The Naked Truth
All men (and women) are not created equally attractive. As unfortunate as it is to admit that, I think we all know it to be true. There are whole industries that surround the concept that some people are just naturally better looking than others. Lucky for those of us unable to attain super model status, clothing is there to help.
Being an artist, I’ve had to get used to the idea (both theoretical and practical) of the nude human figure. At first, seeing a naked old man sitting in front of a class of 18 year olds was a bit disturbing, but I’ve since grown accustomed to it, probably in the same way a doctor or a budding necromancer grows used to human corpses. Shame, it seems pretty obvious, is a cultural concept. There are an awful lot of ideas that we take as being natural law that, when examined, end up being learned concepts. Anyone familiar with anthropology will understand this. There are places where clothing (and therefore shame of this variety) is nearly non existent and the social fabric hasn’t broken down. So what is it that causes us to embrace and relish the idea of shame? It’s hard to find a legitimate practical purpose behind simply feeling bad about yourself, so it’s clear we need to look elsewhere for the culprit.
Say…in a particular book, to a particular deity.
There are people (Ex-christian atheists, mostly) that like to look at the Bible and to God as though they were these overbearing parents with too many rules. “Don’t eat shellfish, don’t eat pork, wear clothes, make babies,” says God. “Why?” responds the atheist, looking for logical reasons behind any of this stuff and finding it lacking. “…” replies God (seeing as he’s been pretty quiet these last few centuries). Many of these people go on to ignore the majority of these rules (most practicing Christians and Jews do, as well) and don’t really question them further but they’re still influenced. The idea of shame, especially, has a hold over people. But why? Why clothe ourselves? Why spend the money, the time, and the brain power on picking out clothing?
I’ll tell you why.
Clothing may be uncomfortable at times or unnecessary in certain places (I’m looking at you, tropical regions) but it always serves at least one crucial function:
Shielding our carapaces from each others’ gazes.
Whether you’re an idealist who thinks we should all give up clothing and be free of their constraints or a super practical person that sees clothing as an extravagant accessory when we have perfectly good skin, you can’t deny the fact that there are some people out there you just don’t want to see in the buff. That, right there is all the reason I need to put on pants in the morning.
After all, I can’t claim super model status for myself. I’m sure my own nigh-translucent membrane would be displeasing to many eyes. Clothing, for me, is a gesture of good will to the world. “Greetings, I know you may not find my nude form appealing. Please enjoy this jacket and these pants instead.”
For me, it’s not about feeling bad about myself, about feeling powerful negative shame about how I look. It is, simply, a realistic recognition of the fact that not everyone is attractive to everyone else.
On the plus side, not only does clothing have the power of shielding our forms from each others’ eyes, it has the added benefit of being a buffer zone between human flesh and places to sit down in public transportation vehicles.
And for that, I thank god every day.
Don’t forget that whole protectin’ us from the elements angle either.
I couldn’t live in the area I live in year round if not for the fact that warm clothing exists.
Absolutely brilliant! Now I know what to say to people who complain about having to wear clothing.
Although explaining the issue to the 4 year olds might be a little difficult. I’ll have to think of something else to tell them 🙂
Yep…not much to say about that…reminds me of fat people who wear skimpy swim wear. All I can say is, WHYYYYYY
I love the little owl.
It…
It just completes it.
Oh that’s what that is. Can’t understand why I didn’t see it at first.
The owl seems just as shocked as K.
Yes, but that is still a 100% acquired behaviour. It’s cultural.
In those societies where clothing is minimal, I don’t think people are disgusted by those wrinkled hanging skins, those jiggly bits, etc… Because they are used to it. They don’t even notice those things.
The only reason why we react so strongly to naked people is because we are used to see them clothed.
Precisely.
In a way, one can think of it as similar to how people react badly towards others when those others wear clothing that looks strange to them… except we are taught much more deeply and from our earliest years to feel ashamed of our bodies and to shame those who show theirs.
Agree. It’s also the way our culture creates unrealistic images of the body – in magazines, television and so forth. No body can compete against all that airbrushed unreality.
Love the Censorship Owl. Also love your “nigh translucent membrane.”
…
YAH YOU DO!
Plus clothing acts a s a buffer against insects (mosquitoes in particular), and the sun for us fair-skinned people.
Clothing can also act as a status symbol. If you can afford that nice suit, you obviously have quite a bit of money.
