The Naked Child Growing Up Without Shame
<< Appendix A >>
The empirical data: a closer look
by William Sparks and Candace Kurstin-Young
A look at the respondents’ replies: an examination of the data with some revisions
In the five years since this chapter was first written, the professional literature has reflected the lay public’s concern with childhood sexuality, particularly the incidence and frequency of sexual abuse in the population. Clearly, the McMartin Preschool case in Los Angeles, California, with its lengthy pretrial hearing and attendant revelations which received national press coverage, has served in many ways to make people more concerned about early childhood sexual experiences and their impact on later development of both personality and adult sexuality. In trying to determine the impact of sexual abuse in childhood, investigators are perforce required to consider what is a “normal” (i.e., non-abused) course of sexual development. Simply, what do most children experience sexually as they grow from infancy to adulthood? Only when we have a reasonably accurate and complete model of human sexual development from infancy to adulthood can any investigator hope to make accurate predictions about the deleterious impact of early sexual experiences on later adult sexual functioning.
Recent concern and preoccupation with child sexual abuse has had the beneficial impact of increasing interest and willingness to investigate sexuality in childhood. Still, there is much apprehension and reluctance to admit that children are sexual even at very young ages. There appears to be a general feeling that if one admits the existence of childhood sexuality one is advocating its expression and encouraging a questionable morality that permits sexual contact between age peers as well as possible contact with adults. As Constantine and Martinson, in Children and Sex: New Findings, New Perspectives (1981), page 5, have commented about their research into incest, “Journalists have interpreted research on the effects of incest as indicative of an active campaign to undermine the taboo and destroy the family. In this frightening arena, investigation becomes tantamount to advocacy.”
As in the study of incest in particular, so it is in the case of childhood sexuality per se. In America, there is a generalized anxiety about sexuality in childhood. The public seems to consider those who attempt to understand and investigate it as being somehow involved in malfeasance. Constantine and Martinson see the existing charts of childhood sexuality as analogous to the old maps of the unexplored New World, where an ancient cartographer would identify the unknown sections with the words “Here there be Dragons.” Certainly, one of the “Dragons” of childhood sexuality is social nudity.
In time, the dragons of the New World were faced and exposed as ordinary creatures, recognized by all. This same exploration and discovery must be made in the sacrosanct area of childhood sexuality before we can deal sensibly with human sexuality.
What follows is a revision of Chapter Four of the first edition. A substantial part of the text remains unchanged. Where there has been new data from the professional literature to update observations and modify conclusions (given the original database and method), the text has been altered appropriately. The substantive changes have occurred primarily in the discussions of childhood sexual experiences with siblings. Recent research (mostly unavailable or unknown to the authors when the first edition went to press) has extended our knowledge base and understanding of sex. It is gratifying to note that most of the conclusions drawn in the first edition have withstood the test of time and been verified by other investigators.
“My Little Pieta”, 2015 – Lukas Roels
The analysis: research foundations
The notion that social nudity during childhood is detrimental to the child’s normative course of development is largely a cultural belief rather than a demonstrated outcome. As early chapters in this book have illustrated, many “experts” or “authorities” would lead people to believe that exposing children to nudity in or outside the home increases the risk that children will most likely be maladjusted during adulthood, especially in their sexual behavior (see Spock, 1977; Brothers, 1974, Dobson, 1970). Certainly, Freud, his followers and revisionists, have helped to lay claim to the foundation of such a belief. Freud, in his book An Outline of Psychoanalysis, as well as in Eros and Civilization, suggests that parental nudity in front of children during their early years can accentuate Oedipal or Electral crises for the child. Briefly, Freud argues that the child views the same-sex parent as a competitor for the opposite-sex parent’s attention and affection. This parental affection has an underlying sexual theme for the child, and if the child is unable to resolve the competition with the opposite-sex parent, he or she may become fixated (developmentally arrested). Such fixations are thought to be disruptive in terms of the child’s later ability to form wholesome heterosexual relationships in adulthood. Indeed, Justice and Justice (1979) in their discussion of measures to help prevent incestuous contacts admonish parents, “Don’t overstimulate the child by walking around the house nude, by continuing to take showers or baths with the child....” (pp. 214-15); and “The time for parents to let the child see them in the nude and to become aware of the adult anatomy is early, when the child is a toddler.” (p. 215)
While the above theory is interesting and certainly an integral part of Freud’s doctrine of the child’s psychosexual development, it remains only a theory, without empirical support of any kind (cf. Coleman, 1975; Miller, 1979). The Oedipal theme is resplendent throughout Freudian and some Neo-Freudian literature, yet none of these authors provide empirical support to substantiate the theory. As theory and perhaps as part of the lay person’s assumptions about child development, attenuation of the Oedipal crisis is often translated into the dictum that parents (or any adult, for that matter) should not appear nude in front of a child. Freud’s theory is consistent with Western civilization’s religious traditions, where nudity is considered unwholesome and at times sinful. As such, the cultural prohibitions against nudity are part of the tapestry of our cultural myth, or what Rokeach (1968) calls “primitive beliefs” which “...have an axiomatic, taken-for-granted character (p.6). Oskamp (1977) illustrates the importance and centrality of such beliefs in the individual’s perception of his/her world by describing the individual’s reaction when such beliefs are challenged. He states, “...an effective challenge may produce astonishment, disbelief in the challenge, anger, intense anxiety, or even pathological symptoms of withdrawal and confusion if continued long enough” (p.55).
The issue is therefore framed by the emotionally loaded question: Is nudity, particularly social nudity, detrimental to the child’s normal course of social and sexual development in our culture? Also, does exposure to social nudity during childhood and adolescence result in aberrations in adult behavior, such as sexual variations (homosexuality, bisexuality, etc.), sexual dysfunction, and an inability to form and maintain typical heterosexual relationships (monogamous marriages, child bearing and rearing, etc.)? Does it interfere with “normal” occupational development? If social nudity is detrimental to such adult behaviors, in what way does it negatively, detrimentally affect them? Certainly, these questions and others are intriguing; yet little or no data, beyond theoretical conjecture, exist to answer these questions. The following analysis is a brief and introductory attempt to answer them and to remedy this situation.
