This was a question from a friend in verbal form. I’ve decided to re-ask it in a non-verbal way.

Question: Where can people outside of major urban areas learn about naked bodies without it having to be about sex?

Answer: While I can think of looking in places like biology books or photo-art books, Playboy (but then I realized it is, for most, about sex), Our Bodies, Ourselves and other educational material of that caliber, the truth is, the question is a good one. Of course the number one place for naked bodies, sexual or non, would be the internet, but not everyone has the internet access that I do, and even then, when you search for non sexual nudes, there are a lot of non-nude pictures that show up. What are the reasons that nudity is still a fairly taboo topic and often directly linked to sex?

I’ve been thinking hard and long about this (of course I could always think harder and longer). At resorts where naked people are hanging about, being naked in clusters, you can find them doing regular activities as well as having sex in the pool or on beach chairs. Perhaps the sex part is because I happen to head to the naked resorts during what is affectionately dubbed swinging month (not because I’m a swinger, I’m not, but because I teach through a group where a lot of people are) and so I’m pretty sure I see more of the naked people having sex part than I would if I were just at a nude resort that catered towards families and other happy, naked people (Hedonism is an adults only resort). But your average nudist who likes to run around with their balls and breasts flopping, getting tan, playing cards, firing up the BBQ, not all of these people want to have sex with other naked people that aren’t the person they’ve been bonded to through some form of commitment ceremony. Some of them just like to be nude and enjoy the sun, air, breeze on their bodies. Yet, somehow, perhaps because sex education is where we’re taught about naked bodies, or perhaps because there is something about the human form that makes humans want to hump, it’s difficult to separate nudity from sex.

Of course, if it’s all about genital anatomy, Goofy Foot is your go to guide, and so is Scarleteen, but even there naked parts are referred to as sexual anatomy, meaning there’s still sex in the name. I get it, it is sexual anatomy, but still it’s difficult to comprehend, for some people who were taught that nudity = sex, that nudity doesn’t always equal sex.

There’s a National Geographic special on this topic. I haven’t seen it…yet.