Can people unlearn their naked shame?
| By Paul King |
It's a classic anxiety nightmare - you're standing in front of a room full of work colleagues, your boss is there, maybe even that new colleague you've been trying to impress. And you're stark naked. Ouch.
Why are we so ashamed of being seen naked? Is there something deep in human nature that finds naked skin abhorrent? Some prudishness inherited from our Victorian ancestors?
 | FIND OUT MORE... Horizon's What's the Problem With Nudity? is on BBC Two at 2100 GMT on Tuesday, 3 March Or watch it later on the BBC iPlayer |
And how can you explain the rebels who shun convention to spend their weekends hanging out with similar-minded nudists, insisting nothing could be more normal?
Eight ordinary people - none of them nudists - were recently brought together for an experiment filmed by the BBC's Horizon programme, to test some of the scientific theories that explain why naked bodies make us so uncomfortable.
Among them were Phil, 39, from Birmingham and Kath, 40, from Dorset. Kath's greatest worry was that people would laugh at her. Some of the men in the group were more concerned about inappropriate excitement.
Man's nakedness
Phil was first to feel the cameras burning into his skin. A matter of hours after meeting the other volunteers, he found himself before a full-length mirror, instructed to remove all of his clothes. When he discovered the mirror was two-way and he was being watched, his red face, beating heart and soaring blood pressure told a story.
Performing the same task, Kath admitted she wanted "the floor to open up." When we are naked in public, most of us feel exposed.
|  All around the world individuals feel great shame when they know that others know that they have failed to be adequately modest  Prof Dan FesslerPsychologist |
And of course, a naked human is just that bit more naked that other primates. We have only minimal body hair, they have fur. Why?
It's one of the greatest mysteries in evolution, and even bothered Charles Darwin. One of the theories is that we lost our fur as a way of dealing with the heat of the sun. It's controversial, as most mammals use fur to protect them from the sun. But some anthropologists believe our ancestors' unique ability to sweat, along with their upright stance, meant we could cool quicker without fur - prompting the onset of human nudity.
They reckon that evolutionary step towards nudity had huge implications for the human race. With a souped-up cooling system, our ancestors could afford to develop ever-bigger brains - leading to culture, tools, fire, and language.
Red for 'no-go'
"Really, without losing hair, without our sweatiness, we wouldn't have been able to evolve the big brains that characterise us today," says anthropologist Professor Nina Jablonski of Penn State University. "Essentially, being hairless was the key to much of human evolution."
So there's reason to believe our nudity arose out of practical need, but that doesn't answer why we're so ashamed by it.
 Attitudes towards nakedness may be the result of the need for long-term pair bonding |
But it seems this shame can be unlearned - witness, for example, the work of artist Spencer Tunnick, who frequently corrals hundreds of volunteers to strip off en mass in public places for his photographs.
After a series of experiments, Phil and Kath, who had been so self-conscious at the start, each came face-to-face with a newly stripped fellow volunteer. They were invited to paint the body in front of them, colour coding every patch of skin to show how uncomfortable they felt touching that part of the body - red for no-go; yellow for squirming and green for fine.
Phil drew the line at colouring his subject's genitals, but Kath had lost all her inhibitions. Within moments she'd painted her subject completely green. Every inch.
Learned shame
It was an example of how flexible our attitudes to nudity are. And it explains how nudists can carry on as normal when they're surrounded by naked people. Over a couple of days, the volunteers had unlearned many of the social conventions that normally govern their life, and reached a new consensus that permitted them to be naked in each other's company.
It chimes with the psychologists' theory that we are not born with a shame of nudity. Instead we learn it, as an important behavioural code that allows us to operate in human society.
 Some people may even find this image uncomfortable to view |
With the long immature period of a young human, mum and dad need to form a stable pair bond to do the looking after. But humans are more social than any other primate, living and moving in large social groups.
Psychologist Professor Dan Fessler, of the University of California, Los Angeles, says our gregariousness "poses a challenge... because those groups of course provide a source of temptation. Potentially both sexes can benefit by cheating on their partners."
That's where our shame of nudity comes in. Over thousands of generations, we've learned that showing off a naked body sends out sexual signals that threaten the security of mating pairs. And we've chosen to agree that that is a bad thing.
Shame is the ideal emotion to enforce that code of conduct. Because it feels unpleasant, we avoid it at all costs. And because it's such a visible emotion, everyone around gets a clear message that you know you've messed up.
Social contract
"All around the world individuals feel great shame when they know that others know that they have failed to be adequately modest," Prof Fessler says. "Essentially, they're signalling to those around them 'I understand what the social norm is and I understand that you know that I have failed in this regard, so please don't hurt me.'
"Nudity is a threat to the basic social contract. They have exposed their body and their sexual selves in a way that presents an opportunity for sexual behaviour outside of the principal union."
But as this code of conduct is something we learn, rather than are born with, we can re-learn it, if common consensus allows. As Phil reflected: "One thing I think I'll take away is how easy it was to bond with complete strangers in what should really be an artificial environment and one that by all society's standards we should feel uncomfortable with."
Would all this knowledge prepare Phil and Kath to push the boundaries of acceptable behaviour back in the real world? As the weekend drew to a close, they were presented their final, surprise challenge.
They are invited to walk naked in the street to waiting taxis, which they do. They have overcome a significant bit of socialisation.
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