<< Nudity >>

Since sexual arousal does not depend solely upon genital stimulation, and may in many cases develop from the stimulation of other parts of the body, it is inevitable that most persons should find coitus more effective when they are nude and can make maximum body contacts. Nudity may also provide an opportunity for the one partner to be stimulated psychologically (particularly in the case of the male) by observing the nude body of the other partner. Considering these advantages in nude coitus—and not forgetting the evolutionary emergence of the human species out of unclothed mammalian stocks—it seems reasonable to conclude that the avoidance of nudity during coitus is a perversion of what is, in a biologic sense, normal sexuality.

Some of the females in the sample reported, however, that they were usually or always clothed during their coitus. This was true of a full third (33 per cent) of those who were born before 1900. But there had been a considerable change in attitudes among the females who were born immediately after 1900 and who, in consequence, were married in the late teens or 1920’s, immediately after the first World War. Since then the incidences of nude coitus have continued to increase, and only 8 per cent of the females of the youngest generation reported that they were clothed in most of their coitus.

It may again be noted that 90 per cent of the upper level males have intercourse without clothing (Table 95b), and still others would prefer it so, if circumstances allowed. The female is more often inhibited on this point than the male, but at upper social levels she usually comes to accept this as the normal accompaniment of coitus. A large proportion of the pre-marital coitus of the females in the sample had occurred under circumstances in which it had been possible for the participants to become completely nude. About 64 per cent of those who had had pre-marital coitus twenty-five times or more had had a large proportion of it nude. Another 15 per cent reported some less frequent use of nudity. The figures were still higher for the better educated females, where as many as 78 per cent had frequently had their pre-marital coitus without clothing, while another 13 per cent had had some portion of it nude.

Not more than 43 per cent of the grade school level ever has intercourse without clothing, for nudity is more commonly taboo at those levels. There is evidence (Table 95b) that nudity has been accepted by upper level groups more freely within more recent generations. This is one point in human sexual behavior to which arguments as to what is natural and what is unnatural have never been applied, for there can be no question of the fact that intercourse without clothing is biologically normal, and that the custom of having intercourse with clothing is a distinctly cultural acquirement. But the upper social level returns to what is biologically normal behavior only after a considerable rationalization and a reasoned break with the mores.

Table 95b. Nudity among males at three educational levels, in three generations
  Educ.
Level		 Nudity Among Males
At Three Educational Levels
All Ages Adol.-25 26-45 46+
Cases % Cases % Cases % Cases %
In sleep; frequent 0-8 724 16.1 271 19.6 296 14.5 157 13.4
9-12 486 34.1 256 34.8 187 34.2   
13 + 2407 41.1 1412 34.9 832 52.2 163 37.4
In coitus. Pre-marital. Frequent 0-8 436 31.7 198 32.8 181 32.6 57 24.5
9-12 366 45.1 217 52.1 126 37.3   
13 + 894 54.9 456 52.2 407 58.7   
In coitus. Marital. Frequent 0-8 383 42.8 54 63.0 208 43.3 121 33.1
9-12 205 66.3 55 81.8 118 67.0   
13 + 924 89.2 184 92.4 598 90.8 142 78.1

Ages shown represent ages of subjects at time of reporting.
Consequently it may be expected that the incidence data for the youngest generation,
although they are already higher than any other on most items,
will go still higher before this group reaches the age of the oldest generation shown in the table.


The fear of observing the nude human body constitutes one of the most curious phenomena in human history. In many cultures, the world around, people have been much exercised by questions of propriety in the public exposure of portions or the whole of the nude body. There are few matters on which customs are more specific, and few items of sexual behavior which bring more intense reactions when the custom is transgressed. These customs vary tremendously between cultures and nations, and even between the individual communities in particular countries. The inhabitant of the Central American tropics has one custom, the Indian who comes down from his mountain home to trade in the lowland has totally different customs. There is neither rhyme nor reason to the custom — there is nothing but tradition to explain it. The mountain Indian of the warmer country of Southern Mexico is thoroughly clothed, the mountain Indian of the coldest part of Northern Mexico is more completely nude than the natives of the hottest Mexican tropics. But there are probably no groups in the world who are free of taboos of some sort on this point. The history of the origin of clothing is more often one of taboos on nudity than a story of the utility of body coverings.

