Muse – Nudity, Indecency and Society

Note: Yes, I have missed two days of news. I’ve been a bit busy at work and tend to not do news from home(save for a few circumstances, which is why I usually have no news on weekends or holidays), but now the heavier work is done and I’m posting this.

An interesting topic comes up on a the Gaia forum which I frequent from time to time(as DarkRen).

Someone posted about an article on a protest against topless women being arrested for indecency. I posted my reply and have thought a little more about it in the minutes after thinking over my post.

Indecency is, to me, an entirely subjective thing. As far as I’m concerned, there is no measurable quantity in it and never has been. It has ever shifted, from the(by contemporary standards), puritanical views of decades to a century ago and the more ‘wild’ views by today’s standards.

In so (comparatively)small a fragment of humanity’s existence, we’ve gone from showing a stocking clad calf being risque to women strutting about in string bikinis and other such things that generally do no more than cover the nipples and crotch and Speedos for men that leave little to the imagination. That’s quite a stunning leap in a comparatively short amount of time.

Considering the general shift, one must wonder about this thing called indecency. What is it, why is it and what good is it if it changes so quickly?

In regard to women going topless, we have a clear situation where, objectively, two situations are largely similar, yet viewed subjectively most societies see them in a vastly dissimilar light. Including myself, I must note.

Men can freely(in general) go topless while a woman would be arrested for it.

Is that fair? In one way, an easy answer but not from another angle. From the strictly objective angle it’s a silly, obvious discrimination. Men have breasts just as women do. The only difference is ours are not so pronounced(age and weight of some men notwithstanding). However, from the subjective angle, women’s breasts are considered, in general, sexual objects more than a man’s chest. In part that is likely because of the divide in how each gender is taught sexuality overall. In most societies, it would be like a man or woman dropping his or her pants.

Yet, looked at objectively, breasts are just another part of the body. They aren’t dangerous in and of themselves and(generally) not messy, nor unsightly(quite the opposite for most) when compared to other features that people might show with short sleeved shirts and shorts. There is nothing objectively obscene about them in general. But the societal impression of what is descent is there, even though that outlook has been relaxed to where a woman can safely wander about with two triangles covering the very front of her breasts, connected by thin straps and be considered(under the law – Not counting te opinion of others) descent in general. So long as the nipples are covered. Yet men can show off their nipples freely, without needing to worry about being arrested.

Looking at today’s society, one wonders what decency matters anymore. Full frontal nudity is not unheard off in movies with an R rating. Beach ware, as noted before, as reached the point of silliness in how little is covered and how much is left open to view. Tight shirts and pants, low rise, deep cleavage and other such ways of showing it off have begun to make clothing less and less modest and more showy.

Will it matter in five.. ten years? In fifty? In a century? Perhaps in time we’ll come to the point where nudity is not a taboo issue. Do you think it possible? I’m sure folk back then had no idea that things would be how they are today. Who can say what comes? The subject is a strange one to me and ripe with ironies and in consistencies. But that is usually the nature of subjective cultural taboos.

Five minute later update: Here’s a poll for the ladies who read this. If you were allowed to go topless as much as men without fear of being arrested, would you? If you would, when and why? If not, why not?