Clothing starts at the beginning with a need for diapers and swaddling cloths in harsh climates. The less harsh the climate, the fewer clothes. This is still true today.

Being nude isn’t sanitary. People sit where other people sit. People have leakage and body cheese and smudges, and they shed.

Ashamed? Yes, some are. Some just have a sense of privacy, if you are trying to carry on a conversaion and your genitals decide to respond to that cool breeze, the conversation sorta stops. Maybe you don’t want everyone in the village to know that you nipples harden and darken everytime your best friend’s warrior husband walks his naked arse past you. In this context, clothing is sociall necessary.

Plumage. We lack plumage. A large this or that, or small this or that, however attractive in whatever time period, can still be called attention to even WITH clothes on, and without clothes, it is difficult to camoflage what is unattractive about us. Animals looking to mate, or to have hierarchy, or just to fit in, will do their best to display their fur or feathers or what-have-you to a advantage. Humans just borrow it and do the same thing. SO saying humans are different in this regard, that we are the only ones ashamed, is just not the right perspective.

And frankly, evidence that humans as individuals rather than enforced by modern society, mate for life, is slim at best. Humans mate for 4-7 years in long term, basically through one or two children. Anthropologically, the men or woman would separate when the woman had one child old enough to help her with the younger who was off the teat and becoming independent. Pheremones change and they no longer desire each other. Society steps in and changes this.

These are absurd claims. The outcome of the study seems quite reasonable, though.

I wanted to type one more thing …

About mating, I think that clothes makes it even worse. If girls are dressed sexy, I think it can make guys more interested in mating then completely without clothes.

Think about it, forbidden fruit is sweetest …

What you can’t see, you imagine and I think brain is most powerful mechanism in human body. But yup, being naked could make things easier for some “not normal, not healthy” people..

If we talk about past, ok, people were naked, and it was normal, why are we dressing now ? There are probably many reasons.

But I ask you what is normal ?

By nature people are born naked, you are not born with clothes but yup, you can’t run in city without clothes cause it’s not polite, not nice bla bla ..

Could anybody live on Antartica without clothes ? I don’t think so.

So we don’t have to talk about what was like before and now ..

But what I’m interested is shame in front of others, if its natural to be naked why 90% of civilization is ashamed ?

Well that is not normal for me, aldo I’m ashamed my self, but I’m one guy who thinks: “Where all people go, I’ll go”, I don’t feel normal when others wear clothes and I do, but for example, after sports, in gym or after soccer, we all go to showers and no we don’t touch each others or anything like that, but we are not ashamed, no dirty thoughts … Its so simple and easy, no negative, or wrong thoughts, relaxed, natural, normal feeling.

But I have 1 more opinion, most of people here mentioned they have extra pounds and that they are ashamed cause of it. Well if you were naked from start, you wouldn’t have that extra pounds, cause you would see your body and you would know that everybody sees your body every day, and you would take care of it ..

Well I had conversation about this with 1 girl, she is ashamed in front of her family, and I’m not, why is there need to hide something that your own parents made ? They made me, they feed me, cleaned me and changed my dippers, and now I should be ashamed after I passed puberty ? Why ? I’m still their child, and I will always be. And I think there is nothing to be ashamed of…

I believe all negative feelings are not good, and that we should think only positive, so this cant be right ..

My two cents ..

As for the issues of hygiene and body image, nudists carry a towel around to sit on, and when everyone else around you is nude and showing their imperfections, the embarrassment tends to go away.

That said, I take a pragmatic approach to the question posed and remind people tha tin the north eastern US, it’s cold like half the year. Perhaps our society could out mode the body-shame cycle but it’s still a survival issue between November – April.