The strictly Orthodox Jewish code is extreme in condemning all nudity, either of the whole or of any part of the body except the face and the hands, in prohibiting the observation of such nudity, and in forbidding the exposure of nude bodies either in public or in the privacy of one’s home—even during the coital relationships of married spouses, or in the solitude of changing one’s clothing, or in bathing. The strictly Orthodox Jewish Code has forbidden nude coitus for some 2000 years.
    The Jewish attitude toward nudity is admirably summarized in Epstein 1948: 25-67. See also: Bible: Ezekiel 16:36-39 (nudity among lovers condemned). The following are from the Babylonian Talmud, Epstein edit.: Kethuboth 72a-72b:448, 451 (uncovered head of female not to be exposed in public). Nedarim 30b:87 (woman's hair should be covered). Gittin 90b:438 (uncovered armpits unseemly for women). Baba Kamma 86b:496-497 (whether one who insults a naked person is liable). Sanhedrin 45a:295; 75a:505 (woman cannot stand nude before a man even to save his life).
    For the Jewish requirements that coitus be in the dark or semi-dark, and the rule against observing the nude female or female genitalia, even though the female be the wife, see: Ganzfried 1927(4):14. Epstein 1948:25-31.

The English are more or less justly reputed to be the most completely clothed people in the world, and Americans have been slow in breaking away from the English tradition. The American visitor to foreign lands is often amazed at the exposure which is allowed in some other cultures, and he criticizes it on moral grounds. The nudity of the French burlesque is ascribed to the “low morality” of Frenchmen as a group; and although an approach is made to the same sort of display in American burlesque, the institution here does not achieve the same free acceptance of complete nudity which the original French has. The German nudist movement is assumed by the average American to be immoral in intent, and its counterpart in this country survives only after considerable public discussion and continual wrangling in court over the obscenity of such activity. Although Anglo-American law has tried for six or seven centuries to define indecent exposure, there is no legal agreement on the decency or indecency of nude art, nor on the rights of art schools, photographers, magazines, and books to portray the nude human form. Public sentiment, backed by sporadic police action, has dictated the styles of bathing suits, from the gay nineties down to the present. It is only within the last decade or two that the male’s right to appear in swimming trunks without tops has been established for public swimming beaches and pools.

More definite limits may be set on nudity than on more overtly sexual activities. The kissing which is commonplace in American films is considered most immoral in some of the foreign countries to which the films are distributed. A completely nude art production may be shown in a Latin American moving picture theatre to an audience which takes the film complacently, for its artistic value, although it will hiss the next picture off the screen because it contains a Hollywood kissing scene.

The acceptance of nudity may even vary with the hour and the place of the exposure. The costume which is accepted on the swimming beach is strictly forbidden in most other places. In the middle of the day, the female may safely expose her arms in public, although she is then limited in regard to the exposure of her back. At the formal affair in the evening, she may expose the whole of her back, but she is then most proper if she covers her arms with long gloves. In a Latin American tropic town, inside a public building, there may be considerable objection when one rolls his shirt sleeves to the elbow, even on the hottest summer day; but out of doors both men and women may go stripped to the waist through the streets of the town, and all of them may come together for nude bathing in the nearby stream. It would require a considerable treatise to portray the reactions of the peoples of the world to nudity, and a larger treatise to explain the origins of those customs.

Most amazing of all, customs in regard to nudity may vary between the social levels of a single community. In our American culture, there is a greater acceptance of nudity at upper social levels, and greater restraint at lower social levels. Compared with previous generations, there is a more general acceptance of nudity in the upper social level today (Table 95b). There is an increasing amount of nudity within the family circle in this upper level. There is rather free exposure in the home for both sexes, including the parents and the children of all ages, at times of dressing and at times of bathing. Still more significant, there is an increasing habit among upper level persons of sleeping in partial or complete nudity (Table 95b). This is probably more common among males, though there is a considerable number of upper level females who also sleep nude. Among the males of the college level, nearly half (41%) frequently sleep nude, about one-third (34%) of the high school males do so, but only one-sixth (16%) of the males of the grade school level sleep that way.

