Talk:Nudity

Man, I have no idea what it means to be a good article here. But this is one of the best articles I've seen. (Not in the way that you'd think. I mean it's well written.) Keep up the good work. Tezkag72 (talk) 16:57, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the ocmpliment. :) --Eptalon (talk) 22:46, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

So, you're putting it up for a featured article? ^Tezkag₇₂ 22:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Editting

I removed the part about animals. The term "nudity" is almost never applied in English to animals. They are very rarely said to be "nude". The terms that are used in English to describe an animal with no hair are "hairless" or "bald" or "bare". I also removed the lead pic of the intergalactc space chip. Although this object is interesting from many points of view, it has little to do with the concept of "nudity". Nudity is a cultural thing that is not identical to nakedness, although it is difficult to express the precise difference in a simple wiki article.

A person may be nude on the beach, but merely naked under the shower. A body is nude to an artist, bare to a parent, undressed to corsetier and a naked cadaver to undertaker.

Amandajm (talk) 15:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You did good work there; I wonder whether we should put the Venus (by Lukas Cranach) back into the article; Also, right now I am not happy with the placement of Truth - it has no relation to the place where it currently sits?--Eptalon (talk) 23:29, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I also don't know of perhaps putting a nude statue, or statuette (you know better about art than me..?) --Eptalon (talk) 23:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Truth! I just dumped her there on a temporary basis. She needs to go back into the text, or be replaced by a similar pic. It would be better to have a pic that was squarish, rather than very long. She's made very long by the lantern. That means she takes up a lot of equivalent text space. Amandajm (talk) 08:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Ha! I've just added a paragraph, and I hope you like it. I jiggled with the Somes and I think it's now OK. Amandajm (talk) 08:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Good article

I have proposed that this article become a good article. Things I am still unsure about:

• Should we include some form of statue? - (Michelangelo's David, Venus of Willendorf?)
• Simplify language (or link difficult words? (I have started by creating art exhibition)

Please list other things here. --Eptalon (talk) 09:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• What happened to Venus? The article says "This painting was done by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the 15th century. It is called Venus (shown below)." But there is no Venus below. Do we delete the "shown below" or find venus? --Peterdownunder (talk) 10:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Venus

This is the image in question.--Eptalon (talk) 12:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Pictures

Does this articles really need so many pictures? It seem a bit gratuitous, and it's not very educational either - I'm pretty certain everybody knows what a nude person looks like... FSM ^Noodly? 14:18, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Problems

I have added more images. I currently see the problem that we need to link the images to the sections they refer to. The only way to do this that I know is to use galleries. Other than that, would it make sense to mention body painting? - The models used for body painting are often at least partially nude, and I think in most parts of the world, body painting is a socially accepted form of (partial) nudity.What do other people think? --Eptalon (talk) 13:20, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Needs work

I have been editing the nudity article in the main English WP, and may do some work here. It would be a good exercise for me to clarify what is essential in a complex and contradictory topic. A lot of text here is unclear and unsupported, and the organization does not reflect the relative importance of different aspects of the topic. The main topic is nudity in everyday life, with less emphasis on exceptions to the norm, performances, and depictions.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 22:26, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

As you know, no one claims ownership in Wikipedia, and essentially anyone is free to edit any article. This is one of the older articles this wiki has and I have contributed quite a bit to it. Even if it is changed, the article needs point out:

• The perception of nudity varies by culture; some form of nudity may be acceptable; in the process of discovering their body, it is perfectly normal that a child (I think up to age about 7 years old) runs around naked. I also don't think that at that age, there's no concept of "shame".
• Similarly, there are some groups, which found out that they want to do some activities together, without wearing clothes (the movement is called naturism, I think it is more common in Europe); these groups also make adifference between the nudity they practice, and the nudity related to sexual activities.Body positivity, being content with one's body, is porbably also worth mentioning.
• Nudity as a form of protest (famuous group, the bare-brested en:Femen, women who demostrate for different topics, usually related to the treatment of women or women's rights)
• Nudity in classical art (paintings/statues/photos)
• Functional nudity (e.g. in the Sauna:as you sweat wearing clothes is simply impractical)
• (Forced) nudity as a form of punishment

