August 21, 2010

What's the problem with nudity?

The Documentary Channel screened this BBC Horizon programme called "What's the problem with Nudity" the other night.
It tried to figure out why nudity is such a social problem for our species by asking 8 total strangers who have never stripped or been nude in front of other people (and a battery of TV cameras) to do exactly that. Coupled with a potted history of homo sapiens and more ancient forebears, it tried to figure out at what stage in our genetic and cultural history we decided that it was not OK to be around others without "clothes" on.
As this kind of cod TV science goes, it was rather un-illuminating on practically all questions it set out to answer. On the contrary, it left me with a great deal of other queries about aspects that never got touched on.
The obvious clanger was asking 21st Century males and females to rate male chests' sexual attractiveness based on hirsuteness or baldness of said chests. This was supposed to give a clue that evolutionary we have lost our body hair because females preferred to mate with hairless men. But what this really showed was the scientific incompetence of the sex researchers setting up such a thoughtless, biased and uncontrolled experiment: even intuitively (if I may) I would have shown the subjects a range of hairy and hairless women to rate, and I bet the outcome would have been far more pronounced in favour of hairless-ness than the male-only version. Hairy females did far worse evolutionary speaking than hairy males, just look at the number of hairy men still with us compared to the amount of hairy females (ladies with moustaches notwithstanding) and the relentless marketing of lady-shaves, depilatory products and the opprobrium heaped on unshaven continental women.
And we all know that when woman are at their most fertile era in their cycle, they prefer hairy bad boys as bed mates over plucked metrosexuals - and this has a long history too: interbreeding with hairy Neanderthal men apparently was far more common than many of us would like to remember.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

...what's the problem with being naked?...one word, RELIGION...if we're wandering around stark bollock or tits akimbo, it's obvious we are sexual beings...in most religions (apart from mine), SEX is DIRTY, it's a sin, it should only be done to procreate...and you must not ENJOY it, because it's filthy, it's base, it's forbidden and you'll go mad or your knob will drop off...FORBIDDEN, like the fruit that poor Eve was tempted to eat by the Serpent (forbidden fruit = a shag, serpent = [satans?]cock)...knowledge = carnal knowledge...she goes on to 'corrupt' Adam...later, when God arrives for a cup of tea, they are concealing their nakedness with fig leaves...they experience SHAME...therefore, SEX = SHAME...getting your kit off is WRONG...like it or not, we are influenced by this, it's deep rooted within our culture (and others)...we even exported it, in every corner of the Empire the 'rightious' and the 'enlightened' were 'civilising' the 'savages'...the 'ungodly' NAKED 'savages'...this at a time when sight of a womans ankle was hardcore porno...yeah, we need insulating from the cold or the heat, but that's only part of the story...take the Burka, (please, take it...) i don't think they're are worn to keep warm...phew!...where am i?...yes, end Rusty...anyway, religion is one and then there's the cold weather and shrinkage factor...the frost has an unfortunate effect on penile tissue...a frozen cock is rarely a big cock...end of...

p.s. i'm naked now...i am...

Anonymous said...

...this has got me thinking about the nikky-naccy-noo, so im gonna steal my comment back (well, copy it)...and blog it up a bit on mein blog with a link to this...ta very much, bis spater...

Hans Versluys said...

naked blogging, hmm, I like that.