Half of the married females in the sample had regularly slept nude. Some 37 per cent of the females born before 1900 recorded such experience; but there had been a considerable development of this practice within more recent years, and 59 per cent of the females in the sample who had been born after 1920 recorded nudity in sleep. There is every indication that the percentages are still increasing, much to the consternation of the manufacturers of night clothing.

Finally, the upper level considers nudity almost an essential concomitant of intercourse. About 90 per cent of the persons at this level regularly have coitus nude (Table 95b). The upper level finds it difficult to comprehend that anyone should regularly and as a matter of preference have intercourse while clothed. This group uses clothing only under unusual circumstances, or when variety and experimentation are the desired objectives in the intercourse. On the other hand, nude coitus is regularly had by only 66 per cent of those who never go beyond high school, and by 43 per cent of those who never go beyond grade school.

This intercourse with clothing is not a product of the inconveniences of the lower level home, nor is it dependent upon the difficulties of securing privacy in a small home, as too many sociologists have gratuitously assumed. It is primarily the product of the lower level’s conviction that nudity is obscene. It is obscene in the presence of strangers, and it is even obscene in the presence of one’s spouse. Some of the older men and women in this group take pride in the fact that they have never seen their own spouses nude.

Many persons at this level strictly avoid nudity while dressing or undressing. They acquire a considerable knack of removing daytime clothing and of putting on night clothing, without ever exposing any part of the body. This is less often true of the younger generation which has been exposed to the mixture of social levels encountered in the CCC camps, the Y.M.C.A., and the Army and the Navy. Exposure of the upper half of the male body on swimming beaches started as an upper level custom, but the democracy of the public beach has fostered a much wider acceptance of nudity among lower social levels today. Compare the three generations of the educational level 0-8 in Table 95b. Younger males, even of the laboring groups, are often seen at work, out of doors, in public view, while stripped to the waist; but older males of the same social level still keep their arms covered to the wrist, even on the hottest of days and while engaged in the most uncomfortable of jobs. These inroads on the traditions against nudity are reflected in the sleeping and coital customs of younger persons of these lower levels, but the older members of these groups still observe the traditions. There are some cases of lower level males who have been highly promiscuous, who have had intercourse with several hundred females, and who emphasize the fact that they have never turned down an opportunity to have intercourse except “on one occasion when the girl started to remove her clothing before coitus. She was too indecent to have intercourse with!”

It represents a considerable break with our cultural past when we find 92 per cent of the younger generation forgetting its offense at the sight of a nude sexual partner and its fear of physical contact with that nude body. This sort of change is, of course, reflected in the styles of clothing, in swimming costumes, in an increasing spread of near nudity in all sorts of outdoor activities, in an increased acceptance of nude art, in freer discussions of the nude form, in an increase in nudity within the household circle, and in a variety of other developments in our present-day American patterns of living. In view of recently intensified attempts by censoring agencies to impose stricter controls on the exposure of the human body, and on its portrayal in photography or in art, it is especially interesting to find this increase in the acceptance of nudity in marital relationships. Evidently most persons are not in sympathy with the censorship which a small but vigorous minority has been attempting to impose on the whole American population.

As we have already pointed out for the male, there are considerable differences in attitudes toward nudity at different social levels. This is now confirmed by the data for the female. Some 33 per cent of the females in the sample who had never gone beyond high school, but only 15 per cent of the females who had college backgrounds and only 9 per cent of those who ultimately went on into graduate work, reported that they had never been nude in their pre-marital experience. This is no new development, for the trends are present in the four decades on which we have data. The lower level and high school females who reported that they had never been nude during their pre-marital coitus probably had retained their clothing because they shared the attitudes of their social level, and not because circumstances forced them to do so.

