Nudist Against Fashion

I cannot be denied that our ancient ancestors began wearing clothing for good reasons. At first, it was a tool. It allowed them to go places they could not go naked, and a few animal skins made their life more comfortable when the climate or insects worked against them. It played a part in prehistoric humanity's ability to move northward into Eurasia and onto every continent but Antarctica. Anthropologists also see evidence that fashion became a part of clothing almost from the beginning. The more power you held, the better your fashion. This, of course, is a generalization and was not true in every society. However, for the vast proportion of humanity, the head person had the best beads, headdress, and the most and best decorated clothes. The lowest people in tribal society wore scraps or nothing at all. If you were naked, it was because of your lowly status. Is this not still true in our modern society? We wonder why nudity is looked down on. This social condition was ingrained in humans hundreds of thousands of years ago. If the excuse of sex were taken out of the equation, it would probably be recognized that humans have an instinctive prejudice against nudity. And thus, it may not be that different from some other prejudices. There has been little erosion in the social construct of fashion in society as a whole. Still, the wealthiest men and women wear the most expensive and fashionable clothing, and people who want to emulate them wear less expensive knockoffs. Routine nudity is associated with people in the poorest parts of the world. Periodically, there is some movement in one direction or the other. Nudity may become a bit more fashionable for periods, but there is generally little change. Are there reasons to fight the nudity prejudice other than it is most of our personal choice? Most of us nudists are aware of the individual and social positives. I, for one, think that any corporate retreat should be attended by everyone from the Board of Directors down to the janitorial staff and be held at a nudist resort. Then there is the environmental cost of clothing. Estimates of the fashion industry's contribution to atmospheric CO2 range from 4 to 8 percent. Most of that is the fast fashion sector - those clothes bought one year and out of fashion the next. Then there is the energy and water used to keep all our clothes clean, and so on. The world would be a better place if it were socially acceptable to be naked.