Naked skin as canvas

A special case, where nudity, though not permanent, is physically necessary for the art to be created and observed, is body art which uses the skin as the medium (like a painter’s canvas) upon which the markings are created. While the techniques used, such as tattooing and scarification, are often used in a more artisanal way, as most body markings have less of an æsthetic than a social and/or communicative purpose (e.g. initiation rite, fun, macho or sexy signal, various traditions), some clients carefully select artists and designs for artistic beauty to decorate significant skin surfaces, preferably coördinating the different designs — some like displaying them in public, others rather keep them hidden except in select company, accordingly preferring to mark body parts that are commonly clad. A few artists use live animals as (obviously involuntary) canvas.

General depictions

As social attitudes about artistic nudity have changed, this has sometimes led to conflict over art that no longer conforms to prevailing standards. For example, some members of the Roman Catholic Church once organized the so-called "fig-leaf campaign" to cover nudity in art, starting from the works of Renaissance artist Michelangelo, but the Church has since removed such fig leaves and restored the works.[citation needed] In contrast, it was conventional in ancient Greek art, from the time of the Archaic period onwards, to represent deities and divinized humans (or "heroes") in a state of heroic nudity in paintings and sculpture, and it remained so throughout the classical and Roman periods.

The nude has become an enduring genre of representational art, especially painting, sculpture and photography. It depicts people without clothes, usually with stylistic and staging conventions that distinguish the artistic elements (such as innocence, or similar theatrical/artistic elements) of being nude with the more provocative state of being naked. A nude figure is one, such as a goddess or a man in ancient Greece, for whom the lack of clothing is its usual condition, so that there is no sexual suggestiveness presumed. A naked figure is one, such as a contemporary prostitute or a businessman, who usually wears clothing, such that their lack of it in this scene implies sexual activity or suggestiveness. The latter were rare in European art from the Medieval period until the latter half of the 1800s; in the interim, a work featuring an unclothed woman would routinely identify her as "Venus" or another Greco-Roman goddess, to justify her nudity. There can be debate with regard to whether a figure in art is either nude or naked for example in some works of Francis Bacon.

Even though tastes changed significantly, sume nude themes kept their attraction, even leading to copying of scenes from many centuries before.

Nudity in art, also publicly displayed, is rather common and more accepted than public nudity of real people. For example, a statue or painting representing a nude person may be displayed in public places where actual nudity is not allowed. However, there is also much art depicting a nude person with a piece of cloth or other object seemingly by chance covering the genitals. Some feel the selected focus of "Nude studies" lends itself to an impersonal, objectifying depiction of the human body; others say it can be as selectively depicted as a landscape.

A 1960s comedy sketch featuring English comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore admiring Cézanne's Les grandes baigneuses in the National Gallery humorously suggested that there must be hundreds of paintings that are not publicly displayed because the pieces of cloth did not fall in just the right places while the artist was painting them.


In modern media, images of partial and full nudity are used in advertising to draw additional attention. In the case of attractive models this attention is due to the visual pleasure the images provide; in other cases it is due to the relative rarity of images of nudity. The use of nudity in advertising tends to be carefully controlled to avoid the impression that the company whose product is being advertised is indecent or unrefined. There are also limits on what advertising media such as magazines allow. The success of sexually provocative advertising is claimed in the truism "sex sells". However, responses to nudity in American advertisements have been more mixed; nudity in the advertisements of Calvin Klein, Benetton, and Abercrombie & Fitch, to name three companies, have provoked much negative as well as positive response. (See also: Sex in advertising).

Of images of nudity (not necessarily pornographic), the most extreme form is full frontal nudity, referring to the fact that the actor or model is presented from the front and with the genitals exposed. Frequently images of nude people do not go that far and photos are deliberately composed, and films edited, such that in particular no genitalia are seen, as if the camera failed to see them by chance. This is sometimes called "implied nudity" as opposed to "explicit nudity."

Islam

Islam

In Islam the area of the body not meant to be exposed in public is called the awrah, and while referred to in the Qur'an, is addressed in more detail in hadith.

