Is Nudity Normal?

Whether anything can be declared 'normal' has to depend on a frame of reference. Most frames of reference have nothing to do with whatever might be 'healthy', 'best', or 'right'. Normalcy is a status quo reference and, as such, tells what is most to be expected in any certain setting.

In a textile-compulsive cultural setting, 'normal' refers to one's inclination to put on clothing without first seeking any general instructions to do so. At any point in time, one can expect to find almost all members of such a culture completely clothed except during brief moments spent at doing something requiring another state of dress. Even in the dark of night, one will find most members zonking with rag garments twisted around their rolling, tossing bodies.

It is plain from this that nudity is not something to be considered 'normal' in the United States and other countries like it. If one bothers to look at data available about the many  human conditions there are, many desirable states of being must be considered abnormal in this country. Examples: To be highly educated is not normal in this country. To have a good understanding of science, and the procedures of science, is not normal in this country. To be independent, motivated, outstanding and upright citizens cannot be declared to be a condition that this country exemplifies as normal. That we have the second-highest rate of incarceration in the world says otherwise about us.

Maybe you want to argue against all of that. Maybe you want me to say that nudity is a normal condition in the realm of Nature, and that we were born that way and so we have to consider ourselves to be natural beings. Do you really think we all were granted natural births?

Very few aspects of any of our births in this country were natural. In fact, most elements of our current lives are technological artifices. Our mothers are given pain killers, or we are removed by Caesarian sections, our asses are slapped and we are quickly squeegeed  to remove the natural lubricants that helped to expel us from our safe haven into this life. We are diapered, incubated if necessary, blanketed, fed from a bottle in most cases, in temperature and environmentally controlled rooms while electronic voices surround us with instructions to nurses, doctors, orderlies, and on and on. 'Natural' ended upon our exit from the womb.

'Natural' exists in very few elements of our lives from that point on, and very few of us ever get to experience Nature in her rawest forms. We live in artificial caves, travel in artificial conveyances, work at jobs created by technology using artificial tools. At those few elements left in our lives where we resort to natural methods or activities, we emanate great quantities of guilt and resort to secrecy about them. We don't talk about sex, and make as many elements of sexual relationships illegal as possible. We don't go around naked in too many places, and worry that someone who knows us might discover us while we are doing such a blatantly natural thing. We certainly don't hug each other on impulse, in any public place, especially in a show of natural affection. To do so in a moment of joy will leave us red-faced with embarrassment.

It would seem to me that nothing I felt any affection toward would want to be considered normal in that kind of climate. Still, there is another side to this story.

A few of us were raised in circumstances other than what would be considered culturally normal in this country. We may have gotten our starts in the artificial environments triggered by technologies applied with motivations to stifle our natural inclinations. Some of us are simply curious away beyond the normal. Trying to control our intake of information is like trying to squeeze a tube of toothpaste somebody has punched full of holes. No matter how hard they try to get it all to come out the way it's supposed to, it finds another way to escape on its own.

A few of us get to see the house of cards that our cultures have built, inside of which normal is as I have already described it, but outside of which the winds of change are blowing. An internal war has begun to brew, between the elements of culture inspired by science, those of the status quo supported by the apathetic mainstream, and the antique bases striving to claim the majority of hearts and minds by proclaiming their elements of culture to be predominant.

It would be interesting to be able to live long enough to see how it all comes out, and to learn whether nudity will ever find a cultural setting in this land where it might be considered normal. It could happen, after many more generations have come and gone. I think that, for now, nudity is something too good to be deemed normal in this place.

I truly do regret that.