Projet Nudité
Research on nudity and shame in different cultures
Projet Nudité is a work in progress. Its content will regularly be adjusted and expanded to new data. The latest news can be found here. I would like to invite you to participate in the process, for instance by leaving a message in the guestbook, by posing a thesis in the forum, or by contacting me by email. I really appreciate your contribution!
Yours Sincerely,
Nudity and shame: an anthropological answer
The question I asked Illuster (alumni magazine of Utrecht University): Why are many people ashamed to show their naked body in public? What are the cultural and social backgrounds?
The answer in Illuster 36, 09/04, by Dr. W.E.A. van Beek, university main professor of cultural anthropology at Utrecht University:
"First of all, let me remark that the feeling of shame in the world doesn't provide a universal image. At ninety-five percent of the people, shame is genitally oriented. However, there are, for example, naked women in the Amazon region who feel ashamed when they don't wear any bands around their arms or ankles. Shame emerges when there is a deviation from the clothing standard, which is applied differently in every culture.
Shame is not congenital, but the reason why people are ashamed does have a universal, biological background. At its base lies the genetically indiced man-female relationship. It has not been further filled in biologically, like is the case with birds (monogamy) or baboons (polygamy). It's up to the culture to 'do something about sex'. This leads to cultural rules for sexual bonding, so sexual behavior. This, in turn, explains the cultural focus on the genitals, so on covering the genitals, because some reflexes are just plainly visible. It seems a logical task for every culture, taken into account the importance of a stable parent bonding, which is indeed necessary to raise an early born child, to 'privatise' the genital."
Might the publication of this answer on my site raise any objections in the field of copy- or any other right, please do send me an e-mail, so we can work out a solution.
