I was rereading a post from last year on this blog in which I drew up a series of Venn diagrams illustrating contrasting views on the intersection of nudity and sexuality, and I realized something. Nudists often call for the "de-sexualization" of nudity, and this has always rubbed me the wrong way. I don't want to completely de-sexualize nudity. I think nudity can be sexual, and in the right contexts, that's perfectly healthy (not to mention downright fun). Calling for its total de-sexualization encourages the unflattering image of the anti-sexual nudist - the stuffy prude who (ironically, despite being naked) hasn't seen his own dick in decades.
But nudists do have a valid point about emphasizing the non-sexual aspects of nudity, particularly as pertains to their enjoyment of nudism. Textile culture has absolutely saturated the concept of nudity with a sexual connotation, and it's a problem for us when sex is the first and only thing people think about when confronted with nudity. It's okay if you want to use nudity for sexual purposes, but it's not okay to think that that is its only use, to the point that purveyors and practitioners of non-sexual nudity are assumed to have perverted motives, and mocked or ridiculed when they claim otherwise.
So it seems to me that textile culture has over-sexualized nudity, and that what nudists are campaigning for is merely a counter to that. And if we view "sexualization" (personally, I hate this term) as the artificial imbuing of sexual meaning to a subject, then to completely "de-sexualize" nudity wouldn't make it completely non-sexual, per se. It would just revert it to its natural state in which it may or may not be viewed as sexual depending on the circumstance.
Which sounds great to me. But let's be honest, I'm not dumb, and that's not the first thing I think when I hear the phrase "de-sexualization". How many people are going to get the wrong idea, thinking that nudists are crazy (and boring) because they want to completely castrate whatever sexual appeal nudity might have? And how many nudists themselves are jumping on the bandwagon, thinking that this is indeed what the lifestyle needs, to the point of joining the Prudists' Brigade, and, e.g., criticizing every nude scene that's ever been filmed for the purposes of titillation?
I don't know if there is some other language we could use to be more clear about our intentions, but at the very least we could all take a moment to realize what it is we are really campaigning for, and then make a point to communicate that to fellow activists and the public alike going forward. We should strive to make nudity less over-sexualized, but I am a nudist and I don't want nudity to be completely non-sexual. Nudity has an important and healthy sexual function. But that's not its only function. We should make sure that what we are saying is "not all nudity is sexual", rather than "all nudity is not sexual."
