Many of these “experts” warnings seem to be solidly based on Freudian theory, however, cultures that are accepting of nudity are so free of sexual neuroses that one wonders how different Freud’s theories would have been had his very prudish and Victorian cultural background been different!  A look at cultural and/or family contexts that do NOT restrict nudity (shared between people) to sex alone shows Freud and other “experts” to be wrong.  Other warnings stem from false, strongly held, religious traditions rather then facts. 1.

While hammers can be used to break and destroy things, they can be more positively used for building and construction.  Nudity is the same way; it depends on the context as to whether it is positive and constructive, or unhealthy and destructive for children.  Even in this culture nudity does not always equate to sex, or lead to problems (Such as in the doctors office).

In other cultures nudity is so commonly associated with swimming, sunbathing, relaxation, recreation, sports, and even daily life that people are far from equating nudity exclusively with sex.  (As is the case with many families in this culture as well.)  These cultures also have lower percentages of sexual problems including sexual abuse, rape, and teen pregnancy.  If ones prognosis (A prediction of the probable cause of a problem.) and/or diagnosis (Identifying the cause of a problem and the conclusion, derived from the identification.) is off, ones solution will also be off!

On several occasions I have read that involving children in naturism helps protect them from becoming victims of child molesting because naturism helps the child to not be ashamed or embarrassed when talking about their bodies.  If somebody does try to touch them inappropriately, these children are much more likely to tell somebody about it.  I always took these claims with a grain of salt until I recently heard this same line of thinking validated -- by a non-naturist source!

The public school our children attend was presenting a "Body Safety" program to help protect children from becoming victims of child abuse.  Parents were invited to a meeting to learn about what would be presented to the children.  I was concerned about what they would be teaching and went to the meeting to see what it was about.

The man who created and presented the program is a thirty-year police veteran.  When he was first assigned to the division that investigates child molestings, he interviewed convicted child molesters in prison to learn about their methods.  When he asked how they kept children from reporting the molestations he was surprised at what he heard.  Most of the time the answer was that they did nothing to keep the child from reporting them.  Most did not threaten the child or their family.  The molesters have found that most parents have effectively taught their children that their bodies and sex are shameful and not to be talked about.  Children are taught this to such a degree that after being molested they are usually too embarrassed to tell anyone about it.

One of the ways parents demonstrate shame towards the body is that when they must talk about "private parts" they do not use the correct terms for the body part they are referring to.  They use terms like "wiener," "worm" or "cave," which the parents find less embarrassing.

The detective shared one case in which a little boy told someone that a neighbor had made him pet his bunny, and that the boy didn't like it. The reply the boy got was that this man was always sharing his bunnies with children and certainly wouldn't let him pet one that was dangerous.  When this detective encountered the boy and was told he didn't like petting the neighbor's bunny, the detective asked the follow-up question, "Where does your neighbor keep his bunny?" The little boy replied that he kept most in cages behind his garage but, looking at the floor and lowering his voice he said, "He keeps one in his pants."  When police got a warrant to search the neighbor's property and body they found little paper bunny ears and whiskers in his house.  The clincher was that during the man's body search they found little bunny eyes drawn with a permanent marker on the tip of his penis.  If the boy had known the correct term for the penis and called it by name, he would have gotten help a lot sooner.

Because of such incidents, one of the things done in the Body Safety program is to use anatomically correct dolls to show children the location and names of the penis, vagina, breasts, and anus.  The detective teaches children that their bodies are not bad and that the correct words for their body parts are not bad words.  They can go to an adult and not be afraid or ashamed to use the correct terms for their body parts to describe where someone is touching them in a bad way.  (The dolls are made of cloth and have very little detail.  They are flat-chested.  The penis and scrotum are small and white. The vagina and anus are simply grooves folded into the cloth.)

The detective professes to be a Christian and made a practice of telling children that God made their bodies.  On one occasion a public school principal told him he couldn't say that in a public school.  The detective now asks children who made their bodies and almost always gets the reply from several children that God does.

The detective emphasized that the extreme body shame most people have and teach their children is the biggest factor in allowing child molesting to continue to go unreported.  He himself was molested when he was eight years old by an uncle.  When he was nineteen the family learned that this uncle had molested twenty of the young people in this family.  This went on and on because everyone was too ashamed to talk about it.

While the detective made no reference to naturism or nudism, the whole presentation confirmed to me the importance of being open and honest with one's children about the body and sex.  While naturism may not be the complete answer, I know it has helped me to overcome much of the body shame I was taught as a child and to be able to talk more freely about the body with my children.  We haven't yet involved our children in naturism outside the home, but what I learned from this Body Safety presentation was another step in convincing me that social naturism is probably good for children.

