My wife and I have a young grandaughter who has a tendency to strip off and run around naked every chance she gets. There is nothing shameful about it to her. We and her parents are in the process of teaching her different. Of course, we don't use the word "shame", but the message is the same.
So, where does shame about nakedness originate? Certainly not with that child. It originates with us -- the adults. We pass it down from generation to generation.
Many believe clothing was invented (a la Genesis) to maintain sexual modesty. Tain't exactly true. (Our imagination provides us with sexual views of people that are far superior to their nakedness.) Clothing was invented because we naked apes required it to survive in climates we migrated to.
However, those coverings had to come off for Homo sapiens to do the zugzug -- so nakedness became associated with having sex. As our species developed restrictions against having sex, we developed parallel restrictions against being naked. So now, we're stuck with teaching our children that it's shameful to allow others to see certain parts of their bodies -- or to fart, belch, or eat their salad with the wrong fork.
As Joe South sang, "Oh the games people play!"
No comments:
Post a Comment