One of the most obvious but seldom recognized facets of living the "modern lifestyle" is that we all wear clothes - all the time. Long gone are the days when clothing was something reduced to functionality, as in specific work apparel or shielding from the weather and extreme temperature ranges.
We wear clothes just because!
To most it is a no-brainer: Going naked in public is shameful, is sexualizing innocent onlookers and children and is something that only primitive tribes on Earth do because they have not evolved to higher states of sophistication. Or so we are told.
But to anyone who has ever had the privilege of being among people who are naked in their daily life these often cited reasons are not only a shortsighted interpretation of the defaults in our upbringing, they may also point to a degree of imperialism that is quite mindblowing when we consider it more deeply.
What does the experience of being naked convey to its participants?
Well, from my own experience and many conversations with people I met during those times of clothless-ness I can testify that being naked with strangers can be one of the most profound experiences we can immerse ourselves in.
Wearing no clothes seeds trust. It may sound funny to those who have never experienced it first-hand but living our daily lives without clothes will make it next to impossible to hide from others, to lie to them or to be disingenuous. As the body (the outer shell of our physical representation in the Earthly realm) becomes unmasked so do all our imperfections, our habits and our hangups. It is an offer of unconditional love and surrender to those around us, a leap of faith and trust in meeting people in a way that enables them to accept us as we are, without attemtping anything for hidden motives.
Where clothes are often abused in order to create a certain artificial image of ourselves on the outside, going without any is a radical shift of mindset precisely because there are no unuttered attempts at coercion towards other people. Naturists (as people who live a naked lifestyle are sometimes referred to) do not aim to create visual appearances in order to hide flaws in themselves, they do not portray facets of the matrix that are trendy and most importantly they do not shield their mortal shells from observation by other aware beings.
Clothes are coercive because they erect walls between people where none are justified by default. Clothes are a way of being reserved and mistrustful of other people we meet because they are a statement about our own relationship to the universe and a testament to our convictions about life - about the idea we have made our own without quite recognizing those aspects as artificial. That we need to constantly shield ourselves from all around us.
Where most suspect a group of naked grown-up humans to somehow be perverts or in pursuit of some kind of sexual fetish, the opposite seems true. Being naked blasts all the loaded concepts we have about sexuality, the conflations most people believe in about our naked appearance that somehow allegedly equals sexual activity. Taking off your clothes and experiencing how other people interact with you from the same standpoint will make you marvel at just how unsexual the experience is. Sex is the furthest thing on your mind once you are over your initial mindfucks that going cloth-less is somehow wrong or immoral, and you will see that it is in fact the conscious wearing of clothes - the purposeful hiding and emphasizing of sexually relevant features of your body - that makes wearing clothes so much more sexualizing and provocative than going without them.
Wearing bikinis, bras, tanktops or any other items that hide certain body features on purpose leaves all onlookers to focus on those parts more intensely. They wonder "what she might have underneath" where as if they could just readily see her breasts they would be able to let it go just as easily as they would the images of her ankles, her hair or her ears for example. There really is no difference once you see a human being as a whole in an instant; we could say the body's image to others is not emotionally charged.
Then of course there are more obvious reasons we would want to take our clothes off more often. For one we would get a lot more sunshine which is one of the healthiest things we could be doing. We are shining light on parts of our skin that have lived in the dark for decades, bringing the intense energy of the life-giving sun to our bodies in the same way that plants enjoy every day. There is a time for darkness and it is called night time, but during the day there really is no point in shielding our skin from the rays unless we need to protect it from burning up.
There is also something to be said about the inherent sense of freedom that going naked offers. Going a day without sheets and threads on our bodies is akin to leaving a prison cell in order to go to a meadow in spring time.
Most people will not even be conscious about just how much clothes narrow their sensation of being a human being. Our antennas on our skin are always under lockdown and many have never felt the wind on their whole body at once. Taking of our clothes can be as immensely satisfying as watching the stars on a pitch-black night sky because it instantly thrusts back into our awareness the inherent connection we have to all of life, making us realize and remember how much we are a part of the whole rather than this isolated puny little ego mind that doesn't amount to anything.
If what I have written here is true, if you have ever had the luxury of experiencing this firsthand, can you see just how immensely powerful this default notion of wearing clothes is in today's world? Why are governments, media and the majority of traditions in the world's "progressive" parts so intent on us wearing clothes? How has it become this no-brainer default without alternative when taking them off is so immensely powerful and rewarding?
Because it empowers people.
And empowered people are inherently the opposite of people who will follow orders without question. Empowered people take charge of their own lives and make things happen for the better of humanity, not for its detriment. Empowered people see merit in cooperation and compassion rather than exploiting their fellow men or lying to them in order to gain an advantage.
And so it is that the very act of wearing clothes gives away its inherent underlying energetics most have never seen through - it is the most graphic display of an attitude towards life that is based on separation and coercion, a misguided powertrip of unawareness about our own interrelationships with our human brothers and sisters and the cosmos. Unless we use them functionally.
And while I am in no way saying that we all MUST STOP wearing clothes, and while I am agreeing that they do serve a purpose in many aspects of life we have to see that this custom has the most drastic consequences on our lives in human society at large. And that if we ever want to live in a world filled with trust, synergies and cooperation beyond our wildest dreams the clothes-default belongs on the testbed for each and every one of us.
If you are curious to read about my first experience going cloth-less with people you may totally dig an older article of mine that goes into great detail as to what went on inside of me and how it has changed me forever:
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Here in Finland we're distant with strangers in public, but when we get into sauna, we're perfectly comfortable with our naked bums next to each others, even among strangers, I like it :D
Always great to hear how some segments of Earth's population are keeping certain invaluable traditions alive everywhere. It reminds me of the Medieval festivals and craftsman markets in Germany, though people there wear pelts. lol.
Yay for Sauna culture.I really miss going now that you mentioned it. It's been forever
I live naked and barefooted, very close to Nature, in an off-grid, clothing-optional intentional community way out in the jungles of Lower Puna, on the Eastern tip of the Big Island of Hawai'i. Wearing clothes for me is very rare now, and has been for a few years now. I could not imagine, and would not want to live any other way. You're article is excellent!