Nudity and Eroticism
Shaping a better world by understanding their lack of interdependence
Being a sex addict, my approach to nudity has always been polluted with erotic desire. Mixing them is not always a bad thing, but I’ve always found it hard to tell the difference between the two.
And that’s definitely a bad thing.
Besides, being in the visual arts business, I always tended to use nudity in my filmmaking exclusively as erotic imagery — thus replicating my male gaze for others to adopt (or hopefully reject). I found it very difficult to understand that picturing the nude can have other intent or contexts than an erotic situation.
Now, I know better:
Nudity and sex, even if they often happen together, they are actually independent from each other.
In my defence, I am not the only one who has difficulty distinguishing those two elements. In fact, most people seem to get this wrong. They often assume that the less clothing a person has the more available they are to sexual interactions. Moreover, the assumption continues, this apparent availability is true to everybody. It renders anyone entitled to initiate such an interaction.
And let’s not tap dance around it: it’s mostly women being observed, judged, and harassed. And their quantity of layers over their bodies has been one of the standard excuses.
Misunderstanding nudity and sex is dangerous. Sometimes it’s due to common lore and ignorance, but others it’s deliberate and methodical, with the purpose to blame victims and absolve perpetrators.
If we all knew and accepted that nudity and eroticism are not interdependent, rape trials would never become travesties based on victim blaming and shaming.
Confusing nudity and sex contribute to the rape culture and we must get this confusion sorted out as quickly as possible.
The nude, the sex, and the gaze that unifies them
Traditionally, in western societies, in order to see someone naked, you had to be sexually involved with them. This isn’t at all the same in tribes of the Nuba people (Sudan), the Huaorani (Ecuador), and Zo’e (Brazil), where social nudity is the norm.
In developed societies, though, the naked body has always been charged with eroticism and there is a tendency to see it as a sex object served on a plate.
An exception, of course, is naturism. In his article Why we need to distinguish nudity from sexuality, Jeff Clark defends a kid-friendly naturists’ event in Calgary, Canada:
Most people think nudity is equal to sex, as that is often times what results when they see someone naked. Movies are rated based partly on how much nudity they have. You’d never take a kid to an NC17- or R-rated movie, so people mistakenly apply the same logic to nude activities. […] There is nothing inherently sexual about nudity. You can be highly sexual with all of your clothes on. You can also be non-sexual with your clothes off.
Indeed. Anyone who has felt aroused during a conversation with a fully clothed person can testify that:
Eroticism ≠> Nudity
You don’t need to be naked to get me aroused. Therefore, Eroticism doesn’t necessarily mean there is Nudity. An erotic situation may very well lead to nudity, since having sex involves our desire to experience the other person’s body at its fullest. Still, it doesn’t require it.
The reverse is the one that we struggle with and it’s time we get used to it:
Nudity ≠> Eroticism
Nudity doesn’t necessarily mean Eroticism. Getting undressed doesn’t mean you do it with the intention to get me aroused. Not every undressing is a striptease.
Undressing and nudity are required for everyday, non-sexual actions, like showering and changing clothes. Of course, between consenting adults, anything can acquire a sexual subtext. Still, most of the time humans need to shower and change clothes devoid of any erotic context.
When we confuse the two, it is because we forget a third element: the presence of a horny viewer. The following deduction is actually the valid one:
Nudity + Sexual Gaze => Eroticism
In fact, it’s not specifically about nudity, as much as about an object of the gaze:
Object Watched + Sexual Gaze => Eroticism
The watched person’s intent may or may not be erotic at all. Still, as the Lemon Popsicle comedies have taught us well, a woman changing clothes in a cubicle is always sexy, because she is always gazed at by a group of horny teenage boys through a peep hole.
I am not suggesting that stripping may (or should) never be erotic. If the intent of both the watcher and the watched is erotic, then we obviously have a consensual, sexual situation. Both sides contribute and support the erotic subtext — or text.
