On Nudity

Yesterday, for some odd reason or other, I came to think about Nudity.

Now, nudity is heavily attacked by many forces on Planet Earth, and most of them use religion as an excuse, and the rest use morality.

Personally, I think they just can't face it, and so figure that nobody else should either.

They apparently reason (if such "thinking" can be called reasoning at all), that nudity leads to thoughts of sex, and that thoughts of sex leads to loose sexual relations, which is immoral. Well, I agree that indiscriminate sexual lifestyles is a highly doubtful proposition (these days it can even be fatal), but I disagree that trying to censor other people's thoughts is the solution.

I even more disagree that censoring nudity is the solution. Ask yourself: Why on Earth would we think anything different about a human being, just because he/she does not wear clothes? We are not born clothed, they are an additive. (Was it Jerry Falwell who said: "If God had intended us to be naked, he would have made us that way!"?)

If we were surrounded all the time by nude people, do you think we would think about sex all the time? Of course not, we would get used to it. So it follows that the reason nudity has a tendency to remind us of sex is that we are stopped continually from seeing nude people. And that it is quite unnatural.

It gets worse. I will hold that suppressing nudity is a crime in itself. Think of a very beautiful woman you have seen nude. I ask you, could you imagine anything covering up that, which would be as beautiful?

And if covering up beauty is not a crime, I don't know what is. It is like putting brown paper over the world's greatest painting, or building a house with the greatest view, and leave no windows in the house.

Of course, if the body is ugly, cover it. But that is an aesthetic choice, not a fake moral one, I can live with that.

In short, artificial insistence on covering God's greatest creation has led to a state where everyone, seeing a nude body, immediately thinks about sex, and so are distracted from the more important issue, the natural beauty of the supreme creation.

I really believe this, it is not just a clever excuse to be allowed to drool over sexy chicks. I really believe that a lot of art and beauty is denied us by medieval attitudes and emotional arguments. The most natural subject of art is of course members of one's own species, and the most natural state for them to be in is of course without adornments or coverings. And so the most basic form of all art, the nude, is being bent, folded and twisted into a small, unnatural niche where it doesn't fit, the sexual.

I met a potential model, whom did not have artistic reasons for considering modeling (She was a physical therapist, and wanted photos showing the correct way to hold the body, of all things), which probably contributed to her lack of understanding. I showed her some of my work, and she did not see art at all. She asked me three times what my intentions were in wanting to photograph her nude, and I explained in detail every time! She finally declined, because she still did not understand, and so didn't feel "secure"! And I never have problems gaining people's confidence! It is simply that art depicting people without their bodies covered is the exception, not the rule. How on Earth did we get to this condition of affairs?! (Probably by covering up for warmth, and then getting into the habit and forgetting how it came about.) (Of course, when I started explaining about The Dirty Old Men's Association International, and she just looked at me with big serious eyes, not getting the humour at all, I already knew that the situation was lost.)

I am genuinely thankful for people in the past fighting the good fight for allowing us to see girls in the buff. But I would like to broaden the perspective a bit, and make us realize that it is not at all limited to sex. It is about a much more important issue; aesthetics.

Aesthetics is very, very important for our well-being. Without aesthetics, life is a cold, bottomless pit without interest at all. What sells music? What sells make-up? What sells cars? What sells movies? Aesthetics is what. I refer you to the DOMAI Pledge for our position on that.

Think about it: Many of us live in cultures where, if parents see a person without clothes, or just a picture of one, they cover the eyes of their children! Simply the sight of an unhidden body of another member of the species is though to be traumatic to children! Is it any wonder we grow up to be so fucked up as we are?

Dare to be brave. Granted, today one can be attacked in the press, and that is not pleasant with the state of "journalism" we have. But a few hundred years ago, wrong-believers were decapitated, nailed to things, and burned on bonfires! It hardly compares.

Join the fight for freedom of speech, freedom of creation, and freedom of thought and looking. With freedom comes life. And life is all.

***

The Christmas time was spend in my log cabin (according to legend, Stobblehouse means log cabin, so of course I have to have one). On Christmas eve, it was already tall snow outside, and the storm wore on. My current love and I were snuggled up on the couch, sipping coffee, sweet liqueur, and eating chocolate. My niece Minna came down from bed, claiming she could not sleep for the storm. She should have been home, but the storm came early. She sat herself on the bearskin in front of our oversized fireplace, and took off her bathrobe, it was very warm so close to the fire. She stretched herself out and shifting on the bearskin, perhaps she imagined that she could get a suntan from the light and warmth. (Fat chance, firelight is mainly infra-red, not ultra-violet which gives the tan.) None have quite the grace of the young, and as I looked at her I suddenly felt as if I had been magically transported to a better world, a place of angels and warmth, where promises were always fulfilled, and visions were true at once. I realized that I have been right in living my life as I have, always seeking Art and Beauty, and always striving to make them more true and present.

It's true, we must have food and shelter, and money-making and the general tools thereto are important and noble, but they are hardly ends in themselves. The spiritual is the reason we strive, the reason we live. We can have lives with a thousand times the fulfillment, compared to the norm we know, if we work for it.

Eolake Stobblehouse

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