Observing Genitalia
Most heterosexual males are aroused by observing female breasts or legs, or some other part of the female body. They are usually aroused when they see female genitalia. A smaller percentage of the females in the sample (of 617 to whom the question was put) reported erotic arousal as a product of their observation of male genitalia, and more than half (52 per cent) reported that they had never been aroused by observing male genitalia. The record is as follows:
Observing genitalia of opposite sex
Erotic Response by Females by Males
%%
Definite and/or frequent 21 many
Some response 27 many
Never 52few
Number of cases 617  

Many females are surprised to learn that there is anyone who finds the observation of male genitalia erotically stimulating. Many females consider that male genitalia are ugly and repulsive in appearance, and the observation of male genitalia may actually inhibit their erotic responses. It may be true, as psychoanalysts suggest, that the negative reactions of females to male genitalia may originate in unpleasant sexual experiences with males; but there seems no doubt that these reactions largely depend upon the fact that most females are not psychologically stimulated, as males are, by objects which are associated with sex.

Among the infra-human species of mammals there seem to be something of the same differences between the reactions of females and males to the genitalia of the opposite sex. For instance, a female monkey or ape grooming the body of a male who may become aroused erotically, may pay no attention to the male’s erect genitalia. On the other hand, when male apes and monkeys groom females, they usually show considerable interest in the female genitalia, and explore around and within the genital cavity. Male rats, guinea pigs, dogs, raccoons, skunks, porcupines, and many other male animals may similarly explore at considerable length about the genitalia of the female, but the females of these species less often explore about the genitalia of the male. Any interpretation of the human female’s lack of interest in male genitalia must take into account the similar situation among these infra-human species.
We base this statement on our own observations and on discussions with several who have been on the staff of the Yerkes Laboratories at Orange Park, Florida. Dr. Nissen of that staff sums up their data by observing that in the chimpanzee the head, back, limbs, and anus of the male receive the most grooming attention by the grooming partner (whether female or male), and that the ventral body surface and genitalia receive the least. When the male grooms the female he concentrates considerable attention upon the sexual skin and anal area, and may make anal or vaginal insertions occasionally. Shadle (verbal communic.) is the source of the data on the skunk and porcupine.

Most human males with homosexual interests are aroused, and in most instances strongly aroused, by seeing male genitalia. Genital exposures and genital exhibitions are frequently employed to interest other males in homosexual contacts. In the course of a homosexual relationship among males, considerable attention may be given to the genital anatomy and genital reactions. Moreover, many males who are not conscious of homosexual reactions are interested in their own genitalia and in the genitalia of other males. But only a small percentage of the homosexual females is ever aroused erotically by seeing the genitalia of other females.

Observing Own Genitalia
A great many of the males in the sample (56 per cent) had been aroused by observing their own genitalia as they masturbated, or by viewing their genitalia in a mirror. Few (9 per cent) of the females in the sample had found any erotic stimulation in looking at their own genitalia. The specific data are as follows:
Observing own genitalia
Erotic Response by Females by Males
% %
Definite and/or frequent 1 25
Some response 8 31
Never 91 44
Number of cases 57253332

There were more males (56 per cent) who were aroused by observing their own genitalia than there were females (48 per cent) who were aroused by observing male genitalia. The male’s arousal may have a homosexual element in it, but many of the males who have never consciously recognized any other homosexual interests and have never had homosexual contacts may be aroused at seeing their own genitalia or the genitalia of other males.

Exhibitionism
Because of their interest in their own genitalia and their arousal upon seeing the genitalia of other persons, males quite generally believe that other persons would be aroused by seeing their genitalia. This seems to be the prime factor which leads many males to exhibit their genitalia to their wives, to other female partners, and to male partners in homosexual relationships.
The male chimpanzee frequently solicits the female by coming to erection, spontaneously or by masturbation, and exhibiting the erection to the female, according to: Yerkes and Elder 1936a:9. Nissen, verbal communic. Our observation.

It is difficult for most males to comprehend that females are not aroused by seeing male genitalia. Some males never come to comprehend this. Many a male is greatly disappointed when his wife fails to react to such a display, and concludes that she is no longer in love with him. On the contrary, many females feel that their husbands are vulgar, or perverted, or mentally disturbed, because they want to display their genitalia. We have seen difficulties develop in marital histories because of this failure of females to understand male psychology, and of males to understand female psychology. Divorces had grown out of some of these misunderstandings.