Some years ago, Dennis Smith approached me and queried my professional knowledge about the issue of a child’s exposure to social nudity and its developmental consequences. At that time, I was unable to respond definitively to his question. I glibly suggested that he do some research. What follows is the result of Dennis’ first attempt to do social research and follow my advice. I warned him that doing such research was time-consuming, costly, and required some training.
Dennis persisted and, with occasional suggestions from me, was able to accomplish his task. He constructed a self-report questionnaire (see Appendix B) which he sent to a located population of adults who had been raised as social nudists. The parents of these people had either attended some social nudist camp or were nudists within the privacy of their own homes. As a group, these adults were exposed to social nudity consistently over the majority of their childhood. As a target population, this group of people is tremendously interesting in that they had childhoods that differ from the population at large. They were social nudists as children. Having gathered these data from the responses he received, Dennis approached me to help in the empirical analysis. My review of these data led to my agreement to perform the empirical analyses and to formulate some appropriate interpretations. This study is based on the self-reports of the adults who volunteered to participate in the project.
Two issues are immediately apparent when referring to this population of adults. Firstly, this sample of respondents was selected in a non-random manner. Thus, it is impossible to say how representative a sample of persons they are when they were compared to all persons who were raised as social nudists. Secondly, these people were volunteers, and it is impossible to determine, there is no way to say whether these volunteers were similar to and truly representative of those persons with the same background who did not volunteer to fill out and return the questionnaire.
Amoroso and Brown (1973) have argued that volunteers and non-volunteers may be decidedly different on a number of dimensions regarding sex behavior and attitudes. Particularly, these investigators argue that there is no way to validate, as to their accuracy and honesty, respondents’ answers on questionnaires. Indeed, Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, and Gebhard (1953) warned that a respondent’s answer may be “...affected by: (1) a simple failure to recall, at the moment, events that should have been made a part of the record; (2) more specific errors (distortions) of memory; (3) some failure to comprehend the nature of the events when they originally took place; (4) emotional blockages which interfere with the subject’s ability to make an objective report; (5) deliberate cover-up or misrepresentation of the fact; and (6) some deliberate exaggeration of the fact” (p.66).
Any study that relies on self-report can suffer from all of the above biases that might distort the study’s ability to assess the true state of affairs in sexual development and present sexual functioning. Yet, Kaats and Davis (1971) report that they were unable to find differences in behavior, attitudes and values, and some personality dimensions between volunteers and non-volunteers who were asked to report on their sexual development and present sexual functioning. Kinsey et al (1953) have suggested and used other sources of data from studies that had similar research populations in order to compare their data with data from other investigators. In general, such comparisons have increased confidence in the reliability and validity of sexual data by demonstrating that one study’s outcomes are similar to another study’s outcomes. This comparative technique will be used in this narrative.
In summation, the generalizations and interpretations of these persons’ data are representative of only this sample of respondents, and cannot, without great caution, be generalized to the larger population of persons who were raised as social nudists. Nonetheless, this study constitutes the first empirical look at such a group of adults, and, as such, constitutes the beginnings of a larger research effort on our part.
The research method
Dennis Smith constructed a 100-item self-report protocol which is divided into five parts (see Appendix B). The first section queried subject demographic data (i.e., age, sex, marital status, etc.). The second part asked 49 yes/no questions about the subject’s social nudity experiences, sexual development, parent/family background, indications of social pathology and religiosity. The third section was comprised of 20 closed-end questions that queried present sexual functioning, current nudist activities and childhood experiences. The fourth part consisted of 15 opinion statements by well-known authors and asked the respondents to indicate the degree of their agreement (i.e., a four-step Likert-type response scale) about these attitude-opinion statements. The final section was four open-ended questions about their current beliefs and attitudes about themselves.
The protocol was designed to be self-administered by volunteers who were recruited through advertisements in national nudist magazines (i.e., “Bare in Mind,” “Florida Nude Scene,” “Elysium Journal, and “American Sunbathing Association Bulletin”) and notices in The Village Voice and the Los Angeles Free Press. The ads were run for a 12-month period from June, 1977, through May, 1978. Seventy-two self-report protocols were sent to prospective respondents who had written to Dennis Smith for the questionnaire. Respondents returned 66 protocols, which resulted in a 91.7% return rate. This is a high return rate. Most such studies have only a 10 to 25% rate of return by mail (Miller, 1973). As a non-equivalent comparison group, 70 college men and women at a southern California state college were recruited to fill out the self-report protocol as a measure of the instrument validity, as well as to provide some comparison of responses on the attitude-opinion survey. The college group was queried in the spring of 1978.
All protocols had to have 95% of the items completed, and include a willingness to release data for the study (i.e., Question No. 100) before the protocol was included in the data pool. In all, 66 protocols were returned from the social nudist group, but 6 were discarded for incomplete responses. The college group returned 70 protocols during the class sessions, but 3 were eliminated from this group for incompleteness or an unwillingness to release the data for publication. The data were coded and keypunched, then submitted to analysis. What follows are the results of these analyses.
Social nudist sample demography
Of the 60 men and women who completed the protocol, 33 were males (55% of the respondents) and 27 were females (45%). The respondents resided across the continental United States. The overall mean (average) age of these respondents was 29.9 years, with a range of 17 years to 63 years old. Their educational backgrounds ranged from elementary schooling to possession of a doctorate degree, where the modal (most frequent) response was completed college (see Table 1). The respondents’ marital status indicated the majority were single (48.3%) and some 38% were currently married. Most of the social nudists (68.3%) did not have children, whereas 31.7% had one or more children. Of those who were or had been married, 90% of the respondents had been married once. In the most definitive study on social nudism to be completed at this juncture, Hartman, Fithian, Johnson’s (1971) subjects were primarily married (75%) men and women with established families. Both the present group of respondents and Hartman et al’s group (see Table 1) characterized their marriages as “very” or “somewhat successful or happy (Hartman, Fithian, and Johnson, p. 137).