* For men, the awrah is from the navel well to well below the knees, which means that in public Muslim men have to cover themselves at least from the navel down below the knees.
* Some Muslim women wear the hijab, which covers the entire body except for the hands, the feet, and the face.
* Some Islamic countries require women to observe purdah, covering their entire bodies, except the face (see burqa). However, the degrees of covering vary according to local custom and/or interpretation of Islamic Law

Nudity in religion

Judaism

In some parts of Judaism and in some Jewish communities, men and women use ritual baths called mikvaot for a variety of reasons, mostly religious in the present day. Immersion in a mikvah requires that water covers the entire body (including the entire head). To make sure that water literally touches every part of the body, all clothing, jewelry and even bandages must be removed. In contemporary mikvahs for women, there is always an experienced attendant, commonly called the "mikvah lady", to watch the immersion and ensure that the women have been entirely covered in water.

At the same time, religious Jews are very protective about their naked body. Under the laws of Tznius (modesty), both men and women cannot reveal the body parts considered to have sexual connotation (including upper arms, collarbones, legs, and — for married women and all men — hair, which is covered completely or partially). It is postulated in the Shulchan Aruch (the Code of Law) that one must uncover as little body as possible when in the toilet room and even when changing before sleep (trousers are often taken off and exchanged for the pajamas under the covers). This ensures maximum acuteness of spiritual sensation during sex and also decreases the feeling of self-awareness and shame about one's body.

Conservative and Reform Judaism do not share the same attitudes about nudity in private.

Historical overview

Anthropologists logically presume that humans originally lived naked, without clothing, as their natural state. They postulate the adaptation of animal skins and vegetation into coverings to protect the wearer from cold, heat and rain, especially as humans migrated to new climates; alternatively, covering may have been invented first for other purposes, such as magic, decoration, cult, or prestige, and later found to be practical as well. For men and women, public nudity was at least permissible in ancient Sparta, and customary at festivals.

In some hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates, near-complete nudity has been, until the introduction of Western culture, or still is, standard practice for both men and women. In some African and Melanesian cultures, men going completely naked except for a string tied about the waist are considered properly dressed for hunting and other traditional group activities. In a number of tribes in the South Pacific island of New Guinea, the men use hard gourdlike pods as penis sheaths. While obscuring and covering the actual penis, these at a longer distance give the impression of a large, erect phallus. Yet a man without this "covering" could be considered to be in an embarrassing state of nakedness. Among the Chumash Native Americans of southern California, men were usually naked, and women were often topless. Native Americans of the Amazon Basin usually went nude or nearly nude; in many native tribes, the only clothing worn was some device worn by men to clamp the foreskin shut. However, other similar cultures have had different standards. For example, other native North Americans generally avoided total nudity, and the Native Americans of the mountains and west of South America, such as the Quechua, kept quite covered.

In the ancient culture of Southern Asia, there is a tradition of extreme ascetism (obviously minoritarian) that includes full nudity, from the gymnosophists (philosophers in Antiquity) to certain holy men (who may however cover themselves with ashes) in present Hindu devotion.

Nudity in Africa

Still very different traditions exist among, for example, sub-Saharan Africans, partly persisting in the post-colonial era. Whereas some tribes and family-groups including some Togolose and Nilo-Saharan (e.g., Surma people) still commonly parade fully naked or without any covering below the waist (especially at massively attended stick fighting tournaments, where well-exposed young men can hope to catch the eye of a prospective bride), amongst Bantu people there is often a complete aversion from public nudity — thus, in Botswana when a newspaper printed a photograph (of a thief suffering lashes on the bared buttocks imposed by a traditional chief's court, there was national consternation, not about the flogging but about the 'peeping tom'. The Ugandan Kavirondo tribes, a mix of Bantu and Nilotic immigrants, traditionally went practically naked, but the men eventually adopted western dress.

Non-Western attitudes

Attitudes in western culture are not all the same as explained above, and likewise attitudes in non-western cultures are many and variant. In almost all cultures, acceptability of nudity depends on the situation.

Cultural and/or religious traditions usually dictate what is proper and what is not socially acceptable. Many non-western cultures allow women to breastfeed in public, while some have very strict laws about showing any bare skin.

Nudity as punishment

During the witch-hunts the alleged witches were stripped to discover the so-called witches' marks. The discovery of witches' marks was then used as evidence in trials.

Nakedness (full or partial) can be part of a corporal punishment or as an imposed humiliation (especially when administered in public). In fact, torture manuals may distinguish between the male and female psychological aversion to self-exposure versus being disrobed.