I think that the stories of the Bible were a reinforcement of the societal norms in place previously. Therefore, I believe it would be disingenuous for those ex-Christian Atheists to blame the Bible for the imposition of such patterns of existence. (Not that I believe that you are necessarily agreeing with their assertions.)
As for shame, I believe that shame can be healthy in a social environment. It helps people to maintain tacitly agreed upon social norms. Sufficient deviancy can be undesirable because it makes you less attractive to potential mates. If you feel shame I believe mitigates the ill will of those that are present.
For instance, if you are at a party talking to someone new and make a “yo’ momma” joke without knowing that their mother died last week then it would be a good idea to show a little shame or remorse. It will make people think you are less of a dick, after all.
Just some thoughts.
-Felix the Mighty
P.S. Love the comic.
Oh, the owl’s *censorship*.
I thought perhaps we were getting an insight to K’s mysterious ancestry.
Also, as someone from Louisiana, mosquitoes are just as high on the list as shame. Maybe higher.
Stuff about “don’t eat shellfish, don’t eat pork” was because they didn’t have refrigerators back then. Meats, especially the colony of germs that is shellfish, go rotten very quickly when your most advanced preservation process is a basement, a bucket of salt, and hopefully a pile of dirty snow. Declaring that your followers never eat something that might have killed them made sense back then, and it preserved the population of worshipers.
This is why I prefer science for explaining the ways of the world. Religion holds on to its practices, even if they are outdated and people have forgotten their purpose. Science will admit to being wrong and adapt to changes in technology and nature.
The “make babies” parts are just natural selection of religion. More babies, more generations of people to spread the beliefs and the cultures. You rarely find a practice where all of the members are not allowed to have children, it just never lasts very long.
Don’t forget clothes as Self Expression, Communication and telling people who your favorite anime character is
Read something recently about how clothing exploits the brain’s tendency to idealize what it can’t see. So it isn’t just about covering up our ugly bits — it actually makes us more attractive by encouraging others to fill in the gaps with curves or muscle or taut skin that isn’t really there.
Why not a censorship rooster, nudge-nudge, wink-wink?
But people wore clothing before Christianity and in other cultures parallel to Christianity and prior to the influence. Clothing is pretty practical for us humans in regards to protection against cold, bramble, and other such thing.
It’s just a way humans adapted the natural world in order to make up for their natural deficiencies. Shame probably developed in response to this cultural norm where people grew up not seeing naked bodies very often.
“At first, seeing a naked old man sitting in front of a class of 18 year olds was a bit disturbing, but I’ve since grown accustomed to it, probably in the same way a doctor or a budding necromancer grows used to human corpses.”
As a former art student and current necromancer, I fully agree.
The diversity within the readership consistently astounds me.
Cool, a necromancer! I used to have the necronomicon memorized by heart when I was a kid.
I think Felix has going off of something when he mentions shame in the maintenance of social norms. It’s interesting different countries have different sanctions of nudity. For example, take my friend from Finland. It is commonplace over there for little girls and boys to walk around in a public place, such as a beach (well they aren’t very frequent in Finland, but you know what I mean) without shirts on. When she was little, my friend and her parents took a trip to the US, and when at the beach -I think it was in Virginia – her parents didn’t put a shirt on her, naturally. The security guard at the beach then sanctioned the parents ordering them to put a shirt on her because otherwise it would be considered indecent exposure.
What does it say when American culture denies this privilege to children under threat of a felony? Where we have strictly enforced rules about clothing and indecent exposure even when the pre-pubescent girl doesn’t even have breasts?
That is up for debate, I just think it is interesting.
(I don’t mean to say that I think little girls should be walking around topless; personally, I think that’s a little weird – I am purely examining the difference of cultural norms)
P.S. – Stumbled upon this webcomic and can’t get enough of it. I LOVE mythology and your insights into mythological history and its effects on how we view our modern world. Do a comic on Hermes?
Not wanting to look at someone’s nakedness really isn’t a fair reason to not let them go about naked any more than not liking a person’s skin color and not wanting to see them for that reason. Now I’ve seen plenty of very obese people that I’m glad weren’t naked because I didn’t want to see any more of them, but that’s not a reason to slap fines and jail time on a person for, say, hiking or boating or swimming naked. There are reasons against social nudity, but I think hygiene is the only 100% valid one. The kind of thinking which furthers treating people different on how they look isn’t something we should encourage. Then again, I’m a closet nudist, so I’m biased.
What is wrong with his Ding-Dong?