And yes, I agree, the last major edit was years ago. If you think you can improve the article, please go ahead. --Eptalon (talk) 12:36, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

After more than a year, I have begun doing some of the work I proposed.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 15:22, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I added some new sections, but decided to reorganized existing text before proceeding. This resulted in removing a lot of text without references, much of which was based upon personal experience or speculation. I will now proceed with more specific revisions.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 18:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Redirect after merge

The article named Public nudity had little content, so I merged what I could to Naturism and made it a redirect to the section on the same topic here.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 01:10, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Dates

The guideline WP:MOS#Longer time periods for use of BC vs BCE is to retain the same system consistently within an article. Previously the article contained a single BC date in an image caption. I added two more that were already BCE in the en.wiki article, so I changed the one for consistency. My reason is that BCE is the culturally neutral option.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 17:57, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

This has been discussed before on Simple wiki, and the result was that the widespread understanding of what BC means should be our primary concern. BCE is not anymore neutral than BC, and worldwide people understand BC better. We do not follow En wiki automatically so far as language habits and comprehension are concerned. It must have occurred to you that this had been discussed previously. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:03, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

After 15+ years, of course I know everything has been discussed before, but not set in stone. I cited a guideline that is the same for both EN and SIMPLE, that both BC and BCE are correct, and usage in an particular article is decided by consensus. Is this not the case?--WriterArtistDC (talk) 03:34, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Nice bumping into you

@Eptalon: I am glad to have another editor working on the article. Sorry about the edit collisions, it has not happened to me often.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 21:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

@WriterArtistDC:: Don't worry about it, it happens. As you can see, I only did small fixes. It would again be nive to have at least one image for each section (with a title) of the article. While I found one for "Nudity and punishment", finding one about nude children was less obvious. Keep up the good work, the article has improved a lot since you started touching it. So: happy bumping.. :) --Eptalon (talk) 21:51, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Copying from the English.Wikipedia article

@MrMeAndMrMe: The Nudity article on the English Wikipedia uses Template:Sfn citations. The full citations of the works are at the bottom of the article. The text in the article uses "snf|author|date" (enclosed in curly brackets) to link to these citations instead of ref tags. Copying the text, there is an additional step to find and replace the full citations also.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 12:10, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I have fixed this for the Terminology section.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 12:12, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Apologies, I always forget to do this. Will remember in the future. MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 12:13, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Introductory section of article

Writing a good introduction is tricky, and I would like comments on what I have added today before doing further. Summarizing the content of an entire article, the lead cannot include all the details or citations that support each assertion, but cannot be a synthesis that strays into original research. I am satisfied that the three paragraphs are OK:

1. Human nudity begins with the loss of fur, not the absence of clothing.
2. The meaning of nudity begins with culture and civilization
3. Western culture inherits two contradictory traditions, the ancient Greeks and the three major religions that share the same creation myth.

I am likely already in trouble with many readers, and perhaps some WP editors, by calling the bible story a myth. On the en.WP site this has not been a problem, but I should not make assumptions about simple.wp after only days of editing here.

What is missing in the lead is any mention of non-Western traditions. This is difficult to remedy given the scarcity of reliable sources, but I will try. --WriterArtistDC (talk) 15:20, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Eptalon:@MrMeAndMrMe: Special thanks to fellow editors, hope to hear from you.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 15:24, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Todo list..

The following still needs addressing:

• Nudity in live performances/theatre/ballet... still needs at least one picture. Ideally, this would be a theatre scene, where there's at least one naked person.

