Naked

I like being naked. It's not so much that I don't like clothes (in fact I do, and once in a while I like going shopping) than the fact that I'm really comfy without them. If it isn't too cold in the house, I'd rather walk around naked, lounge in bed naked, watch TV naked... This doesn't mean that while I am in my house I am always naked. In fact, since I share a house, it would be quite rude of me to do it most of the time unless the people I share the house with were completely OK with it. But the fact is, I am comfortable being naked. However, I probably wouldn't go naked in public unless it was in an environment were nudity was the norm (e.g. a nudist beach). My attitude to nudity has to do with how I was raised and with my socialisation, all to do with the societies I was raised in.

A few days ago, there was an article in the Guardian about Femen's attitudes towards nudity. According to the article, Femen (a feminist organisation founded in Kiev in 2008) maintains that naked protest (mainly protesting topless) is the only 'valid' way to defend feminism. Femen, therefore, sees women in Muslim countries who follow rules about dress (voluntarily) as antifeminist, which, the author of the article argues, is a racist and colonialist way of feminism.

I'm not going to get into the topic of Islam and feminism, it is a highly controversial topic and I am not informed enough to discuss it. Suffice it to say that as a feminist, I think women should be free to act as they like, and if what a woman likes to do is to wear certain clothes, however much I may disagree with her, as long as she doesn't force me to do the same I have nothing but respect for her (though not necessarily for her choice. I might argue against or criticise her choice, in fact, but never alleging that she made her choice "because she doesn't know any better", which I believe is a paternalistic and condescending way to view things). However, I would like to get into the topic of feminism, nakedness and colonialism.

First let me start with colonialism. Broadly speaking, between the 10th and the 20th century, Europeans colonised other continents. They tried to impose their "civilised" way of life, their culture and their religion upon other human beings. This in itself leads to several problematics, the main one from my point of view being a relativistic sense of ethics (acts are good or bad relative to the culture an individual was brought up in), but one of the problematics it has led to has to do with women and their bodies.

In Europe, women's bodies are to be covered. One might say that this isn't as true in Europe as it is for some countries where Islam is the majoritarian religion, but enough that it is worthy of notice if a woman is breastfeeding in a public place, let alone if a woman decides to get completely naked in a public place. It can be argued that the same thing can be applied to men, and it would be absolutely true, except for two things: firstly, if a man decides to take his shirt off, especially in summer, no one will be shocked by it; whereas if a woman does the same thing a lot of people will be shocked and she will be considered not to be behaving appropriately, she might be insulted or attacked. Secondly, rape is more common against women, and it is often a defence rapers that women are "asking for it" because of how they were dressed (or underdressed).

When Europeans colonised a country, people in the country were asked/forced to conform to European culture. This includes "dress" culture. Women in countries where they usually wouldn't have worn clothes were asked to cover up, and women's body was slowly hidden and it became (as it is in Europe) "a mystery", something a man would only see if a woman chose to show it (or if he forced her to see it). It also means that in some regions, city women will wear "western" style clothes, whereas in smaller villages they might still traditionally not wear much at all. This creates a rift, a divide: whereas in a small village it is normal to be naked, and indeed, one might get laughed at if one covers up, in cities close by being naked is considered "improper" or "bad". This means that people being raised in geographically close locations, who may interact with each other during their lifetimes may have different reactions to nudity, which can lead to difficulties such as men believing, because a woman is wearing less clothes, that she is more available or more willing to have sexual intercourse with him.

All this makes me come to the conclusion that colonialism has done feminism few favours. It has reduced the number of people who view the exposed female body as a natural thing, hypersexualising it.

The human body can be a sexual object, a means to sexual pleasure, but it isn't all the time. I believe normalising nakedness would be a step towards people viewing a body as sexual or not depending on situation and consent, rather than on how much of it is showing.