Could Society be Clothing Optional?

Well yes, with sufficient will and tolerance. But we’re quite a long way from that nude-tolerant utopia it seems!

Self-portrait by the author, nude at the edge of society.

This is an expansion to a question I answered on Quora: “Do you think clothed and unclothed people should coexist in society?”

The start of my original answer is short and simple, but a bit of a dream: Absolutely, being naked should be as valid and available a choice of outfit as any other chosen style.

So why isn’t it? Well in some places, it kind of is. It’s just that not many of us take up the right to choose to be undressed that is available. The social pressure of a default-clothed society is very strong, as is the risk of that same society painting you as seeking to commit sexual misdeeds by labelling nudity as always something sexual.

For context, I’m writing this from the point of view of someone living in the UK. Here, technically at least, it is in fact already possible to choose to be naked in public. It is in several other countries too, but most of these places also have laws which try and balance the rights of personal expression and choice, via nudity, with how some people use nudity as a form of sexual harassment (ie flashing). As I outline below, nudity while acceptable in some contexts can feel out of place in others, as determined by social convention, and so can in those…