In cases where only one of the two parties perceives the situation as erotic, though, we have sexual abuse. We either have a viewer who sexually objectifies a naked person minding their own business (the case of a peeping Tom) or the unintentional viewer of aggressive sexual nudity (the case of the dirty old man in a raincoat). This essay is about the first case.
By wearing little or no clothes, one does not automatically give a sexual invitation.
This statement is obvious to some, but not to all. The outcry “my clothes are not my consent” is exactly about this.
An interesting note: sexually abusive behaviour against nude people gets reported in the virtual world of online games, as well. On the community forum around the simulation game Second Life, I found this post: Nudity is not consent, learn people's boundaries. As much as avatars and anonymity give some people the illusion that everything is harmless and they can get away with anything, abuse is abuse. Less and less people tolerate it, while more and more work towards a society that respects everyone’s boundaries.
Or so I hope.
Nudity isn’t always asexual
Separating nudity and eroticism does not solve our problems, though. Moreover, it creates other complexes.
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate, now.
As much as we defend the independence between nudity and sexuality, there are times that they do happen together. The following statements are both true and not mutually exclusive. Pairing them does not constitute a paradox:
(1) Nudity and sexuality are independent of each other.
(2) Sometimes, they happen together.
Things that are independent of each other have no reason not to coexist.
Nevertheless, to defend their lifestyle, many naturists reach the point of denying any eroticism in it — an eroticism that would exist regardless of their attire or lack thereof. This shows that naturism has had trouble dealing with the sexual feelings of its participants — which exist with or without nudity.
On this phenomenon, Glenn Smith writes a short article of which the title is very telling: Nudity can be erotic and naturists should not have to deny it
[…] the main reason younger people are not becoming naturists is the inability of modern naturism to engage with the issue of sexuality. […] When naturism arrived in a more sexually conservative Britain […] sexual feelings were censored out to make naturism culturally acceptable.
He later says:
Neither extreme view — being nude is asexual, or is a “ruse for randy men” — offers a helpful way forward.
Yes, we need to protect nudity from being sexually assaulted. Still, for the sake of protecting nudity, we can’t deny its occasional eroticism.
Sometimes, the nude is erotic. Denying it, we turn nudity and eroticism against each other, creating even more social pathology.
So, how do we resolve this double-binding paradox?
It’s about consent — and consent alone
We don’t need to guard ourselves against nudity or against sexuality. All we need is to make sure we respect and protect anyone’s consent.
So:
My clothes (or lack thereof) are not my consent.
… but also:
I shouldn’t be ashamed of being aroused by nudity.
Please, handle with care: having erotic feelings is not the same as acting upon them. And, yes, leering and drooling at somebody’s naked body is definitely acting upon them.
Even on Second Life. From the same forum post:
And that’s another point, I don’t care if you’re going to look. It’s a casually nude setting, nobody does. But don’t be so unbelievably blatant about it because at that point it’s not just creepy, it’s also rude.
Only with consent can we act upon our erotic feelings. Only clear — yes, enthusiastic — consent can green-light a sexual pass.
Regardless of what anyone is wearing.
Epilogue
Nudity’s relationship with sex is quite complex — we’ve made it so, and here we are. For most of us it can’t be sorted out in theory, alone.
In my case, reading stories and opinions by feminist writers helped me understand an awful lot. I recognised what I’ve been doing wrong — as a filmmaker and as a man.
But then there’s practice. Applying what I learned to the relationship with my wife was what sealed the deal. Although I am crazy about women’s breasts, I trained myself to look at my wife with respect — and give her a sense of personal space, when she changes clothes in our bedroom, with me present.
It’s not as simple as looking out the window. She is my wife, so there must be a delicate balance between showing respect and showing desire. Showing desire is one thing. Groping her every time she changes a shirt is another. Desire is different from entitlement.
Realising I am not entitled to my wife’s body makes it so much easier to understand how to treat other women, in social or professional contexts.
But it’s still something not resolved in theory alone. It requires a lot of practice. And it’s time we started doing it.
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