Nazis used forced nudity to attempt to humiliate citizens held in its concentration camp. This was depicted in the film Schindler's List.

In 2003, Abu Ghraib prison earned international notoriety for allegations of torture and abuses by members of the United States Army Reserve during the post-invasion period. Photographic images were widely circulated and exposed practices of posing prisoners naked, sometimes bound, covered in feces and being intimidated.

Nudity and sexuality

Nudity in front of a sexual partner is widely accepted, but there may be restrictions — for example, only at the time and place of sex, or with subdued lighting, during bathing with the partner or afterward, covered by a sheet or blanket, or while sleeping.

Nudity is closely associated with sexuality in most cultures where some level of body modesty is expected. This is evidenced by the existence of striptease in these cultures. Sexual dimorphism when depicted in the main stream media of these cultures is often seen as sexually related. As an effect of Catholic cultural heritage, in Latin cultures the common definition of modesty does not generally admit genital nudity, but the definition of what is lewd has changed and women's breasts are now commonly exposed or depicted without scandal.

Nude bathing

The trend in some European countries (for instance Germany, Finland and the Netherlands) is to allow both sexes to bathe together naked. Typically, older German bathhouses, such as Bad Burg, remain segregated by sex. On the other hand Finnish saunas can be mixed and are always attended nude.

Naturism and nudism

Naturism (or nudism) is a cultural and political movement practising, advocating and defending nudity in private and in public. It is also a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudity.

Naturists reject contemporary standards of modesty which discourage personal, family and social nudity, and seek to create a social environment where people feel comfortable in the company of nude people, and being seen nude, either just by other nudists, or also by the general public.

Topfree

The exposure of women's breasts is not, of itself, normally regarded as indecent exposure in most western countries, at least in appropriate settings, such as while suntanning. In the United States of America exposure of female nipples is a criminal offence in many states and not usually allowed in public.

Prosecutions of cases has given raise to a movement advocating "topfree equality," promoting equal rights for women to have no clothing above the waist, on the same basis that would apply to men in the same circumstances. The term "topfree" rather than "topless" is advocated to avoid the latter term's perceived sexual connotations. However, there was still a public outcry to the exposure by Janet Jackson of her breast during the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show.

Functional nudity

Functional nudity for a short time, such as when changing clothes on a beach, is sometimes acceptable when staying nude on the beach is not. However, even this is often avoided or minimized by a towel.

Breastfeeding in public may involve partial nudity and sometimes creates controversy. Most courts in western countries would not consider breastfeeding as indecent exposure

Nudity in Western culture

Nudity in front of strangers of the same sex is often more accepted than in front of those of the other or both sexes. For example when bathing or showering, in common changing rooms, etc. Sex-specific changing rooms and toilets serve to prevent accidental partial nudity in front of the other sex. In some cultures, to be seen naked, even by people of the same sex, is considered inappropriate and embarrassing.

Nudity in photography

Nudity has been used in photography since the invention of photography itself. Nudity in photography does not necessarily claim any artistic merit, while nude photography typically does. Unlike nudity in photography generally, nude photography is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. As an art form, nude photography is a stylised depiction of the nude body with the line and form of the human figure as the primary objective.

Similarly, erotic and pornography is typically stylized photography using nude or semi-nude models.

Photography of installations of massed nude people in public places, as made repeatedly around the world by Spencer Tunick, claim artistic merit.

Communal showering

Another issue has been the nudity of children in front of other children.

Europeans have generally been more insistent that all students shower communally after physical education classes.

In the United States and some of English-speaking Canada, students at tax funded schools have historically been required to shower communally with classmates of the same sex after physical education classes. In the United States, public objections and the threat of lawsuits have resulted in a number of school districts in recent years changing policy to make showers optional. A court case in the State of Colorado noted that students have a reduced expectation of personal privacy in regards to "communal undress" while showering after physical education classes. According to an interview with a middle school principal, most objections to school showers that he had heard were actually from the student's parents rather than from the student.

Children seeing nudity

Attitudes toward children seeing nude people, other than their parents, vary substantially, depending on the child's culture, age and the context of the nudity.