If we can't come up with theatre/ballet, we can also look at tableau vivant, burlesque, striptease and similar, to see if we find a fitting image.--Eptalon (talk) 22:13, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The problem with images of nudity is that they are either copyright protected or very old and thus not illustrative of the text. Adding to the informational content of the article is my guideline, not one image for each section. The Performance section of the en.WP article has no images.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 02:13, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean, " or very old and thus not illustrative of the text"? Nudity in theater has existed for a long time now and I think someone could find a very suitable image. MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 03:00, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Copyright is lifetime of the creator +50 years, which usually means about 100 years. Not a lot of nudity on stage before 1922. The tableau vivant photos I have found were studio shots from the early 1900s. WriterArtistDC (talk) 12:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Torture photo

I changed this because it is not just a naked man, but shows the humiliation on many levels; naked, dog leash, female soldier. Also a well-composed image.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 02:28, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Simplify tag

@Hockeycatcat: After years of editing the en.WP Nudity article I am taking a break from it. It has become too large and complex, so working on the Simple version seemed like a way to get down to the basics. I think I have done a good job in the lead section covering the important parts without using very complex sentences. Vocabulary is another issue. The topic cannot be presented to encyclopedic standards without such words as evolution, culture and civilization. The linked articles on these concepts are not simple, but also not tagged. I do not see how they could survive the application of the advice in Wikipedia:How to write Simple English pages without being misleading or un-encyclopedic. The tag is of no use without specific examples of rewording. --WriterArtistDC (talk) 19:58, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

@WriterArtistDC But why only edit a single article? Dingo^Talk 19:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I am only editing Nudity here, but have many on en.WP. WriterArtistDC (talk) 20:04, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Understandable. Dingo^Talk 20:05, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

┌─────────┘
I have continued to work on the text as before, including simplifying. If there is no discussion after about a week I will remove the tag.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 17:25, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Only five days, but I removed the tag, there being no comments by anyone else.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 02:13, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Common activities in the nude?

In general, in Europe, people are more on the naturist side, while in the US, they are more on the "common activities in the nude". There are many festivals and events where people mainly attend because the can do so naked. I do not know, if this is worth mentioning in the article...--Eptalon (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I have already added some text to make the distinction between naturism and episodic (spontaneous) public nudity. I don't think there can be any generalizations for entire continents. Northern Europe has more naturists, Southern Europe have had eras of tolerance but seem to be less so now. (France is banning toplessess?) Americans are stuck in adolescence, naked for youthful adventures, puritans again soon after.

From your userpage I have assumed you are German? If you are watching the page, I also assume you have no problem with what I have added that you have personal knowledge about. A recent example was about nude children in Scandinavian parks based upon a web page by a travel writer. This was from his own visit, so it seems a good reference. He also made some comments on the same article that he attributed to "a friend" which I would not include in the article: casual toplessness by Norwegian women having medical treatment, and mixed gender showers in Norwegian schools. The last one seems totally unbelievable. I read an academic journal article about the problem Norway is having with Muslim girls not wanting to take gym class.

The new section on Erotic performances will take some editing if it is to remain. The artical is growing, and I was hoping to limit it by not including everything in popular entertainment, or doing another article for that such as "Nudity in popular media".

--WriterArtistDC (talk) 03:43, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

German is my mother tongue, yes. As to France banning toplessness: I don't really think so, 1-2 years ago, the sight of topless women on (regular) beaches was common. Also don't forget: The biggest naturist resort in the world is in Cap d'Agde (on the Mediterranean, about half way between Montpellier and Narbonne). And yes, the southern European countries (Spain/Portugal...) are a little less tolerant towards nudity. I am aware that the subject area is huge, and if a section is growing too big, likely move it to an article of its own, and replace with a summary.. Eptalon (talk) 09:56, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Toplessness for girls is not banned in France on beaches, and very common in Italy. Since it's not compulsory, I don't see it as affected by Muslim immigration at all. You go to a country and it is what it is! Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:17, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

And yes, the Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, perhaps Denmark) are known to be very tolerant/liberal towards nudity, also in public. I can well imagine that Muslims (with a more conservative view) will have a few problems at the start regarding nudity. But remember: While religion shapes the social values a person has, it also needs to adapt to the socieity it is practiced in. Eptalon (talk) 10:54, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

As an American I romanticize Europe. I don't call myself a naturist, just an aging hippie with a different experience than can be had today. In the 70s when I was in college there was public nudity in the US. Skinny dipping in the fountains in Washington, DC protesting the war in Vietnam. Lots of secluded beaches for nude swimming. Now they are gone, or overrun by clothed voyeurs. Never reached the public openness of Germany today, except in San Francisco, which has now banned it. American naturism is confined to resorts and campgrounds, which I call semi-private in the article.

