The gender imbalance on nudity...

[dalekboy]

Regarding the Klara and Edda Belly Dancing picture, and it being pulled from the exhibit for being considered child porn, what is interesting is the reaction from people. One of the things I'm seeing is a gender difference in the perception of what is 'okay'. I don't believe this picture would have had quite the same reaction if it'd been a naked boy with another boy. I'm not saying there would have been no reaction, I'm saying it wouldn't have been judged as harshly.

You just have to look at recent reactions to Daniel Radcliffe being naked, when compared to Vanessa Hudgens. That they are older doesn't matter, they were both below the legal age for such nudity in their countries. On the net, some people claimed to be disappointed by Radcliffe's decision, it was very much a case of, 'Oh Daniel, how could you?' Whereas, Hudgens' got labelled with all sorts of derogatory terms immediately.

It doesn't matter that DR's nudity appeared in the context of a play, while VH's was a simple nude taken at home with nothing particularly provocative or sexual about it. However while the most negative reaction to DR's was minor, VH created a furore. And interestingly, the shots of DR were far more stylised and erotic in nature.

Another example is Britney Spears. One of the things being brought up in regard to charges that she was an unfit mother was that she sometimes walks around the house naked in front of her child. It was being lumped in with accusations of drug and alcohol abuse! The child's mother being naked around her offspring was seen as bad parenting behaviour!

It's interesting the mindset that has become so pervasive. Females can only be viewed naked in a sexualised way. I was uncomfortable seeing the Klara and Edda picture simply because of the positioning of the young girl. I could clearly see her vulva. The fact that I have no sexual interest or desire towards her doesn't matter - as a male I automatically feel like I'm a paedophile just for seeing the image. Interestingly, if I were to see a similar picture of a young male, while I would be more comfy with it, I would still feel uneasy for the same reasons - external programming.

This is because what the media has been saying is this. If you even look at a picture that features child nudity, you might be a paedophile, and that makes you evil. My 100 Days post goes into my thoughts on this attitude in more detail. The thing about this is, it's not right that I should be made to feel guilt over desires I don't have, just because others would perceive the context of the nudity differently.

I've been a perve all my life, and as a perve, I know that if I'm in a pervy mood, I don't need porn. I don't need naked women in all sorts of uncomfortable and gymnastic positions. I just need the underwear section of the latest Target catalogue. And if that's all I need, what makes people think that the paedophiles need anything more for their fix of kiddy flesh than the kids section of the same catalogue?

There are many areas where males are discouraged from working with small children because we're automatically seen as a threat, to the point where the discouraging is actually viewed as for our own protection. As a Santa, I'm meant to have a police check done every year. I'm trained to sit a certain way, make sure both hands are in plain view at all times, etc. My elves, almost always played by women, don't have any background checks done. Yes, that's right, because no woman has ever sexually molested a child, have they? And they actually physically handle the children way more than I ever would. Not only that, but they will hug them and tickle them, two thing I'm pretty much forbidden from doing because it can be perceived as having paedophillic intent.

But I've digressed from my original topic, the gender imbalance when it comes to nudity.

Why is it that a naked woman of any age is almost automatically sexualised? And that that sexualisation carries with it a negative spin - if she's naked, she must be sexual, if she's sexual, that a bad, bad thing. It's a layering of shame. Female nudity is bad, (but desired nonetheless), a sexual female is worse (but desired nonetheless).

Is it just our patriarchal society? Is it down to men being keyed to visual stimulus? Is it more to do with our cultural background? In some countries a naked woman is just a naked woman, in our country a naked woman is a slut, which is a bad, bad term because a woman mustn't want sex except when she has one guy in her life. Is it something that is helped along by some women, the ones who automatically proclaim another naked woman as of a lower moral standard simply because of her lack of clothes?

One of the interesting things I picked up on from Questa Casa was the different gender attitudes to nudity, even in a highly sexualised environment like a brothel. In the story I mention from there - where one of the guys got a bit pushy with a girl, she cried out, and ten naked men came to her aid - one thing I neglected to mention was this. All her workmates came too, after they had wrapped towels around themselves.

Another example. Being an old style brothel, it had group showers because it was often dealing with anywhere up to eleven guys at a time (there were eleven rooms). Carmel described how men would go into the showers and be chatting amiably with each other while they washed, and would often wander naked to their rooms with their young ladies. They weren't bothered by one-another's nudity, even in the context of the brothel. But the ladies going into their showers would turn their backs to one another, would tell other girls to wait until they had finished, even if there was plenty of space, would wrap a towel around themselves so their fellow workmates couldn't see their bodies.

So, here's what I find myself wondering - At what point does nudity stop being a matter of privacy and become a matter of shame?

Comments only unscreened if they have a 'Yes' at the end of the post.

Comments

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

You're an evil woman and should be locked in a small box on an island somewhere for ever letting your children see your body *grin*

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

It is societal conditioning, as obviously there are human societies where nudity, or close to is unexceptional. In our society along also with the sexual aspect is the body perfect myth. I wonder how much of women not wanting to be nude in front of other women is due to our feeling that we're not living up to the ideal body shape. Clothes help mask those little imperfections to a large extent, but even reasonably slender women are unlikely to be completely happy with their shape and thus unwilling to expose themselves to criticism from other women (as another nasty aspect of society seems to train women to criticise each other).

