Is Exhibitionism on the Rise?

David Greenberg, a forensic psychiatrist, has done a study of exhibitionist behavior, and has found in his Canadian research that by the age of 18, a third of all women have been confronted by a flasher. That is a stunning statistic which shows that many people are seeking sexual gratification by exposing themselves to others.

In a 12 year study of sex offenders in Western Australia, the professor found that 25% of the people in a treatment unit were exhibitionists.

"People often think exhibitionists are nuisances when in fact they can become very dangerous. About 15 per cent graduate to hands-on sexual assault," says Professor Greenberg.

"Most of these people do not get apprehended. Or they've committed hundreds of offences before they're caught. They're very surreptitious and they always have an escape route … We believe only a fraction of them end up in the justice system."

It's no wonder that nudist groups run background checks on potential members, although it would not take long for anyone to discover if a new nudist was aroused by being naked in a social setting. Nudism and exhibitionism are not at all the same thing, and it's a common misperception that people who gather in clothes-free situations are doing it for some sort of sexual thrill.

Professor Greenberg does not explain the causes of this phenomenon, but it's clear that the sexually repressive societies that we live in, coupled with the bombardment of images sexualizing the human body, is causing people to explore their own fantasies and sexual urges in creative ways. The more forbidden it is, the more exciting it is.

This why I feel that any serious advocate of the Free Body Movement must agree that overt sexual activity is not part of nudism or naturism. The human body in its natural state needs to be normalized and de-objectified. The sight of a female nipple should not be a shocking event, nor should the sight of a male penis. Covering up and hiding our own skin only serves to repress our own natural sense of being, which in turn leads to unnatural and perverted behavior. Without some sort of common sense approach to the problem, it's only going to get worse.

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