I have not visited France since 1980s, went to the south of France including the nude section of the beach in Sainte Tropez. Women sunning in Paris were often topless even in tiny local parks, also at the swimming pool in Aix en Provance. Recently I read about France banning it on some beaches, they must be those overrun with American tourists who think their kids will be damaged for life if they see a breast.

Muslim immigration must be effecting Europe. Anyone can stay away from nude recreation, but public services (schools, medical) are provided to all, but cannot respect extreme modesty.

--WriterArtistDC (talk) 16:26, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Even if you choose not to shower with other girls/boys after swimming (in school, changing rooms are sex-segregated in Europe), that's usually no reason to keep your kid from attending physical education. I may be old-fashioned, but I expect people from age 8-10 to have at least a basic swimming-skill. And how are they going to learn it if not in school? Eptalon (talk) 16:53, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I thought manditory meant just that. Manditory showering was the rule in the US when I was a kid. No shower, no swimming, no gym. And yes, manditory swim class was once the rule also, because there were so many drownings. --WriterArtistDC (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Number of images in a gallery

@Creol:: The image removed from the Ancient history gallery was of a Greek goddess, and appropriate balance with the Greek god. I have found two better images, actually Greek rather than Roman copies. There are six again, but I have adjusted the display by setting the gallery parameters rather than deleting useful information. It is at 120px, which may be too small.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 20:22, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I just picked a female image over a male as the article tended to be leaning more that way. I just grabbed that one at random. As long as 1 image from that group goes, it really doesn't matter which it is. I was just trying to balance it a bit and still reduce to overflow of images. Keeping them to 1 row per area seems to me to be a fair number without being overbearing. And yeah, at 120, its not actually even worth having any images there. That Sydney pic is also an issue. Its just taken from too far out to show what is there. And, while it is a photo of nude people, it would hardly be what someone would envision when they think "Nudity in photography" --Creol(talk) 20:46, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I will likely move the Sydney image, since it is not a work of art but a photo of an event where photos will be taken. I do not understand trying to prevent "overflow". I used to be a web designer, so am aware of the idea, but on WP the goal is presenting information, not the appearance of the page.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 21:17, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

The issue Im seeing with overflow is when we have a full row of images and then a single image all by itself in another row. It just looks tacky to me. While this will always depend on resolution and zoom settings, I try to base it at 1920x1080 at 100% zoom. That seems the market leader for res with 9% on all platforms ([1]) and blows away desktops with 23% share worldwide. --Creol(talk) 21:44, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this is thinking like a web designer. Sorry, this is a crowdsourced encyclopedia; most of the pages look tacky.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 05:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I think Spencer Tunick is well-known, and most of hist owrks are groups of naked peolle in some setting. I added it as an example o an artistic photo which actually shows a group of people. Feel freee to move / regroup..--Eptalon (talk) 21:22, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I have moved the image to illustrate the section on rare public nudity events. From my perspective, Spencer Tunick is a good but not great photographer who lucked onto a gimmick. He got ordinary people to gather and be photographed naked in public, just for the experience. Later it was for a "cause" such as AIDS awareness. This is fine, but is it art? Better than a lot of what is called art during my lifetime, but that is a low bar to pass.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 02:23, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Article size and remedy

The page length has reached 80k, which I assume is very large for simple.WP. There is a Template:Very long to tag articles, but I find no criteria for its use. The en.WP guideline on article size suggest splitting should be discussed beginning at 50k, and is likely necessary at 100k. I would think that the criteria for simple articles would be even smaller.

There is an example: articles on Photography, Nude photography, Erotic photography and Pornography in order of detail. My preference is to move as much text as possible from Nudity in visual media to Depictions of nudity, a new article I have created.

