Recently, people have showed concern about the fact that women are allowed to roam around topless in the streets of Toronto, and there is no question that some people find public nudity offensive. However, whether people should be offended is debatable; their reaction is often closer to confusion or embarrassment. The human body deserves to be shown and respected both for its beauty and its so-called imperfections.
In the appropriate places and situations, public nudity can be comfortable, healthy and can ultimately break social barriers, which hinder communication between people. There are appropriate times and places for anyone who would like to roam around nude. Exposing oneself in the city might not be a good idea. It could lead to sexual harassment or legal consequences.
But what is wrong with people expressing themselves at a local park, beach or on their own front lawn? Anyone who has spent any amount of time in ill-fitting, uncomfortable clothing knows how good it feels when clothing is not being worn. Clothing is, by nature, something foreign to the body, and its presence is always known to the wearer. Clothing does have some practical uses. It keeps us warm from the harsh conditions of the environment and protects us when doing dangerous work. Clothes do not exist to hide our bodies.
There is a tremendous feeling of freedom when nude. Once you have been swimming nude, you’ll never understand why anyone would ever want to wear clothes in the water. Medical research has shown that clothing can be unhealthy in certain situations. For example, evidence supports the hypothesis that wet, clingy swimsuits can constrict the flow of bodily fluids. Eliminate the swimsuit, and you’ve eliminated that problem. Furthermore, it is beneficial to ones mental health to be expressive.
In a free society, people should be free to express themselves and do what they want as long as their freedom doesnt impede the freedom of others, endanger them, or remove their fundamental rights. Nudity breaks a lot of social barriers that have hindered communication between people, because there are no Armani suits, no gang colors, no uniforms, or social trends to define ones social status. Present Canadian law indicates that it is not an offence to be nude on an isolated beach. Yet, this suggests that when nude, a person is no longer fit to be seen, and should be separated from others. Surely, this is a prejudicial point of view. Nudity also takes away the artificial inhibitions that society has forced upon us when we were born.
If you think about it, the parts that we cover are arbitrary. It has been suggested that we cover the genital area because of its sexual nature. In fact, an equally sexual body part is the lips. Nevertheless, people walk around exposing their lips without causing mass arousal.
Many people find public nudity offensive. Too much emphasis is put on the perfect body by a clothing-obsessed society. Most people know that almost no one has a perfect body, and that beauty can be found in bodies of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages many of them with the scars of life. Nudity is the means to the goal of body acceptance. When nude, the full beauty of the human body is exposed, creating pride in what you’ve got and reducing the desire for what you havent got. Public nudity can be appealing to some people but not for others.
People have to start to realize that we are all naked underneath and there is no shame in that. Whether nudity can break some of the social barriers or not, it all comes down to this; being nude is comfortable, healthy and most of all, its fun!