Table #1.
Educational and Marital Status of Social Nudists
(n=60) Frequency (Percent)
Educational Status
Elementary School -- 1 (1.7%)
High School -- 18 (30.0%)
College -- 30 (50.4%)
Master’s -- 8 (13.4%) (Grad School)
Ph.D. -- 3 (5.0%)
Marital Status
Married -- 23 (38.3%)
Single -- 29 (48.3%)
Divorced -- 6 (10.0%)
Separated -- 1 (1.7%)
Missing Data -- 1 (1.7%)
The majority of the social nudists were employed in skilled or higher occupations (see Table 2). They had held their present jobs for an average of 6 years and had experienced a mean of 3.4 jobs within the last 10 years. The median income per annum was $10,050. The social nudists had been out of school and working for an average of 7.25 years.
Table #2.
Occupational Status of Social Nudists
(n=60) Frequency (Percent)
Professional -- 7 (11.7%)
Executive Management -- 4 (6.7%)
Management/Supervision -- 15 (25.0%)
Technician -- 12 (20.0%)
Skilled -- 15 (25.0%)
Semiskilled -- 2 (3.4%)
Unskilled -- 1 (1.7%)
Missing Data -- 4 (6.7%)
As a group, the social nudists did not view themselves as being very religious: 53.3% of them labeled themselves as “agnostic” or “atheist,” while only 8.3% attended church regularly. Interestingly, 53.3% indicated a belief in an afterlife. In comparison, Hartman et al found that less than half of their respondents reported religious affiliation and 18.3% of them never attended church (about 23.4% attend “frequently”).
For the most part, the social nudist respondents appeared to be well-educated individuals whose incomes were slightly below the national median ($10,410). They appear to be stable job holders who have had their present positions for some time. The respondents are a young group who appear to be just entering marriage and childbearing ages. The majority (75%) of the respondents are no longer in school and have entered the labor force.
The social nudists reported that they perceived their careers as “very successful” (38.3%) or “somewhat successful” (23.3%) while some 6.7% of them said they were unsuccessful and 18.3% reported “unfulfilled careers.”
In terms of income, occupation, and educational levels, the social nudist respondents would be classified as middle-class to upper-middle-class persons — as defined by Hollingshead and Redlich (1958). Hartman et al (1977) found their respondents to be middle-to-upper-middle-class persons with incomes about the national average for the most part (cf. pp. 96-103). The present group of nudists-respondents were somewhat younger than those in Hartman et al’s group and had middle-class educational and social backgrounds.
Mental health indicators
The protocol called out a number of responses as to the past and present mental health of respondents. To the question 12 (Have you ever been treated for mental illness?), 90% of the social nudist group responded no. For item 13 (Have you ever employed the services of a psychiatrist?), 71.7% of the social nudist group indicated a no response. The more general item 17 (Have you ever contemplated suicide?), drew a 31.7% yes response for the social nudist group. To item 18 (Have you ever thought you might be insane?), 18.3% of the social nudist group responded yes. The last two response percentages were well within the yes response rate for most middle-class, college-educated people when asked similar kinds of questions (Segal, 1975). For the most part, the social nudists did not indicate a noticeable departure from their social-economic-status peers in terms of the incidence of psychiatric treatment or incidence of self-judgments as to their sanity or their thoughts about suicide.
Social development
The great majority (85.0%) of the social nudists were raised by one or both of their natural parents. Nudity at home was a common practice, for 90% of the social nudists answered yes to item 23 (Did your family participate in nudity at home?). Interestingly, nudity at home was pervasive enough so that 43.3% of the social nudists indicated a yes response to item 24 (Was it common to dine in the nude?). Hartman et al (1971) found that 88.7% of their sample of 432 social nudists were nudists at home, and 46.5% of these persons commonly had meals in the nude (p.432). Some 28.3% of the social nudist group indicated that they had lived permanently with their parents in a nudist camp at some time during their childhood. For the social nudists, most of them (66.7%) had never wished for different parents. A majority (76.7%) of social nudists indicated that they see their parents as often as once a month at present. The above responses generally indicated that for the social nudist group, nudity at home or at some recreational areas (nudist camps) was a common experience. The respondents reported fairly stable family structures (i.e., having been raised by natural parents). Indeed, 66.7% of the social nudists labeled their adolescence as “stable” and/or “happy.” Less than 18% of them report an “emotionally troubled” adolescence.
Laure-Agneray
Sexual development
Before reviewing the sexual-development data, it is valuable, illustrative for the lay observer to understand some important issues in the problem of gathering data about childhood or from children and adolescents. First, most such data are self-report responses rather than direct or indirect observations. As a result, the investigations must typically rely, as Kinsey, Pomeroy, Wardell (1948) and Kinsey et al (1953) did, on self-reports from adults who are asked to recall information from distant events. The problems of accurate recall are self-evident, and have been reviewed earlier. Secondly, as Sorensen (1973) indicates, there is a general reluctance in our culture to probe too deeply or insistently into childhood sexuality. As Freud found out in the early part of this century, to his professional castigation, inquiries into childhood sexuality and its development (or even its existence) are perilous to one’s social standing in the community and, sometimes, even with one’s colleagues. As a result of these issues and others, there is, among social scientists, only fragmentary undertaking of the study of human sexual development (cf. Sorensen, 1973; Pengley, 1974; and Hettlinger, 1975).
The protocol queried respondents as to a number of different sexual experiences that they might have had as children. The issue here is whether or not children as nudists might have been more sexually active than other non-nudist children. For example, to item 28 (In adolescent years, did you have sex games with other children your age?), some 71.7% of the social nudists responded positively. Item 29 asks a similar question about an earlier age period, and with older children. To that question, 31.6% of the respondents indicated that they had engaged in sex play with older children. To item 26 (Did you ever participate in sex play with brothers and sisters?), 36.7% of the nudists said they had had such experiences with their siblings. Interestingly, only 7.5% who responded “yes” to the above item indicated any guilt about their sex playing.
