Skin

I've been meant to write something for a long time, but I haven't been able to come up with a proper topic. This blog is about thoughts about phenomena, not necessarily the daily stuff in my life. Mostly because my life is currently sort of boring, and also because I have another blog illustrating my daily life.

Anyway, today I decided to write about...

Nudity.

Everyone has an opinion about that. Is it acceptable? Where can you be nude? Are you comfortable being naked? With family? With friends? With your significant other? With people of the opposite sex? Does nudity have sexual  or erotic connotations?

Both the cultures I like have a social aspect to nudity and bathing. In Finland it's sauna, in Japan it's onsen and ofuro. In both places you are supposed to be stark naked, no matter if the people in the advertisements wear a towel. NO TOWELS. You don't take shower in a towel, do you?

I've never made nudity into a big deal, and I have no problems going to a mixed sauna. There's nothing erotic about that to me. Sure, there must be some thoughts going on in people's heads when they see naked bodies. Maybe comparing bodies and body parts, but for me it's just bathing, relaxing, talking in an environment that just happens to be a sauna and people happen to be naked.
 

During summer at the summer houser after/during sauna there's often the other thing: Naked swimming. Nothing bad about that. Seeing everyone in bright light being all sweaty with different amounts of hair in different amounts of places. Going for a swim in the birthday suit.  Natural. Free. Relaxing. Look how much fun they're having!

In Japan I haven't been to a mixed onsen, but the women in the bathhouses seem to find the idea of being naked very natural and just focus on the thing itself: bathing. There's also a curious word in Japanese: hadaka no tsukiai, translating roughly into "naked communion". There's also an English-based Japanese word sukinshippu "skinship" describing the physical closeness people share while bathing together and being able to be natural with each other.

Public bathing in Japan goes back into the history: in the old days houses didn't have their own bath tub, so people went to the local sentō, a bath house. They talked with their neighbours while scrubbing themselves and soaking their bodies in the hot water. The hot water comes from hot springs, which are common in Japan, as it has lots of volcanic activity. The water from the hot springs has different minerals that are good for the body. 

Every now and then I read from the internet (everything must be true in the internet) how people are insecure about their bodies, and how they want to make love with lights out so that their partner wouldn't see them naked. There's a part of me going "excuse me, what?", but sure this could be in cultures where nudity isn't that common, and the only naked bodies people see are in pornography, and oh yeah, that's a good source for inspiration! and proper self-esteem! Real plastic bodies, and you can start crying you aren't like that and your partner cannot like you the way you are because the only bodies he/she's seen are photoshopped with added silicone and professional make-up and camera tricks.

Get REAL. If you can't like yourself the way you are, are you waiting for another body to appear out of nowhere, and you can change it like clothes? 

(Pictures in this entry not by me.)