British TV is required to avoid displaying scenes of sex from 5:30am to 9pm (the so-called "watershed") to avoid viewing by children. The Broadcasting Code requires that "Nudity before the watershed must be justified by the context."

Attitudes to nudity vary substantially throughout Europe, with Scandinavia in the north being the most relaxed about it

Nudity of children

Depictions of child nudity or children with nude adults appear in works of art in various cultures and historical periods. These attitudes have changed over time and have become increasingly frowned upon particularly in recent years, and especially in the case of photography. In recent years there have been a few incidents in which snapshots taken by parents of their infant or toddler children bathing or otherwise naked were challenged as child pornography. In May 2008, police in Sydney, Australia, raided an exhibition by the photographer Bill Henson featuring images of naked children on allegations of child pornography. Though these incidents were not proceeded with, they sent a strong psychological message to the community of the embarrassment that can be caused in this ambiguous but sensitive area.

Nudity and children

Parental nudity is a controversial issue. There are differences of opinion as to whether, and if so to what extent, parents should appear naked in front of their children. Gordon and Schroeder report that there is a wide variation on parental nudity from family to family. They opine that "there is nothing inherently wrong with bathing with children or otherwise appearing naked in front of them", noting that doing so may provide an opportunity for parents to provide important information. They note that by ages 5 to 6 children begin to develop a sense of modesty, and recommend to parents who wish to be sensitive to their children's wishes that they limit such activities from that age onwards.

Bonner recommends against nudity in the home where children are exhibiting sexual behaviour considered problematic.

A United States study by Alfred Kinsey found that 75% of the participants stated that there was never nudity in the home when they were growing up, 5% of the participants said that there was "seldom" nudity in the home, 3% said "often", and 17% said that it was "usual". The study found that there was no significant difference between what was reported by men and by women with respect to frequency of nudity in the home.

In a 1995 review of the literature, Paul Okami concluded that there was no reliable evidence linking exposure to parental nudity to any negative effect. Three years later, his team finished an 18-year longitudal study that showed that, if anything, such exposure was associated with slight beneficial effects, particularly for boys.

Non-sexual public nudity

Some people enjoy public nudity in a non-sexual context. Common variants of the clothes free movement are nudism and naturism, and are often practised in reserved places that used to be called "nudist camps" but are now more commonly referred to as naturist resorts, nude beaches, or clubs. Such facilities may be designated topfree, clothing-optional, or fully nude-only. Public nude recreation is most common in rural areas and outdoors, although it is limited to warm weather. Even in countries with inclement weather much of the year and where public nudity is not restricted, such as the United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark, public nude recreation indoors remains rare. One example is Starkers Nightclub in London, a monthly nude-only disco party.

Others practise public nudity more casually. Topfree sunbathing is considered acceptable by many on the beaches of France, Spain and most of the rest of Europe (and even in some outdoor swimming pools); however, exposure of the genitals is restricted to nudist areas in most regions. In the United States, topfree sunbathing and thongs are common in many areas, with a number of nude beaches in various locations.

Where the social acceptability of nudity in certain places may be well understood, the legal position is often less clear cut. In England, for example, the law does not actually prohibit simple public nudity, but does forbid indecent exposure. In practice, this means that successful prosecution hangs on whether there is a demonstrable intention to shock others, rather than simply a desire to be naked in a public place. Occasional attempts to prove this point by walking naked around the country therefore often result in periods of arrest, followed by release without charge, and inconsistencies in the approach between different police jurisdictions. Differences in the law between England and Scotland appear to make the position harder for naked ramblers once they reach Scotland.

Even where the general public is fairly tolerant of public nudity, it is still notorious enough to be used as a deliberate, often successful means to attract publicity, either by naturists promoting their way of life or by others for various purposes, such as commercial nudity in advertising or staging nude events as a forum for a usually unrelated messages, such as various nude biker tours demonstrating for different causes or celebrities revealing their natural state by removing a fur coat to support a campaign against fur sales.

Public nudity

Woman with fairy wings at Burning Man 2006. Nudity is common at this six-day annual event that takes place in Black Rock City, a temporary city on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in the U.S. state of Nevada
Woman with fairy wings at Burning Man 2006. Nudity is common at this six-day annual event that takes place in Black Rock City, a temporary city on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in the U.S. state of Nevada

Society's response to public nudity varies on the culture, time, location and context of the activities. There are many exceptions and particular circumstances in which nudity is tolerated, accepted or even encouraged in public spaces. Such examples would include nude beaches, within some intentional communities (such as naturist resorts or clubs) and at special events.

