
In the 40s,
most little kids swam naked
Seeing naked kids was not considered embarrassing or unusual when I was young. Boys and girls up to about 6 were often naked at home, in their yards, and at public places such as parks, beaches, and swimming pools. Nobody made any fuss about this. I grew up enjoying being naked. Boys a bit older and men would be nude in group settings such as the Y pool, gym showers, and secluded swimming sites. That was lost with the new prudity. I miss it, and it is so stupid. I lived through the transition from nudity OK to Nudity Taboo in America and document that here.
Lots of kids enjoy life naked
Nudity was a
routine and accepted part of a child's life. My sister (2 years younger) and I
bathed and played about the house naked. My group kindergarten-age swimming
lessons (blowing bubbles and such) in the outdoor public pool near Pittsburgh
were held nude. In Dixon (3rd grade), I remember going on an outing
at Lowell Park (where Ronald Reagan lifeguarded) and running back to dig our
suits out of the sand. Suits in wartime were made of scratchy ersatz wool, and
many boys took them off as soon as we were away from our moms.
Later in
Evanston Junior High and High School, we swam at the Y pool, where suits were
prohibited. Boys had communal showers at school and camp. There was lots of
informal nude play at scout camp. Small kids were often naked at the Evanston
and Wilmette Beaches. We older boys clipped our suits to the outer ropes
(Wilmette beach tokens were on a big safety pin) and played nude away from the
lifeguard's whistles. Most of us had the compulsion to be naked.
New Trier High School Pool 1950 (typical of the MidWest Ys, schools, colleges, and camps)
Boys swimming
naked was so taken for granted that the opening scene in Walt Disney’s 1960
film, Pollyanna, has boys swimming naked off a railroad bridge to give a sense
of youth activities in the small town where the story took place.
It is
inconceivable that humans living a few hundred years ago were obsessed with
clothing. The Omo River kid playing with his dog is fully dressed in white
paint and a necklace.
The Cannes Award movie, Ten Canoes N is an Australian film set in the 1920s with aboriginal actors dressed for the period in armbands and hairdos.
Humans, for millions of years, lived in full social nudity. A Timeline in Wikipedia N has the first date for clothing and what followed from 720BC onward.
Grandpa's
Hot Tub Rules
♦ No Clothes
♦ No Drowning
♦ No Splashing Grandpa
My reason is to
be comfortable and rile against social mendacity - a compulsion. I am often
naked at home. If it is cold, I dress and sleep under a blanket. When guests
arrive, throwing on a pair of shorts or a robe is easy. Why be uncomfortable
sleeping, reading, watching TV, or working with the computer? See 205 Observations in Support of Naturism.
Adam
and Eve and what follows in the Mormon belief and practice: "Cover the
body because it's sacred," yet nothing else that is sacred is covered.
Hypocrisy and Mendacity. If you believe that nudity is sinful, stop
reading these web pages.
All children have
seen other children naked and have been seen naked.
Some religions pretend that nudity is
offensive. That's weird.
Compare the Unitarian and Morman attitudes to family nudity.
You're a hypocrite if you pretend you don't enjoy being naked.
We have become a society of prudes. Our media's theme is, "Show a man with a gun... it's called action. Show a man with a dick... it's called indecent."- How ridiculous! The transition from nude-OK to America-all-prude occurred over the span of my lifetime.
Parents are
doing a great disservice to their children by stressing that they stay covered
up. Kids need to feel that their bodies are natural and good and that they fit
into society. Prudity is evil. Small children lack a sense of modesty entirely.
Toddlers feel no compunction about exploring all parts of their bodies and
exposing themselves to others' view. They have no
instinctive negative attitudes about the bodies they were born with
There are real benefits to raising children, not to be ashamed of their bodies. See: Growing Up Without Shame and Social Nudism: The Effects on Children. Children exposed to nudity from an early age are unfazed by the sight of the human body and, later in life, become psychologically stronger because of it. Nudity is an essential feature of sex education.
Naked
Now
Some
parents fight back on prudity by letting their kids be naked at home, playing
with "anatomically correct" dolls, and reading body-friendly books.
See In the Night Kitchen.
The men's indoor pool close to my dorm at the University of Illinois was clothing optional. Few users wore suits. The public viewing gallery off the lobby sometimes had giggling girls from the local high school. Nobody minded.
My men's dorm at MIT is now co-ed with mixed-gender floors and suites. One floor is clothing optional. One of the MIT co-ed off-campus houses, Pika, is clothing optional.
Play Naked (Videos)
There
are several nudist resorts in our area, but I have not visited them. The
closest is Pine Tree Associates.
Years ago, I visited Cypress Cove
in Florida and Lupin in California.
Here is a video of a family
camp in Australia.
When we lived
in New Jersey, I visited Gunnison nude beach in Sandy
Hook National Park near our home. It is a beautiful place, a short ferry ride
from NYC, visited by thousands of naked people most summer weekends.
There are many nude beaches in Europe.
Go Back
12/13/2024 2:46 PM