By Amanda Knox

Soaking for several hours with eight other naked women in a hot tub, in an open room in the spa with three other similarly packed tubs, I pondered two things: tattoos (because there were a smattering of those to appreciate), and the lack of opportunities we have in our society to be naked.

It’s too bad, is my first thought. I enjoy the rare occasion that I find myself comfortably and respectfully naked with other adult women of all ages, colors, shapes, and sizes. There’s a nice camaraderie to it, a shared fleshy humanness. Perhaps because our bodies are as unique and inextricably part of who we are as our sense of self. I appreciate when we get to experience that part of each other, without judgment or shame.
Not everyone thinks so, of course. It’s an ongoing discussion even within my own family. What’s the big deal? I ask. I don’t want to see that! some of them say. And no one wants to see me! The fundamental polarity between these perspectives makes it feel like we must be talking about completely different things.

But we aren’t. We’re talking modesty. We’re talking social convention. And I understand that social conventions are important. They are the most immediate, even unconscious, means by which we all agree to play nicely with each other. But it’s important to also remember that social conventions are not natural (they are not inherent laws of nature/reality, like, say...gravity), and they are also mutable. That’s why the boundaries of modesty even within our own country differ community to community (head coverings vs. long sleeves vs. tank tops), and have changed over time—it wasn’t until the mid-1930’s that in the United States bans against male bare-chestedness at beaches were lifted*.

Social conventions are boundaries we set for ourselves and for each other, and are often enforced by legalization. We should be mindful what we are agreeing to, and why. If a social convention no longer makes sense, then the community should change it. If a social convention makes sense, but is unfair, then for the sake of fairness, the community should revisit their reasoning. Which leads to my question: if modesty is the convention of behaving and appearing so as to avoid offending established boundaries of propriety and decency, have we all agreed to clothe our nudity because our naked bodies are in and of themselves indecent?

What makes something indecent? Or more specifically, what about the naked body is indecent? My best guess is the sexual implication our society attributes to it. Legally you can go about your way in public so long as your genital organs are clothed. Or in the case of women, also your nipples, even though the same social standard enforced by law doesn’t apply to men.

I’m going to have to pause and nitpick here. The only way this discrepancy in law and social convention makes sense is if we all agree that a woman’s nipples are indecent (sexually implicating) and a man’s nipples are not. Why do we think that? Why do we think that so strongly, even, that breastfeeding in public, while not illegal, is socially frowned upon? Breastfeeding is not a sexual act. And I would argue that the sexual implications of men’s nipples and women’s nipples are the same—it depends on what you’re doing with them. If we’re to go off the legalization of male bare-chestedness, we agree that the mere act of being bare-chested in certain public spaces is not in and of itself a sexual or indecent act.

Or do we agree that sexual implications of a woman’s body exist where they do not exist for a man’s body? Is a woman’s body, in and of itself, a sexual object? Is that why some people argue that female victims of rape are at least partially to blame because they had not adequately obscured their inherent sexuality from their predators?

There was a time in our history that the sight of a woman’s ankle was considered provocative.

But let’s stick to our times. I got my first short skirt in the spring of my senior year in high school. It was a skort, actually, but the point is I was showing leg. And I liked it. My stepdad had something to say about that, of course. He gave me an extendable club to carry in my purse and explained, “You have every right to wear what you want. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who will see you and may try to take advantage of you because they cannot control themselves. If something like that should happen, hit them.”

I appreciated his gesture at the time, but I more fully appreciate it now. My stepdad understood that my body is not fundamentally a sexual object, and whoever may decide that it is and try to lay claim to it deserves a (painful) re-education.

I’ve entered territory I think most people can agree with, but what of nudity? Well, before my body, or parts of my body, are considered indecent, sexually implicating objects to anyone else’s subjective point of view, it is me. It is everything that I feel and do in the physical world. Same goes for you. If we’re going to be so weird and judgey and shaming and taboo about ourselves, I think we would do ourselves a service to revisit our reasoning, stripped to its barest.

* Steven Nelson. Topless Rights Movement Sees Women’s Equality on Horizon. U.S.News.com. Aug, 26, 2015.