In general and across cultures, more restrictions are found for exposure of those parts of the human body that display evidence of sexual arousal. Therefore, sex organs and often women's breasts are covered, even when other parts of the body may be freely uncovered. Yet the nudity taboo may have meanings deeper than the immediate possibility of sexual arousal, for example, in the cumulative weight of tradition and habit. Clothing also expresses and symbolizes authority, and more general norms and values besides those of a sexual nature. It is thus not clear what society and people's spiritual beliefs would have to be like, were nudity to be regarded as universally normal.

Similar to religious traditions in which nudity symbolizes a non-recoverable state of primal innocence, there also exist secular, cynical attitudes, accusing nudism of hypocrisy and repression. Such views are rarely taken seriously, however.

Not all naturists frequently contemplate a society that would accept nudity in all situations, but when the question is put to them they do not tend to shun such a possibility. Still, their own social nudity might be viewed by some as merely an agreement of trust with others who share a rare degree of confidence and comfort in being nude.

Another common distinction, also considered by censoring authorities, is that gratuitous nudity is perceived as more offensive than the same degree of physical exposure in a functional context, where the action could not conveniently be performed dressed, either in reality or in a fictitious scene in art. The intent can also be invoked: whether the nudity is meant to affect observers; e.g., streaking can be considered unacceptably provocative, nude sun tanning viewed mildly as rather inoffensive.

Modesty

Revealing bare skin or even removing clothes in front of others, even when there is another layer of clothing underneath, are at times regarded by some to be erotic or offensive, or as immodest under some people's standards of modesty.

Clothing which follow the contours of the body, or clothing using transparent materials, or clothing which sticks to the skin or become transparent when wet (as in wet t-shirt contests), is regarded by some to be erotic, immodest and simulating nudity.

Partial nudity

As the concept of nudity often refers more to perception by the observer than the mere description whether someone's body is covered or not, there can be a grey area, known as partial nudity. Thus, while someone exposing 'private parts' is often called 'naked' regardless of garments on other body parts, hence the terms half-naked and, a fortiori, near-naked refer to a body that is not completely exposed, but showing more than is customary or considered quite acceptable, at least in a given context. However the quantity of skin exposed is not the determining criterion, it's the "quality" that counts for perception.

Half-naked is also used for a degree of skin exposure that is not offensive (as no delicate zone is shown) but still barer than 'fully dressed', such as a man in bare torso.

As the exposure of specific, usually intimate, skin zones suffices to be offensive and/or sensual, it is not surprising that specific terms are commonly used for such cases. More specifically:

* Terms like bare balls (not to confuse with freeballs) and bollock-naked are used to explicitly emphasize the naked exposure of the most private parts, often as a dysphemism for total male nudity, even in a context where another part of the anatomy is functionally more relevant.

* Terms like bare-butt and bare-ass or kaalgat in Afrikaans (literally 'bald [arse-]hole', also an illustration that one's own dense body hair is considered to undo or at least mitigate nudity; animal furs are probably the oldest form of warm clothing) focus only on the buttocks; apart from the literal sense (which may be functional, as in the case of a spanking) this is also a popular metaphor (also in other languages) for full nudity, at the same time more explicit than most euphemisms and yet avoiding to mention the genitals.
* The term topfree or topless is sometimes used — especially in reference to females — to describe the lack of clothing covering the breasts. For men, the same state of undress, however less strategic, is called bare chested or shirtless.
* See also cleavage (breasts) and cleavage (buttocks)
* Even a term referring to an apparently less revealing skin zone can be significant in a functional context, e.g., bare-knuckle in certain martial arts, or even sometimes have strong cultural associations, as with barefoot. In the case of bare hand(s), the expression is even commonly extended as a counterpart to handling something with gloves to protect the hands, or even with a mechanical device, whether operated manually or not, allowing to keep the hands at safe distance. The naked eye is a similar figure of speech referring to human visual perception that is unaided by optic equipment.

Nudity may be indirectly exposed through reflection. This may be accidental, or accomplished deliberately by the nude person , or accomplished by a voyeur.