I plan rewriting any relevant text and combining it with what I am writing in the Cultural difference sections here. I have begun to do this with the Western culture section, since there is so much duplication when talking about behavior and art within a culture. The content of Nudity can then be focused more on behavior, with references from the social sciences. Depictions of nudity will be about representations, with references mainly from the humanities and non-academic sources. --WriterArtistDC (talk) 15:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

After the split, the article is back to 77k, not a good as hoped. I do not see any other ways to do additional splits.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 02:25, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Extra-long articles are fine as long as they are relevant. I agree with your split, but if there is no especial way to split anything else, then that's fine. I'm fairly certain that the 50k guideline is for more broad topics that isn't really split up and should be multiple articles. While Nudity is a broad topic, I think it's fine as long as you keep it structured, simplified, etc. MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 01:34, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Although the articles on nudity around the world could be made into their own articles, like nudity in the US, nudity in France, nudity in Germany, nudity in Asia, etc. MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 02:28, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Nudity in Germany, or Europe, but I can't see America. It's dwindling, except in enclaves.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 02:49, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Use of who and globalize tags

@MrMeAndMrMe: The guideline on Template:Who states This tag is for placement after attributions to vague "authorities"... I do the opposite, attributing the text to the specific authors of the cited references, making it clear that it may not be the consensus of all researchers.

I assume that globalize tag is meant for the Male nudity section, not the entire article. --WriterArtistDC (talk) 02:49, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

@WriterArtistDC ah, I see.. i meant to say that maybe you could put their occupation and why thier opinion matters or smthn like that. yup, meant to put 1= section on globalize MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 02:54, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I suppose the author's profession, psychologist, could be included; but is that "simple"?

Actually, it would be an assumption that they are psychologists.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 03:18, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I placed the section parameter, but don't know how a US phenomenon can be globalized. There are many references because American boomers are writing about it often enough to get media attention. In other countries, it either did not happen or is so normal it is not worth mentioning.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 03:05, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Reverted images

Since the topic of this article is nudity in real life, not art; I reverted that change of the opening image.

The second image change was simply unnecessary, the older image being better.WriterArtistDC (talk) 12:01, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I have reverted another change to the lead image because it was a glamour pose that conveys no information on the topic, while the photo of people skinny-dipping does.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 12:40, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Removed two images not related to content. This article should not be a collection of photos of nude women.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 18:13, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Weaknesses

1. Too much the work of one editor.
2. Lack of recognition of what an extraordinary thing human nudity is. It is not an issue which is decided, and it is not convincing to say "humans were naked because they lived where it was warm" (for an obvious reason).
3. Lack of reference to the literature of human evolution.

"During prehistoric times, humans were naked because they lived where it was warm." One of the silliest things on our wiki, and it has been there for ages.

Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:52, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Different hominins colonised the world. During different ice ages there were also hominids, and they found a way to survive (I doubt they were all happy nudists). Eptalon (talk) 16:41, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Comes up again and again: See Sento article

"In Japan, Finland and Germany, mixed gender bathing or using a sauna nude is a social activity." with the dubious Scott reference from the 90s. Deleted Japan. This is just simply not true. It is was banned and is extremely rare. Usually only found ins few historic hold outs or in rural informal onsen in camping areas. Find a recent and reliable ref if you want to include this, otherwise it is just more orientalizing of those wacky Japanese and their weird culture. --Gotanda (talk) 11:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

And here, "As the 21st century proceeds, fewer bathhouses in Japan are mixed gender." No, not fewer. Almost entirely if not completely gone. Source was a deadlink. --Gotanda (talk) 11:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Nudity & advertising..

As we all know, nudity is used in advertising almost all the time. I have therefore translated the respective section from the German Wikipedia. Rather than taking the references that are there (they are German), I think we need to look for references for the section. Also, I have taken the libery and added an image of a naked woman distributing some flyiers at Love Parade, in 2004. The thing that in my opinion is still missing is an image showing the connection of body painting, advertising and nudity. I have had a quick look at commons, but didn't find anything suitable. Help would be appreciated. Eptalon (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, likely for that section there's a better image than that of a naked woman (at the largest techno event in the world), distributing flyers (likley, for some parties, happening later in the week). Eptalon (talk) 17:45, 7 July 2024 (UTC)