Nudity, Sexuality and Repression
It’s not always about separation — It’s about acceptance
I won’t mince words here: America’s culture self-perpetuates repression. Not necessarily the people — or society itself — but our widespread media.
Conditioned to fight — yourself
We’re still ridiculously bad with topics like this. Public “big” media is known for the raunchiest advertising. It doesn’t acknowledge or bat an eye at real, shallow objectification as long as there’s technically no nudity. Yet, they would probably still try to censor the above image.
We’re trained to fixate on the very idea of objectification. This achieves nothing but to draw attention to potential sexuality. Even worse, it implies that there’s something wrong with sexuality.
Publishing swaths of “inappropriate” content with just tiny black bars or a bit of pixelization is actually a huge problem. One that the media is constantly guilty of. Such content automatically teases us with a desire to see what’s obscured — even when we wouldn’t normally be all that interested.
Even when we didn’t actively choose to see the image at all, but are bombarded with artificial curiosity since it’s displayed to us anyway.
It teases us into thinking of it as explicitly sexual.
Usually — in the case of nudity — we are interested in what’s obscured. By being consistently denied “permission” to look at something many of us are naturally curious about, we risk building it up in our minds as the biggest deal ever. It’s all too easy to develop an unnatural and unhealthy obsession with it because we have a tiny, fleeting, perfectly normal desire that’s often unfulfilled: “I still want to see them naked because I was just shown a picture of them naked — kind of.”
Not getting to see it then is exactly the point where repression often comes from — not being able to let that fleeting desire go because it was never fulfilled, in a situation where it would naturally be impossible for it to be left unfulfilled.
Real life doesn’t have censor bars. Many people will simply choose not to appear nude in your presence. But those that do, do. We often derive some pleasure from beholding their unclothed form, and that is not inherently disrespectful. Without a pressured commentary and constant focus on what you are or aren’t “supposed” to see, you have an opportunity to actually exercise respect, and interpret each scenario appropriately.
Real equality is about respect
We specifically say that we want respect for women, yet we continuously and indirectly shame them. We imply that all nudity is inherently sexual, especially when the subject is a woman. Sometimes, it actually isn’t sexual.
Sometimes, it is — so we also imply that sexual nudity is inherently wrong.
We’re so repressed, we even overcompensate and assume that, in some cases, “respect” means pretending there’s no such thing as sexuality. That it’s wrong to express your appreciation of beauty. This backfires, automatically causing you to think about their sexuality, and feel judged for appreciating their beauty.
Then you go and appreciate them anyway because you know these rules aren’t real. You know there’s nothing wrong with it. But as societal pressure creeps in, you somehow feel dirty, and the inner turmoil begins.
First step to self-loathing!
Pretending that something most of us feel is unnatural makes most of us feel broken or misunderstood.
Sometimes you just melt at the sight of another human, clothed or not. Revel in the moment of pleasure and appreciation. It’s not objectification.
True lack of respect — true objectification — is not being able to look past that.
Remove the social stigma, and suddenly we naturally look past it
Suddenly we’re not distracted from the fact that they’re real, complex, interesting people. If we’re attracted to them, we can’t exactly help it. But we can have the chance to do it in a healthy way by appreciating the many unique qualities that make up who they are as an individual. That is respect.
It allows for a naturally considerate thought process. Let’s say — for the sake of analogy — you’re attracted to females. You meet a girl in a sauna, but you start really talking instead of making it weird. Even if your hormones are raging, and your first thought is “Wow, she’s beautiful,” healthy thoughts are free to continue:
“…and talented, and holy crap she built a startup?! I’m inspired to do more awesome stuff. I look up to this person!”
When you’re repressed, it’s goes more like:
“Wow, she’s beautiful.
Crap. I’m objectifying her by thinking that. Come on… What’s wrong with me?! I just need to stop seeing her as a sex object and look at her as a real person. Man, I’m terrible.”
Wait.
Hold on.
If you hadn’t been taught these values of shame, would you really be looking at her as a sex object?
If you were really a terrible person, would it even bother you that you might be objectifying her?
I didn’t think so.
It’s not the appreciation of beauty that is disrespectful, it’s the lack of acknowledgement of anything else.
Lots of words! What’s your point, though?
My point is that we can do something about it.
It begins with understanding.
Quick recap:
- Demonizing (then teasing ourselves with) nudity causes us to focus on it, think about it, and often obsess over it. This can lead to us always considering it sexual even when it shouldn’t be
- Demonizing sexuality makes us feel bad about ourselves when we view nudity sexually, which — in such a mindset — can be all the time
- Sexuality is important, powerful, and should be appreciated. Feeling like this is wrong puts us in a constant state of war with ourselves
- Sexual appreciation is not the opposite of respect, and it is not objectification. Refusing to acknowledge the depth of the person arousing it is.
And I’ll add:
- Trying to compensate morally by actively ignoring or avoiding sexuality is a major contributor to repression
In a repressed society, we’re less and less likely to see nudity in person, especially in a non-sexual context, and we’re more likely to see it on a screen. We’re more likely to remain disconnected. Being repressed makes some people incessantly seek out this content. They’re even more likely to remain disconnected.
Handling nudity in person — especially outside of a family environment — is the best opportunity to train ourselves to appreciate a person for all their qualities. This is including — not instead of — their beauty and sexuality.
By not forcing ourselves to separate nudity and sexuality, we learn to do it naturally, and properly for the situation.
If a major issue is that images and videos encourage and perpetuate objectification, then there’s a simple solution.
Accept nudity in society
Most of us already have 24/7 access to a nearly infinite amount of it online. Even if we’re learning our shallow perspectives from there, we’re not just gonna get everyone to stop looking. We can, however, get (most) everyone to naturally respect each other by balancing our cyber-nudity with some amount of it — or at least its acceptance — in real life.
Currently, it’s a vicious cycle. We can feel held back (morally, socially and even legally.) Our frustration is generally manifest as sexual energy, which many of us turn to the internet to satiate — single or otherwise. In this mindset, we’re only looking for gratification, and thus the current concern over objectification remains.
Let’s remind ourselves that all gorgeous people are real human beings. If we can, we should experience it in real life. We’ll internalize that, just like we’ve internalized our disconnected nature.
We’ll see images of nudity in a healthier light. We’ll see a person.
We’ll look at (probably less) porn in a healthier way, without feeling bad about it. We’ll recognize weird situations in it and naturally feel more like avoiding them.
Most importantly, we’ll be free to exercise our capacity for true respect, adoration, healthy sexuality and level-headed discernment of situations.
