Lady Macbeth compulsively washed her hands to try and wipe away the guilt of
committing murder. Today as a society we generally bathe every day, wash our hands repeatedly, and hide our natural body odors with anti-
perspirants, perfumes and powders. Is American revulsion of nudity directly related to our obsession with personal hygiene? Katherine
Ashenburg explores human cleanliness in a
new book:
The surreptitious way people revealed their deviations to me indicates how thoroughly we have been conditioned: to risk smelling like a human is a misdemeanour, and the goal is to smell like an exotic fruit or a cookie. The standard we read about in magazines and see on television is a sterilised and synthetic one...In cultures where group solidarity is more important than individuality, nudity is less problematic and scrubbed, odourless bodies are less necessary. As these values shift, so does the definition of “clean”.
In a society obsessed with cleanliness, we don't know what people actually smell like. In a society obsessed with clothing and fashion, we don't know what people actually look like. Nudism and naturism are part of the solution.
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.
~ Joni Mitchell "Woodstock"
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nudists,
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naturists,
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naked
3 comments:
I've often wondered about this national obsession to cover up everything that is natural about us. I agree that this could very well be related to America's problems with nudity. Nudity is natural, therefore, taboo.
To quote George Bernard Shaw, "We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins."
Hygiene is important for our health.
We don't need to be paranoid about it, but it is a fact that people live better and longer in societies with better hygiene habits.
Of course, it goes without saying that hygiene is important to prevent bacterial infections. The specific point here is how society considers natural human odor as something offensive, when it was once considered normal, and even attractive. We are hygenic to the point where we are washing away our own humanity.
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