pvl@houxh.UUCP (08/12/83)
I was suddenly struck that the question of child/parent nude interaction may be related to the social nudity question in an different way than I had assumed. A few more thoughts on the subject follow. The studies and expert opinions are really mostly geared to the subject of casual nudity in the *family*. WARNING: the following discussion is logic (as opposed to data) based so is subject to the same questions as the logic of the experts. END WARNING. I can convince myself that family nudity would be more potentially damaging when practiced in isolation as opposed to making it a part of general social nudity. If nudity is observed *only* in the family, it could give rise to problems more readily than if social nudity is included in family activities so that there would be nothing special about observing parents/siblings nude per se. What about it? Am I rationalizing since I like social nudity? For what it's worth, I was raised in a family where family nudity was casual, but social nudity was never even considered. How about others on the net? Pete LaMaster NJ
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (08/13/83)
The world is a strange place, with funny rules. Children seem to understand this rather well. Nudity was not practiced in our house but I had to learn that no pressing religious question was important enough to be mentioned in front of non-immediate relatives. (My parents have different faiths, and that is a good way to start a small war). In the same way, I learned that evoltionary theory was not to be mentioned in the school I was attending (I mentioned it anyway, all the time, but I *knew* that it was frowned upon), and that on the whole, the world was a pretty queer place. I see no reason why public attitudes towards nudity should be any different. For me the bottom line is that I know no evidence that the anti-nudes are correct in their fear of nudity. Sweden doesnt seem to be falling apart due to moral decay, for instance. Everyone has got to learn what to do when public opinion is WRONG sometime. If you believe that nudity is not wrong, but still prevent your children from being nudists, you are in effect saying that one must bend to public opinion, even when it is wrong. I would not want to encourage this in my children. laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura ps - in net.politics a discussion is raging entitled 'Societal consensus as a basis for law'. I am rather vocal in saying that it is NOT. If you want to discuss this question, and do not read net.politics, please move the discussion there so that there is less duplication of effort. I am already holding down net.flame and net.politics and may have to move to net.philosophy as well, but this is about my limit. laura
kent@decwrl.UUCP (Chris Kent) (08/19/83)
I was raised in a family where casual nudity was the norm, and social nudity wasn't practiced -- not that it was frowned upon, we just never did. Had the occasion arisen, I'm sure we would have. I found that it didn't take me long to learn from my peers that what we practiced at home was different; I learned to shut up about it, and just pitied them -- I thought their setup was weird; they probably thought the same of me (all this during thos important (?) years of 9-13). I fully intend to raise my child(ren) (whenever I have some) the same way I was raised. I would tend to agree that being on a clothed beach is usually more arousing than on a nude beach, exactly because the mystery is gone. It would seem to me that most women have learned that what a garment covers can be more arousing than what it reveals (this from a decidedly male observer -- it holds true for me, at least). The viewpoints you quoted (Spock, Brothers, et al) were, to my mind, singularly North American. I don't think you'd find any Middle European child psychologists spouting such nonsense, and it seems much healthier to me. Cheers, Chris Kent