When queried as to their sex lives as teenagers, 35% of the social nudists stated that they “experimented at times” and 26.7% were fairly active sexually and “open with parents” (see Table 3). Of particular interest is the fact that nine social nudists reported that they had sexual intercourse with a member of their natural family. This outcome constituted 15% of the social nudist group. The presumption is that these coital activities occurred among brothers and sisters or cousins, in that the respondents were later queried as to coital behaviors, if any, with their parents and the response was different.
Table #3.
Item #73: How would you describe your sex life as a teenager?
(n=60) Frequency (Percent). Multiple responses in some cases
Non-existent -- 11 (18.3%)
Experimenting at times -- 21 (35.0%)
Active in early years -- 6 (10.0%)
Inactive in early years -- 15 (25.0%)
Very active throughout -- 13 (21.7%)
Open about it to parents -- 16 (26.7%)
Embarrassed about it around parents -- 4 (6.7%)
It is apparent that a higher percentage of social nudists reported participating in sex games (play) with other children than groups of persons studied by Kinsey et al (1948, 1953) and Hass (1979). Sex play was defined by the Kinsey group as being genital touching (cf. Kinsey et al, 1948, p. 163). For purposes of comparison, the Hass data from his book, Teenage Sexuality, were interpreted as sex play by transcribing incidence data from boys’ and girls’ self-reports of having touched another person’s genitalia (i.e., vagina, penis, female breasts) by age 13. The same categorical data were transcribed from the Kinsey studies. In Table 4, the percentage of reported sex play among nudists differed significantly when compared to the Kinsey and Hass data. For the lay reader, these analyses test the null hypothesis that any such difference may be due to chance alone rather than membership in a particular group (i.e., the social nudists’ sample). The present analysis suggests that the null hypothesis can be rejected in that the incidence of sex play among social nudists as children is significantly higher than such indices reported by Kinsey, X2 (1) = 9.47, p<.01, and Hass, X2 (1) = 22.12, p<.01.
Table #4.
Sex play with other children
(Kinsey n=8542) : (Hass n=624) : (Social nudists n=60)
Frequency (Percent)
• Sex play by age 3
Yes -- 4348 (50.9%) : 246 (39.4%) : no data
No -- 4194 (49.1%) : 379 (60.6%) : no data
• Sex play by age 12
Yes -- no data : no data : 43 (71.7%)
No -- no data : no data : 17 (28.3%)
Kinsey et al (1948, 1953) provide data that indicate the incidence of sex play in their respondents was for the most part infrequent and mostly restricted to one or two occasions. Kinsey et al (1953) states that “...a considerable portion of the child’s pre-adolescent sex play, both with its own and with the opposite sex, is a product of curiosity concerning the playmate’s anatomy” (p.108). It is reasonable to assume that this curiosity is a universal phenomenon which motivates much of the child’s sex play. However, adults tend not to universally report such activities. Kinsey et al (1953) suggests that this underreporting of adolescent sex play is a function of the adult unwillingness to recall and/or report behaviors that are socially questionable or restricted. This “sexual amnesia” certainly accounts for a low incidence of reported behavior that is motivated by a universal curiosity in young children, according to Diamond and Karlen, 1980 (p. 178). Because such sex-play activities are often viewed by parents with great emotional displays, children learn quickly not to do such things (at least not where their parents might discover them). Indeed, Kinsey et al (1953) have noted “...that a good deal of the emotional content which such play might have is a reaction to the mysterious, to the forbidden, and to the socially dangerous performance” (p.112). They do report that females who were raised in homes that accepted nudity as commonplace within the family circle “...were still interested in examining the bodies of other children, although they did not react as emotionally as they would have if nudity were the unusual thing” (p. 112). This seems to be the case for males as well.
It is reasonable to assume that both nudity and sexual play might be more commonplace among nudist children who grew up in a social atmosphere where nudity was commonplace and not so emotionally laden. The suggestion here is that all children engage in sex play, but social nudist children are not as socially inhibited about nudity as other children. The opportunity to examine by viewing and touching other children’s genitalia is greater than non-nudist children typically experience. Where nudity is not an emotional concern such nonchalance may carry over into actual sex play as well as a later willingness to report such activities on the part of social nudists. The experience of having been raised in a home that condones nudity may very well lead to a more calm acceptance of sexuality on a child’s part, as well. This is not to say that social nudist parents necessarily condone or promote sex play among their children, but rather that their children may spontaneously engage in exploratory sexual behavior, and at a later time be more comfortable in reporting such activities.
Indeed, Hartman et al (1971) reported that nudists often go to great lengths to avoid or suppress explicit sexual behaviors or even the suggestion of such activities while in nudist camps in order to repudiate the general public’s belief that if one is nude one naturally has sex. Yet such nudists, in keeping with the attitudes of their middle-class peers, report a ready acceptance of human sexuality as natural and appropriate behavior among consenting adults.
Of particular interest is the 15% of the social nudist group who reported coital activities with members of their family (i.e., siblings, cousins, etc). The questions this raises are whether or not this is an unusually high level of such activity, and is it linked in any way to the family’s social nudism. Unfortunately, it is difficult to capture a reliable estimate of sibling coitus in non-nudist society because of the tremendous taboo surrounding the issue. Most sex researchers would suggest the activity is not uncommon, but estimates of how common (i.e., incidence in the general population) are hard to find.
Fortunately, Hunt (1974), in his volume Sexual Behavior in the 1970’s was able to gather some data on this subject from respondents who participated in a nationwide study conducted by a professional polling group. Some 2,026 persons (982 males and 1,044 females) completed anonymous questionnaires. Hunt says that his sample “...is a reasonably good representation of American adult society” (p.16). To the question “Have you ever had any sexual contact with relatives?” Hunt found that 14.0% of the males and 9.2% of the females responded positively. Almost all of the reported incestuous behavior was with siblings (3.8% males; 4.3% females) or with cousins (9.2% males; 3.2% females) (cf. pp.341-344). These sexual contacts included sex play and sexual intercourse where such episodes were considered “rare and limited to a few episodes.