The male who exposes himself in a public place similarly secures erotic satisfaction primarily because he believes that the females who observe him are going to be aroused as he would be at seeing a genital exhibition. Sometimes the exhibitionist is aroused by the evident fright or confusion or other emotional reactions of the females who see him and, responding sympathetically, he may be stimulated by such an emotional display. But a considerable portion of the erotic arousal which the exhibitionist finds is a product of his anticipation that the female will be aroused, and this is evidenced by the fact that he is usually in erection before any passerby sees him. His reactions, therefore, may not depend entirely or even primarily upon the responses of the passing female.

There are some females who will show their genitalia to the male partner because they intellectually realize that this may mean something to him. But only an occasional female among those who exhibit receives any erotic arousal from this anticipation of the male’s responses. There are no cases in our sample, and practically none in the literature, of females publicly exhibiting their genitalia because they derived erotic satisfaction from such an exhibition.
That exhibitionism is infrequent among females in comparison to males, has also been recognized by: [Jacolliot] Jacobus X. 1900:347. Hirschfeld 1920(3):319; 1948:504. Kronfeld in Marcuse 1923:121. Bilder-Lexikon 1930(1):241. Brown 1940:383. Guyon 1948:319. Allen 1949:108. Exhibitionism is considered non-existent among females by: Walker and Strauss 1939:177-178. Fenichel 1945:346. Rickies 1950:49 (considers it due to the fact that women “have nothing to expose”). In a few pre-literate cultures, women may solicit men by deliberately exposing their own genitalia; see: Ford and Beach 1951:93.

Stage, night club, burlesque and other commercial exhibitions of female nudity almost never, as far as our sample indicates, provide erotic stimulation for the exhibiting females. Our specific data provide no physiologic evidence of arousal among the females staging such exhibitions, although some of them may acquire considerable facility in making body movements which are taken by many of the males in the audience to indicate that the exhibiting females are tremendously aroused. Most of the females in our histories who had been involved in such stage exhibitions, were highly distainful of males who could so easily be misled into believing that there was any real eroticism in such a performance.

Interest in Genital Manipulations
While the genitalia may be the chief focus of a considerable amount of sexual activity, this does not depend wholly on the fact that these organs are well supplied with end organs of touch. There are many other parts of the body which are similarly supplied with end organs, and the importance attached to the genitalia in a sexual relationship must partly depend upon the fact that most males and some females are psychologically conditioned to consider the genitalia as the structures which are primarily associated with sexual response.

This interpretation is favored by the fact that males attach much more importance to the genitalia than females do in a sexual relationship. But there is no reason for believing that the genitalia of the male are more richly supplied with end organs than the genitalia of the female. While genital erection may draw the male’s attention to his own genitalia, this does not suffice to interest most females in his genitalia.

Most males, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are inclined to initiate a sexual relationship through some genital exposure or genital manipulation. Most females prefer to be stimulated tactilely in various other parts of the body before the activity is concentrated on the genitalia. It is the constant complaint of married females that their husbands are interested in “nothing but the intercourse,” and by that they mean that he is primarily concerned with genital stimulation and an immediate genital union. On the other hand, it is the constant complaint of the married male that his wife “will do nothing to him,” which means, in most instances, that she does not tactilely stimulate his genitalia.

These same differences in the significance of genital activities are to be found in the homosexual activities of females and males. A high proportion of the homosexual contacts among males is initiated through some genital exposure or some sort of genital manipulation (groping). During the actual relationships most homosexual males are likely to prefer more genital than non-genital stimulation. But in female homosexual relationships, the stimulation of all parts of the body may proceed for some period of time before there is any concentration of attention on the genitalia. We have histories of exclusively homosexual females who had had overt relationships for ten or fifteen years before they attempted any sort of genital stimulation.

Homosexual females frequently criticize homosexual males because they are interested in nothing but genitalia; homosexual males, in turn, may criticize homosexual females because “they do nothing” in a homosexual relationship. The idea that homosexuality is a sexual inversion is dispelled when one hears homosexual females criticizing homosexual males for exactly the same reasons which lead many wives to criticize their husbands, and when one hears homosexual males criticize homosexual females for exactly the things which husbands criticize in their wives. In fact, homosexual males, in their intensified interest in male genitalia and genital activity, often exhibit the most extreme examples of a typically male type of conditioning.

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