 Phil

"This study examined the effect of a presentation about the holistic nature of body image and self-esteem, as held by those who practice social nudism, on the self-concept of abused women.  A total of 126 subjects completed a two-part, pre-post survey to assess their body image, self-esteem, and overall self-concept.  They were also given a series of questions designed to identify women with a history of conjugal abuse.  There were four groups.  Two groups were control groups separated as abused or non-abused women.  The other two were experimental groups, also separated as abused or non-abused women.  The experimental groups had significantly improved body image, self-esteem, and overall self-concept.  This indicates that education about the unified nature of body image and self-esteem can be efficacious as a treatment alternative for body image, self-esteem, or overall self-concept.  Implications and further research possibilities are discussed."  3.

69. True nudists emphasize a decent, family atmosphere and morality.

70. Research shows that children who grow up in a nudist setting tend to be more self-confident, more self-accepting, and more sexually well-adjusted. They feel better about their bodies, and more comfortable with their sexuality.

Research conducted at the University of Northern Iowa found that nudist children had body self-concepts that were significantly more positive than those of non-nudist children?-and that the "nudity classification" of a family was one of the most significant factors associated with positive body self-concept.  Furthermore, nudist children showed a significantly higher acceptance of their bodies as a whole, rather than feeling ashamed of certain parts.  A study by psychologists Robin Lewis and Louis Janda at Old Damien University reported that "increased exposure to nudity in the family fosters an atmosphere of acceptance of sexuality and one's body.”  They concluded that children who had seen their parents nude were more comfortable with physical contact and affection, had higher self-esteem, and showed increased acceptance of and comfort with their bodies and their sexuality.  Research by Marie-Louise Booth at the California School of Professional Psychology found that "individuals with less childhood exposure to parental nudity experienced significantly higher levels of adult sexual anxiety than did the group with more childhood exposure to parental nudity."  Separate research by Diane Lee Wilson at The Wright Institute reached the same conclusion.  Research by Lou Lieberman of the State University of New York at Albany, in the late 1960s, found that "those young people who had casually seen both of their parents nude in the home were far more likely to feel comfortable with their bodies and to also feel more satisfied with the size and shape of their genitalia and breasts."

71. In general, "experts" such as Joyce Brothers and Dr. Spock speak out against family nudity without empirical evidence to back them up.  When research is actually done, it contradicts their dire warnings.

In several years of research at major national research libraries, I have yet to come across a scientific study which contradicts the premise that openness about nudity is healthy for children.

72. Most commentators say that it's the context in which family nudity takes place, not the nudity itself, that determines whether it's problematic. Children respond far more to parents' attitudes toward nudity than to the nudity itself, and nudity is only a problem when it is treated as one.

73. Many psychologists argue that the implicit message conveyed by a lack of nudity in the home is that the body is basically unacceptable or shameful attitude which may carry over into discomfort about nudity in the context of adult sexual relationships.

74. Children of "primitive" tribes, surrounded by nudity of all forms, suffer no ill effects.  Neither do children who grow up in other societies which are more open about nudity than our own.  Presumptions that exposure to nudity will lead to problems for children grow out of the preconceptions of our culture.

Paul Ableman writes: "It is interesting to speculate as to what kind of model of the human mind Sigmund Freud would have constructed if he had based it not on clothed Europeans but on, say, a study of the naked Nuer of the Sudan.  Almost all the processes which he discerns as formative for the adult mind would have been lacking.  Freud assumes that children will not normally see each other naked and that, if they do happen to, the result will be traumatic. This is not true of naked cultures. . . .  Thus great provinces of Freud's mind-empire would simply be missing.  There would be no Oedipus complex (or not much, anyway), no penis envy or castration complex, probably no clear-cut phases of sexual development.  We are emerging rapidly from the era of Freudian gospel .  .  . and can now perceive the extent to which he himself was the victim of prevailing ideas and prejudices."

75. Children who grow up in a nudist environment witness the natural body changes brought on by adolescence, pregnancy, and aging.  They have far less anxiety about these natural processes than children who are never exposed to them except through layers of clothing.

76. Research has demonstrated that countries with fewer reservations about nudity (and sexuality in general) also have lower teen pregnancy and abortion rates.

A 1985 study by the Guttmacher Institute found rates of pregnancy and abortion among teenage girls in America to be more than twice those of Canada, France, Sweden, England, and The Netherlands.  The disparity couldn't be explained by differences in sexual activity, race, welfare policies, or the availability of abortion, but only in cultural attitudes toward nudity and sexuality. The study found American youth to be particularly ignorant of biology and sexuality, partly due to a climate of moral disapproval for seeking such knowledge.  It found that lower levels of unwanted pregnancy correlated with factors such as the amount of female nudity presented by public media and the extent of nudity on public beaches.

77. Clothes-compulsion intimidates millions of mothers from breast-feeding their children, even though breast-feeding is healthier and often more convenient for both the child and the mother.

In the U.S., barely half of all mothers breast-feed; only 20% do so for a full 6 months, and only 6% for the Surgeon General's recommended 12 months. Breast-feeding is also declining in developing countries.