Table 5 displays the percentages of respondents who had had and reported sex play with brothers and sisters in the research done by Hunt and by Dennis Craig Smith. A Chi square test confirmed the apparent significant difference between these two groups X2 (1) = 19.63, p<.001. Social nudists appeared far more likely to have engaged in sex play with siblings than were others as reported by Hunt. Again, the actual incidence of such behavior may have been underreported because of the general restrictions of society on such behavior as well as the additional social labeling of such activities as incestuous. This may not have been the case for social nudists. This notion will be entertained at greater length later in the narrative.
Table #5.
Sex play with brothers and sisters
(Hunt n=1890) : (Social nudists n=57)
Frequency (Percent)
Yes -- 77 (4.1%) : 22 (38.6%)
No -- 1813 (95.9%) : 35 (61.4%)
The survey queried respondents as to the incidence of sexual intercourse with relatives (i.e., natural family; item 27). Table 6 shows the incidence of sexual intercourse with relatives among Hunt’s respondents, the Kinsey group as reported by Gebhard and Johnson (1979), and the social nudists. In comparison, the social nudist group reported the highest incidence of sexual intercourse with relatives. Two social nudists reported having had intercourse with a parent. Item 52 explored the possibility of whether or not the respondent would ever again have intercourse with the parent if offered the opportunity. Interestingly, both subjects responded “yes” to a present willingness to have intercourse with a parent. Indeed, one respondent has reported that the sexual relationship with the parent exists to the present.
Table #6.
Incidence of sexual intercourse with relatives
(Gebhard & Johnson* n=4562) : (Hunt n=1890) : (nudists n=60)
Frequency (Percent)
• With any relative
Yes -- 172 (3.8%) : 63 (3.3%) : 9 (15.3%)
No -- 4390 (96.2%) : 1827 (96.7%) : 50 (84.7%)
• With a parent
Yes -- 5 (0.1%) : 0 (0.0%) : 2 (3.3%)
No -- 4557 (99.9%) : 1890 (100.0%) : 58 (96.%7)
*Gebhard & Johnson’s sample was recombined by educational level and sex to match the composition of the social nudist sample.
The following discussion is an attempt to account for the high incidence of reported incest by the social nudists in terms of their apparent freedom from sexual guilt and consequent willingness to report such activities. The present social nudist data contained an intriguing anomaly; a high percentage of the respondents (38.6%) reported having had sexual relations with family members. The anomaly is that the social nudists may have reported more honestly a true state of affairs of the incidence of incest among relatives than did non-nudist groups. For example, DeMartino (1969) reports a high percentage of incest among his group of nudists and potential nudists (up to 13%) which corresponds to the present finding. The dilemma is that both Hunt (1974) and Kinsey et al (1948, 1953) in their research among non-nudist subjects, suggested that actual incidence of such behavior may well be underreported (see also Justice & Justice, 1979; Diamond & Karlen, 1980; and Weinberg, 1955). Indeed, none of the above authors suggested that their incidence data on incest were necessarily true and stable indicators of such activities within the population at large. Nonetheless, the present data of incest with relatives for the social nudists were significantly higher in percentage than such data for non-nudists.
In a study of sibling incest, Finkelhor (1979) queried some 796 New England college students about their childhood sexual experiences. In this sample, he found that up to 15% of the respondents had had sexual experiences with a sibling. Most of these experiences were brief and onetime only events. The main sexual activity consisted of genital touching. Some 11% of the respondents reported engaging in coital or coital-like activities where 4% of the respondents reported having sexual intercourse with a sibling. Interestingly, of those respondents with sibling sexual experience, 30% of the respondents said that the experience had been positive, 30% said the experience was negative, while the remainder refused to state whether their experiences had been negative or positive (cf. Finkelhor, 1984, p.134). This outcome generally agrees with the findings of Constantine and Martinson (1981), who reviewed some 30 studies over the last 40 years on the effects of incestual experiences in childhood on adult functioning. Generally, these studies reported mixed outcomes where “...[the] literature shows there to be no inbuilt or inevitable outcome or set of emotional reactions to incest or to sexual encounters with adults” (p.238). However, the most cited reactions among incest participants were anxiety (fear) and guilt, which were reported in about half of the studies. The most immediate reaction tends to be anxiety while guilt tends to develop as “...they [children] were separated from their sex object and means of gratification.” Bender and Grugett (1952) as quoted by Constantine and Martinson (1982).
Finkelhor (1984) notes that whether or not a respondent reported that a sibling sexual experience was recalled as negative or not had much to do with whether the experience was with age peers or not and whether force was used or not and the kind of sexual activity (e.g., the showing of genitals was associated with less negative reports). His analysis went on to illustrate the factors which played no role in determining whether or not a sibling sexual experience was negative or not. These factors were (1) sex of the child having the experience, (2) homosexuality, (3) age level, and (4) whether sexual intercourse was attempted. In other words, whether or not you were a boy or a girl or had a homosexual or heterosexual encounter or engaged in sexual intercourse or not at any age in childhood tended not to predict or to be associated with the positiveness or negativeness of how you recall your sibling sexual experiences (cf. Finkelhor, 1984).
To further clarify this difference in results, the survey attempted to tie such behaviors with reports of sexual guilt, negative effects of nudity (item 59) or regrets about being a nudist (item 34). Of the nine persons reporting incestuous activities, only one reported having guilt about sex games or perceived negative effects from having been a nudist. None of these persons reported regretting being a nudist, any regrets of being a nudist. The present analyses did not tie the actual occurrence of social nudity with any negative effects, guilt, or regrets with the incestuous behavior except in one case. In view of the fact that a majority of the incestuous respondents (eight out of nine) failed to report nudity as being negatively tied to and with their incest it seems plausible to suggest that such activities were independent of social nudity per se.
