In America, nudity is overly sexualized and nearly everything related is viewed as pornography. People blush when they gaze upon Michelangelo's David and find it necessary to censor movies of completely tasteful nudity. By no means am I protesting clothing or promoting immodesty, but it is easy to see that we have become scared and ashamed of the human body in even the most artful of forms. I don't find that clothing hinders people from expressing themselves or anything of the sort, but nudity is a natural human condition which we must learn to embrace as just another part of life rather than an embarrassment.
While pornography and deliberately wanton clothing are obviously provocative and purposely sexual, that is not at all what I am arguing, nor am I advocating nudism. I am simply trying to dispel the unnecessary shame that so often comes with non-sexual nudity.
Through personal experience, I have seen peoples' reactions to completely benign nudity. In conversation, I've had people deny that there's a difference between nudity and pornography and I've heard absurd arguments for both sides. By assigning the bare body negative, sinful labels, we condition ourselves for physical self-consciousness and obsession. If we were to simply loosen our cultural obsession with physical secrecy, we could learn to be as unashamed of our physical imperfections as we are of our personality flaws and other defects which always show. Once again, I am not promoting nudism, but acceptance and lack of fear.
