7 ms·
Oddly, in Britain this kind of thing happens quite a lot -- most older men certainly aren't shy about showering naked in public after swimming, for example. Th
by tomn 16y ago
Oddly, in Britain this kind of thing happens quite a lot -- most older men certainly aren't shy about showering naked in public after swimming, for example.
Thinking rationally, being shy about our bodies doesn't really make sense -- are there any logical reasons why nudity isn't ok?
- hieronymusN 16y agoNo it doesn't make sense, but its somehow culturally ingrained. Asia has a very different view, such as Japanese Onsen where everyone is naked in the big group pool, but you don't put your head underwater, no sir.
- teyc 16y agoPublic baths are segregated by gender.
- sliverstorm 16y agoThey weren't before Western culture got involved.
- seanalltogether 16y agoFor a long time humans have been using their intelligence to bypass evolution pressures. Nudity isn't necessarily the 'natural' state of being for most humans.
- gaius 16y agoYou can't "bypass" it, you can only redirect it. Natural selection always applies, you merely get to influence the environment in which it happens a bit (and in practice, almost always forget to account for second-order effects).
- sliverstorm 16y agoI personally suspect prudishness about clothing is related to how important clothing was, historically, in a given country. For example, Britain is very cold, very wet, and the British used to sail all over the stormy oceans in wooden boats. Consequentially, clothing would have been extremely valuable for warmth.
- gaius 16y agoSame for the Swedes, but they get naked at the drop of a hat.
- sliverstorm 16y agoTime to move to Sweden
- CallMeV 16y agoI just heard an echo in my mind of Tasha Yar in Star Trek: The Next Generation saying "Any. Hat." What is it about colder environments that the colder they are, the less clothing the natives wear? :D And I agree wholeheartedly with many of the assertions in the original post. Particularly the assertion that alcohol was distilled so that we Brits could build up the courage to reproduce. :)
- heyitsnick 16y agoI like this theory and shall adopt it as a perfect explanation until i hear otherwise.
- teyc 16y agoI don't see naked people in Saudi Arabia.
- sliverstorm 16y agoThat's because clothes are important in the desert. It's not intuitively obvious at first, but the right clothes shield you from the sand & sun, combat dehydration, and actually keep you cooler while also keeping you warm during cold desert nights.