The recent narrative and this report is not an attempt to condone incest nor to suggest that it is a trivial matter and outcome. It does suggest that the true incidence of incest in the population is not known accurately or confidently and that comparison among subpopulations (i.e., social nudists with non-social nudists) is therefore a questionable enterprise. It should be noted, however, that it is not unusual for incest participants to report that such behavior did not adversely affect them (Bender & Grugett, 1952; and DeMartino, 1969). Of course, there is a growing literature that demonstrates the adverse and psychopathological outcomes of such behaviors (cf. Meiselman, 1978; Justice & Justice, 1979). Yet, these studies are based on persons in therapy (Meiselman, 1978) and/or in the Criminal Justice System (Justice & Justice, 1979). Such populations are not construed to be representative of the population at large. Hence, as Diamond and Karlen (1980) state, little is Known about the long-term effects (good or bad) of incest or the attitudes of participants about such early behavior.
Indeed, the most recent analyses and reviews of the literature (Constantine and Martinson, 1981 and Finkelhor, 1984) confirm Diamond and Karlen’s warning by noting that the variability in the outcome of early sexual experiences with siblings, parents, and most probably peers, has much to do with: (1) the person’s perception of being free to participate or not, (2) the person’s prior knowledge and values concerning sexual acts, (3) the reactions of others (especially family members or other intimates) about the sexual experience, (4) the quality of relations (i.e., the degree of positive regard, levels of intimacy, etc.) in the person’s support system (cf. Constantine and Martinson, 1981). These determinants are most likely as powerful for adults as for children in making personal decisions about the quality and character of one’s sexual experiences.
It is important to note that many authors have warned parents to avoid “overstimulating” their children by not appearing nude in front of them (Justice & Justice, 1979; Spock, 1977; Brothers, 1974). The apparent issue is “overstimulation” in that exposure of parents’ genitalia to children leads to incestuous thoughts that then tempt children to act out their Oedipal desires. Unresolved Oedipal desires are thought to provide problems in sexual functioning (Kaplan, 1974) or in a loss in desire for sex later in adulthood (Kaplan, 1979). Recognizing that the Oedipal crises are thought to be normative in sex development (cf. Kaplan, 1979 and others), the problem is that actual acting out of incestuous wishes and/or the experience of having incestuous thoughts leads to guilt which in turn inhibits or suppresses later adult sexual functioning. Interestingly, some 22% of the social nudists indicated that seeing their parents nude did not elicit any excitement, anxiety, arousal, etc. (item 37). Hence, the present data confirm the existence of some Oedipal desires but do not clearly attribute such an outcome to parental nudity, a relationship which is suggested by current sex therapists (Kaplan, 1974, 1979).
Present sexual functioning
The majority of social nudists labeled themselves as heterosexuals (see Table 7). None of the respondents called themselves homosexuals, though 23.3% indicated that they have had at least one experience with partners of the same sex. However, they tended to label themselves as bisexual rather than homosexual (21.7% of the social nudist group did label themselves as bisexuals). It was obvious from the total of yes answers in Table 7 that some social nudists were labeling themselves as both heterosexual and bisexual, which may have indicated an emphasis on the heterosexual component rather than on bisexuality. Unfortunately, the protocol did not clarify this issue. When asked if they were regularly engaging in homosexual behavior, only 3% of the social nudists said yes. Indeed, the same two respondents said that their families know of their homosexuality. The data conveyed the impression that for the social nudist group, their bisexuality (i.e., homosexual activity) was an episodic event and not a routine occurrence for them. It is possible that the homosexual encounters were infrequent experiences, out the bisexual labeling nevertheless indicated a willingness on the part of the respondents to be identified as persons with bisexual interests and behaviors.
Table #7.
Present sexual self-labels
(n=60) Frequency (Percent)
• Item #47: Do you think of yourself as heterosexual?
Yes -- 49 (81.7%)
No -- 10 (16.7%)
Missing data -- 1 (1.7%)
• Item #48: Do you think of yourself as bisexual?
Yes -- 13 (21.7%)
No -- 45 (75.0%)
Missing data -- 2 (3.3%)
• Item #49: Do you think of yourself as homosexual?
Yes -- 0 (0.0%)
No -- 56 (93.3%)
Missing data -- 4 (6.7%)
For the social nudist group, the 0.0% incidence of homosexual self-labeling is well within the population norms for such behavior (e.g., about 6% of the male population and 3% of females report such labeling. See Bell & Weinberg, 1978; Kinsey et al, 1948; and others). The bisexual labeling is more questionable in its interpretation as to whether or not this is an unusually high incidence. For example, Bell and Weinberg, in their book Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women, note that sexuality is spread along a continuum of exclusively homosexual to exclusively heterosexual behavior. Indeed, in their study of homosexual males and females, 75% of the males and 62% of the females said that they were exclusively homosexual, whereas the remainder of their subjects indicated some degree of heterosexual activities. The implication is that even among self-labeled homosexuals, sex activity with the opposite sex is not unknown or uncommon. Conversely, for heterosexuals, episodic homosexual contact (bisexuality) is not uncommon. For example, Ford and Beach (1951) in their cross-cultural study of sexual behavior, found that 64% of the surveyed cultures approve of some form of homosexuality or bisexuality. Indeed, Kinsey et al (1953) first posited the homo-heterosexual continuum as a more accurate descriptor of human sexuality. They found that by age 45, some 60% of the males had had at least one homosexual experience (13% for the females). The Kinsey group reported that only about 50% of the males and a slightly lower percentage (45%) of the females could label themselves as exclusive heterosexuals. The indications are that bisexuality is not uncommon for men and women (cf. Hunt, 1974).
We can now return to the percentage of social nudists who label themselves as bisexual and the question as to whether this is a high incidence or not. Drawing from Kinsey’s group data and Bell and Weinberg’s data, the self-labeling incidence of bisexuality and incidence of homosexual events leads the present authors to believe that the social nudists are well within the norms of our culture as to sexual variations.
When the respondents were asked to characterize their sexual personalities, most of them reported themselves to be well adjusted (Table 8). When providing descriptions of their present sex life, a large majority of the respondents reported “satisfying” and/or “trouble-free.” They described their sexual attitudes as typically “healthy.” When queried as to how others would describe their sexual attitudes, 58.3% of the social nudists indicated “healthy.”