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

...thus unwilling to expose themselves to criticism from other women (as another nasty aspect of society seems to train women to criticise each other)

Thank you! I have been attacked more than once for pointing out that some women are not only critical but openly hostile about they way other women look or dress, not to mention their sexual behaviour. Sometimes by the same women I've heard saying openly that someone else looks like a slut in her outfit.

I'm not saying guys are in any way innocent, far from it, but if we regularly hear women referring to those who are comfortable with their bodies or sexuality in negative terms, all it does is reinforce those attitudes.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Unless I know someone's comfy being naked around me, I tend to look away just out of politeness. I have one friend who doesn't set off my nude radar at all. I'd be chatting to her, she'd start to get ready for bed and turn away discretely, and I just wouldn't do my own normal automatic turn away.

It was a few days of us travelling together before I suddenly realised I hadn't been turning away and apologised. It was one of those weird situations where I was so very comfortable with her, I wasn't bothered enough on her behalf to turn away. Still feel slightly awkward about that.

She was fine with it, saying she hadn't been bothered and feeling comfy enough with me that turning away from me seemed enough. While she's not bothered by me seeing her naked in theory, in practice she'd prefer not, which is fine. She saw me naked once or twice without bleeding from the eyes :)

I still remember a few years back when a Melbourne newsreader and her husband got raided by the police. They had taken a number of photos of their kids in the bath, and the woman at the photo labs had decided there were too many child nudes and called the cops!

[gutter-monkey.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's always been a disparity through most of Western culture when it comes to male and female sexuality. There's always been an unspoken assumption that sex was something that a man did to a woman - that the woman 'received' the sex in an almost passive manner. This often isn't the case, but from what I gather the great majority of 'vanilla' sex does seem to be like this. There's also been the assumpton that sex was soemthing that men wanted and women allowed men to have if they 'earned' it or had been 'good', otherwise it would be denied to them. The man have to somehow convince the women into the act - standard behaviour at nightclubs.

All of which is stupid and often not the actual case at all, but those have been the dominant stereotypical actions for the last few decades at least (and in some areas, the last few millenia).

And all of that caveman crap feeds back into perceptions on male and female nudity. It's not a complete explanation but I bet it'll account for a fair chunk of it.

{yes}

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Anything I could add from my end would only be reiterating what you've just said. Rockin' comment, Scotty!

[fred-mouse.livejournal.com]

I find that the whole 'paedophile by interpretation' thing to be very disturbing as well - while I'm comfortable enough with my own children being naked at home, I don't know quite how to handle it when I'm around other children who are naked. There is that fear, that if I look at a naked child, and see their genitals, and someone sees me, will they think that I'm doing a bad thing? And therefore, even if no-one sees me, is it a bad thing? Even when I have about as much reaction to the genitals as to their naked arm, or their hair (or probably, less reaction, because after all, small children and the smell of their hair is an acceptable thing to find appealing).

(yes)

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Yes! This is exactly how I feel in these situations. I remember being at a friends house and their naked four year old came running into the room after her bath. Her parents were obviously untroubled by it, having known me for years, but I was bothered for all the reasons you name here.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

In Japanese there is a term that translates as `skinship` - that being naked together can actually strength relationships. Admittedly they tend to use it with onsen (hot springs) and sento (public baths), in which one goes in naked into a same sex pool.

There was one teacher from one of the other schools in my area that attended the same gym as me, so there were several times we`d end up chatting to each other while soaking in the communal tub. It was weird to meet her at teachers` workshop later on, as it was the first time we`d met fully clothed.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

That would have been odd - 'so that's what she looks like dressed...'

Skinship! Best term ever! Thank you! I am so using that *grin*

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

goddamn, I did it again.

yes, yes, yes.

(sorry, odd frame of mind atm)

[paul-ewins.livejournal.com]

Have a look here http://www.thecenturyproject.com/ for some unsexualized photos of women.

Almost all nudes are sexualised by intent. Old masters were often just expensive porn, but with religious or mythic themes to keep it "respectable". The trouble is that because we are so used to this it becomes hard to turn that perception off (in others) when the intent is otherwise. It's just the way we have been trained.

Unfortunately if you want to capture human beauty (the reason for most portraits) clothes get to be a distraction (Try looking at fashion shots of women from the 80's and you'll probably spend more time laughing at the clothes than admiring the beauty of the models). But take the clothes away and the mind veers towards sex. And to some degree our perception of beauty will also be tied up in sex, if only by our biology.

The problem with pictures of children is that all we can do with them is look at them. We miss that part of the child's personality that projects innocence and often the context of the photo too. So without the reinforcing giggles and squeals of a child playing in a sprinkler all we see is a wet, naked child. A six year old girl trying to dress up like Mummy becomes Brooke Shields in "Pretty Baby". Depending on the context a photo can be the cutest thing you ever saw or out an out porn.

The thing about naked males is that until recently they were very rarely shown in a sexualised manner, so our mind doesn't immediately slip the "porn" filter on. There isn't a long history of selling cars by draping naked men on them and there was no widespread circulation of "french postcards" made for women so a naked man could remain for the most part just a naked man.

The other thing is that until recently men weren't overly image conscious, so a situation where men were naked together wasn't a real problem after the initial embarrassment was over. Nobody particularly cared how much body hair you had or whether there were a few extra pounds in the wrong place because your looks weren't connected with your status.

{yes}