Why do some cultures consider nudity sinful?
Ive researched, meditated and thought gravely upon it for years
and come up with an explanation after many errors that makes any
sense to me. Its a method of mind control to keep people in their
place.
People in ancient times like even about 1500 years back, and in
India, from where I belong, till about 900 - 950 years back, nudity
wasn't even a word(as the sculptures and murals suggest).
"Nagn"(meaning nude in sanskrit) refers to the state where one is
not groomed or ornamented. Loin cloth it seems was used for
practical purposes like not letting the sweat and smell of the
genitals touch public seating areas. Otherwise public baths, public
dancing, women and men together, in complete nudity was cool. I
know that Vedic Indians were great in weaving. they could weave
extremely fine cloth, but stitching was not evident, it only came
with Mughal culture. Now I dnt think a culture would know how to
weave but not know how to stitch. I think since there was no
concept of shame in nudity, no one needed to cover up (just imagine
the mindset of child & their innocence towards nudity) Pieces
of cloth, long and short was used for any practical purpose - cover
from cold, as a sitting mat, tying around the loin as tight
underwear during sports(for men), during periods(for women), wiping
sweat, etc.
In some dogmatic faiths people came up with a concept that
nudity is a sin by god as it brings them closer to the habbit of
frivolous sex, which is actually quite the opposite of what nudity
actually does, and people knew it so they said that God has said
it. I think the main reason is that in earlier cultures the priest
was supposed to control their worldly urges and not get involved in
marriages and sexual relations. But since they could not control
their urges(simply because they were not priests by nature but had
become so for wealth and power), they told women to cover up so
that they cud not see. Then they wanted them not to have freedom of
having sex, so that the priests dont feel left out.
Oppress the rightful so that my wrong intentions get hidden.
Thats how sin in nudity was invented and passed on from gen to
gen.
The fanatics today think that exposure causes sin, rapes,
molestations and hell. Its just the opposite my friend. Check out
how clean from heart, how innocent modern day naturists feel.
I think as a joke that if Europe was a hot sweaty region then
probably the early priests of the church would have thought 10
times before calling nudity a sin.:P