Table #8.
Present sex life (description by self and others)
(Social nudists total n=60) : (College group n=30)
Frequency (Percent). Multiple answers were permitted
• Item #61: How would you characterize your sexual personality at the present tine?
Conservative -- 3 (5.0%) : 15 (22.4%)
Aggressive -- 11 (18.3%) : 6 (9.0%)
Flamboyant -- 0 (0.0%) : 6 (9.0%)
Well-adjusted -- 45 (75.0%) : 12 (62.7%)
Timid -- 1 (1.7%) : 7 (10.4%)
Asexual -- 1 (1.7%) : 0 (0.0%)
Anxiety prone -- 5 (8.3%) : 6 (9.0%)
• Item 62: How would you describe your sex life at the present time?
Frustrating -- 4 (6.7%) : 8 (11.9%)
Non-existent -- 4 (6.7%) : 12 (17.9%)
Mildly satisfying -- 16 (26.7%) : 17 (25.4%)
Extremely satisfying -- 25 (41.7%) : 18 (26.9%)
Plagued by guilt -- 2 (3.3%) : 0 (0.0%)
Trouble free -- 17 (28.3%) : 15 (22.4%)
• Item #63: How would you describe your attitudes about sex?
Common -- 4 (6.7%) : 3 (4.5%)
Normal -- 12 (20.0%) : 17 (25.4%)
Healthy -- 35 (58.3%) : 43 (64.2%)
Uninhibited -- 22 (36.7%) : 10 (14.9%)
Problem-causing -- 2 (3.3%) : 1 (1.5%)
Perverted -- 1 (1.7%) : 0 (0.0%)
• Item #64: How do you think others would describe your sexual attitudes?
Normal -- 15 (25.0%) : 36 (53.7%)
Destructive -- 4 (6.7%) : 1 (1.5%)
Sick -- 3 (5.0%) : 0 (0.0%)
Healthy -- 35 (58.3%) : 36 (55.7%)
Weird -- 9 (15.0%) : 1 (1.5%)
College group demography
Not surprisingly, the non-nudist college comparison group consisted of younger people than the social nudist respondents. Of the 67 respondents, 27 were males (40.3%) and 40 were females (59.9%). Their overall mean age was 22.9 years. The majority (67.2%) of these respondents were unemployed and had no yearly income. Most of them (76.1%) were attending college full time. The college group was predominantly single and had never been married. Using Hollingshead and Redlich’s (1967) classification for education, these respondents would be labeled middle class. In comparison with the social nudist respondents, the college group was significantly different in marital status, X2 (1)=21.98, p<.01; educational level, X2 (4)=12.26, p<.01; aget = (112) = 407, p<.01; and income, t(124)=4.51, p<.01. Certainly, in view of these demographic indicators, the two groups represented different populations of people. As a result of these analyses and sampling procedures, the college group data were comparatively important only in terms of providing an anchoring point for the attitude-opinion data when contrasting the two groups. The college groups’ greatest utility resided in their value as an indicator of middle-class attitudes towards social nudity and sexual behavior.
Claire Henze. Metamorphosis: Nico, hand on back, 1981
Claire Henze. Coming of Age: Claire, Nico, and Anna, 1987
Attitudes and opinions about nudity
Items 81 through 95 queried the respondents as to their feelings about social and parental nudity, nudism, masturbation, and sexual development. The first analysis compared the two groups’ mean responses for each of the fifteen items on a scale from 0 to 3 where 0 indicated strong agreement with the statement and 3 indicated strong disagreement (see Table 9). In nine out of fifteen t-tests, the two groups differed at the .01 level of significance. The investigators realize that since earlier analyses indicated non-equivalency on demographic measures between the two groups, a portion of the differences on opinions and attitudes may be due to that source. Nevertheless, it is striking that on all fifteen items the nudist group was more approving of nudism, masturbation, etc., and on most items they were quite markedly more approving.
The two groups differ in their opinions as to the potentially deleterious effects of parental nudity. In the issue of a small boy feeling inadequate when viewing his father’s penis (item 81), both groups disagreed with the statement, but the social nudists more so than did the college group. In terms of nude parents unconsciously seducing their children, the same above result occurred; both groups disagreed with the statement. Item 83 suggests that nudity in the home leads to a preoccupation with his/her and/or other bodies. In this instance, the social nudists disagreed while the college group tended to disagree less with the statement.
The same kind of difference occurred when the respondents indicated their feelings about nudity in the home which might produce alienation of emotional attachments of the child from the parent and result in children feeling guilt and frustrations; social nudists disagreed (x=2.63) while the college group disagreed, but less so (X=1.91). Item 86 explores the notion of Oedipal rivalry in females (Electral crisis) by asking the respondents about their opinion of the notion that little girls are suffering from “penis envy.” Both groups reject such a notion by indicating disagreement, but social nudists disagree significantly more. Both groups disagree that the attachment (to a sexual level of acting out) of children toward their mother and/or father will be heightened by the children seeing their parents nude (item 87) — that seeing parents nude is presumed to heighten their attachments. In general, both groups tend not to perceive any deleterious effects of nudity on parent-child relationships or subsequent personality development. What appears to be the case is that the social nudists tend to be more convinced of such a generalization by indicating a stronger degree of disagreement with such statements than does the college group.
As to the potential advantages of nudity, item 91 implies that growing up in a nude environment leads to positive rather than to negative feelings about one’s body. Both groups agreed with this statement; the social nudists significantly more than the college group. Beneficial learning about themselves and their sexuality was attributed to social nudity in item 94 and again, both groups agreed that children benefit from such knowledge (experience). Both groups felt that masturbation was a normal adolescent behavior and disagreed that masturbation fantasies would increase if they saw their parents nude (items 89 and 90). However, the college groups failed to agree that nudists have had happier marriages while the social nudists espoused that view. Point in fact, the degree of marital satisfaction for these two groups was reported in item 77 and did not indicate any differences between the two groups.