Gabrielle Palmer writes: "In Victorian England, famous for its prudery, a respectable woman could feed openly in church, yet in contemporary industrialized society where women's bodies and particularly breasts are used to sell newspapers, cars and peanuts, public breast-feeding provokes cries of protest from both men and women.”  Lisa Demauro notes that "our society is far more at home with the idea of sexy breasts than functional ones.”  "Millions of boys and girls have grown up never having seen a mother breast-feeding her baby," adds Marsha Pearlman, the Florida Health Department coordinator for breast-feeding.  "This is a sad commentary on our culture."

The book "Growing Up Without Shame" by author Dennis Craig Smith and psychologist Dr. William Sparks was the result of a five-year study on social nudity and it's effect on children.  It concludes with the following:

"This book and the five-year study it represents, looked at the families who found a way to overcome the fear of exposing themselves, both physically and intellectually, to each other.  We asked questions which today's society faces, and we sought answers among those who have personally reached solutions to our social dichotomy.  The authors questioned many nudist boys, girls, men, and women in search of the secret that made them comfortable in circumstances that upset so many of us.  What we learned was that viewing the unclothed human body, far from being destructive to the psyche, seems to be either benign and totally harmless, or to actually provide positive benefits to those individuals involved."

"We look forward to seeing more research that will delve deeper into this discovery which to say the least, is in opposition to all that the popular 'experts', unconcerned with facts, continue to tell us." 5.

These are but a few of many indicators that social nudity is beneficial not only for children, but for all.  Not only does more research need to be done (as has been indicated by many) the results of that, and already done research needs to have the greatest possible public exposure.  It doesn't matter if research shows the value of social nudity, if few know about it, while popular "experts", "advice" columnists, and religious leaders are saying nudity is harmful.

We have all seen many situations where children should have been safe and protected, including schools, churches, and youth organizations, most especially in their own homes/families, but weren't.  (In the family is where children should be the safest, but it is also where the most sexual and other abuse happens, by far.)  Open communication is essential to protect children from abuse, comfort with nudity can be a vital aspect of that. 

What openness about nudity does best is communicate that every part of human body is good, decent, and acceptable.  What shame regarding nudity does is communicate that the body is bad, indecent, and not to be talked about.  When shame about the body is communicated to children, it doesn't make them any less curious about the human body, if any thing it makes them more interested and causes them to seek out information to satisfy their interest in secret.

Finding out about the body in secret includes things such as playing "doctor", looking at pornography, and many other things (These secret activities have been shown to be very common for non-naturist children, but not for naturist children.) that can leave a child feeling dirty, guilty, and strongly associating nudity with those feelings and sex.  Since this can be (and most often is, including in this writers childhood) the result of not being accepting of nudity, clearly not being open and positive about nudity does not help children. 

Being open and positive about nudity will make it far less likely that a child will seek out information about the body in secret and unhealthy ways.  Being open and positive about nudity plus alway maintaining open communication will make it far more likely that the child will tell others about abuse and reduce the psychological damage caused by abuse (if they are abused).  Being open about nudity and healthy sexuality will also give a child greater self confidence.  It is indeed a valuable tool in protecting children and enriching their lives.  That is the overwhelming experience of those who have grown up in families open, accepting of, and positive about nudity.

One note: While the experiences of children who grew up seeing only the nudity of other family members are generally positive, the more children see non-sexual nudity, not just of their family, but of many people of both sex's and all ages the more resistant they seem to be against this cultures negative attitudes toward nudity.  Nudity is not commonly seen on TV (in a non-sexual context at least) accepted at the neighborhood park, pool, in the gym or sports fields and playgrounds at school, or on most beaches, etc., today.  So often the best way to enable children to see that many other people are also comfortable with nudity is to join a good family oriented nudist club locally, and visit others when traveling. 

Also, While it is good to set an example of comfort with nudity, a child (or anyone) should not be forced to be nude themselves.  That can be perceived as an invasion of privacy.  With a good example of comfort set most children (and adults for that matter) quickly become comfortable with being nude themselves.  Nudist clubs do set rules requiring nudity for activities such as swimming, this is fine (for home as well) as long as no one is then forced to participate in that activity.  Remember, the context is important, for nudity to be beneficial (especially in the context of the culture we live in) it must be comfortable, not forced.

Clearly body acceptance is far more beneficial for children (and for all) then body shame.  We hope you will work to make nudity comfortable for your family and teach your children that the human body is good, decent, and acceptable.  The best way is by example, the best time is now.

Copyright © 2001/2009 Shame Breakers

1. For more information on the disparity between Christian religious traditions regarding the body and scriptural truth see Shame Breakers Christian section

2.  Source:  Fig Leaf Forum, 

3.  Source:  Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences & Engineering Vol 59(9-B), Mar 1999, 5104.  Standard No: ISSN: 0419-4217  Abstract from a dissertation on treatment for body image and self-esteem with abused women, by Richard Eugene Pearl Sr. at Tennessee State University.

4.  Source:  N magazine Vol 16.1 pg. 69-70  Published by the Naturist Society, P. O. Box  132, Oshkosh, WI, 54902   Full text of “205 Arguments and Observations in Support of Naturism” is also online at: www.