The statement that seeing animals nude is harmful to children was categorically rejected by both groups. However, the college group believed that some parts of the human body should be covered while, not surprisingly, the social nudists disagreed (item 88). Other than the issue of modesty in this question, the college group and the social nudists agreed on most statements which espoused the beneficial effects of social/parental nudity while disagreeing with what some experts have indicated are deleterious effects.
Table #9.
Mean response valuesa by groups for the sexual attitude and opinion questions
(a Where 0=strongly agree, l=agree, 2=disagree, and 3=strongly disagree)
(Social nudists total n=60) : (College group n=30)
Frequency (Percent)
• Item #81: Seeing the father nude many times will cause a boy to feel inadequate, since hi s penis is smaller. (Spock) -- 2.44 : 2.03*
• Item #82: Actually, the parent who parades around nude in front of his child is, in a sense, unconsciously seducing the child. (Brothers) -- 2.67 : 2.13*
• Item #83: The nudist home environment may place so much emphasis on sex that a small child could easily become preoccupied with his body and the bodies of others. (Brothers) -- 2.46 : 1.71*
• Item #84: When children are surrounded by nudity, their home environment suffers and their emotional attachments to their parents are apt to increase and produce guilt and frustrations. (Brothers) -- 2.63 : 1.90*
• Item #85: When people are nude they are less likely to be dishonest about themselves to others. It’s harder to fool people when you’re naked. -- 1.20 : 1.54
• Item #86: The rivalry between a small girl and her mother, psychoanalysis has shown, inclines the child to blame her mother for somehow depriving her of a penis. (Spock) -- 2.46 : 2.14*
• Item #87: The normal feelings of attachment children have for their parents are heightened when they see their parents nude. (Spock) -- 1.70 : 1.95
• Item #88: There are certain areas of our bodies that should be covered. (Anonymous) -- 2.5 : 1.49*
• Item #89: Masturbation is a normal part of adolescent development. (Sorenson) -- .69 : .90
• Item #90: Masturbation fantasies about the parents will increase if children see their parents nude. (Dodson, Fitzhugh) -- 2.22 : 1.94
• Item #91: The chances for a sexually well-adjusted individual are increased when a child has grown up thinking of the body as something other than evil and dirty. (Mead) -- .28 : .74*
• Item #92: Nudists have happier marriages. (Hartman & Fithian) -- 1.06 : 2.04*
• Item #93: Seeing animals naked can be harmful to very young children. (Stanfield) -- 2.81 : 2.55
• Item #94: Children learn about themselves and sexuality better when hey can see what the body is all about. -- .47 : .91*
• Item #95: The child’s curiosity about sex is never satisfied by just seeing and the next step is touching. (Brothers) -- 1.40 : 1.33
* t-test revealed a significant difference at the .01 level of confidence.
Summary
The present group of social nudists are middle-class persons with careers started and marriages established. In this respect they appear quite similar to the nudist population studied by Hartman et al (1971). Perhaps some of these respondents are progeny of those respondents. Social pathology indicators (e.g., psychiatric care, arrest, imprisonments, etc.) in the self-report protocol did not demonstrate any unusual indices of social pathology among these respondents. Only three of the social nudists (5.0%) indicated having been jailed for more than two days, while 21.7% stated that they had been arrested. However, only two persons reported being convicted of a major crime. Indices of psychiatric illness and treatment among these respondents were well within social norms (Segal, 1975).
Oskamp (1977) in his book Attitudes and Opinions, notes that consistency theories of change in attitude have “...[the] key feature that people try to maintain consistency among their beliefs, attitudes and behaviors” (p.192). The present narrative further elucidates, explains the suggestion that Kinsey et al (1953) proposed. Nudity and sex are emotionally laden behaviors that are difficult to accurately determine based on self-report (i.e., people tend to deny or underreport such activities). If a person admits to having been a social nudist, then cognitive consistency might well demand a similar honesty (disclosure) about other emotionally laden materials such as sexual behavior which are generally tied to nudity.
The analyses do provide some support for this plausibility. Few of the respondents indicated any regrets or negative effects about being raised social nudists. The respondents generally described their childhoods and adolescence as being “healthy,” “normal,” and “unemotional.” Few of the social nudists reported any guilt about having been a nudist (less than 14% during childhood) or guilt about sex play (5%), or sex with a relative (1.3%). Consistent then with this absence of emotional guilt or regret about nudity is a lack of emotional guilt (regrets) about early sexual behavior. In the absence of such guilt, it may well be that these respondents are capable and willing to report accurately their early sexual behaviors.
Indeed, this appears to be the case. When queried about present sexual functioning, a high incidence of respondents labeled themselves both bisexual and heterosexual. Such outcomes suggest that these respondents recognized a homosexual component in their heterosexuality which is in keeping with Bell and Weinberg’s (1978) description of the continuum of human sexual behavior, in which they stated that few person in the general population are exclusively homosexual or heterosexual. This is certainly the case for the self-labeled homosexuals in our study (cf. Bell and Weinberg, 1978).
Table #10.
Change in attitude to social nudism
(n=60) Frequency (Percent)
• Item #34: Was there ever a time when you regretted being a nudist?
Yes -- 4 (6.7%)
No -- 52 (86.7%)
Missing data -- 4 (6.7%)
• Item #59: Do you think being raised a nudist has had any negative effects on you as a person?
Yes -- 3 (5.0%)
No -- 53 (88.3%)
Missing data -- 4 (6.7%)
• Item #60: Do you plan to raise your children as nudists?
Yes -- 44 (73.3%)
No -- 11 (18.3%)
Missing data -- 5 (8.3%)
In general, the attitude and opinion questions demonstrate a general agreement among the college group and the social nudists about attitudes on sexual behaviors, sexual morality, and nudism. True, the present group of social nudists report being more active in their early sexual activities than other groups. However, this generalization is offered with the necessary caution that the present group of social nudists may not be very representative at all of social nudists in general. At best, the present findings are speculative and an invitation to further research.
Finally, the social nudists provide an endorsement of their upbringing by having indicated that 73.3% of them plan to raise their children as nudists.
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