Portal:Nudity

Introduction

P:NUDEP:NUDE

Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. While estimates vary, for the first 90,000 years of pre-history, anatomically modern humans were naked, having lost their body hair, living in hospitable climates, and not having developed the crafts needed to make clothing. As humans became behaviorally modern, body adornments such as jewelry, tattoos, body paint and scarification became part of non-verbal communications, indicating a person's social and individual characteristics. Indigenous peoples in warm climates used clothing for decorative, symbolic or ceremonial purposes but were often nude, having neither the need to protect the body from the elements nor any conception of nakedness being shameful. In many societies, both ancient and contemporary, children might be naked until the beginning of puberty and women often do not cover their breasts due to the association with nursing babies more than with sexuality.

In the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia to the Roman Empire, proper attire was required to maintain social standing. The majority might possess a single piece of cloth that was wrapped or tied to cover the lower body; slaves might be naked. However, through much of Western history until the modern era, people of any status were also unclothed by necessity or convenience when engaged in labor and athletics; or when bathing or swimming. Such functional nudity occurred in groups that were usually, but not always, segregated by sex. Although improper dress might be socially embarrassing, the association of nudity with sin regarding sexuality began with Abrahamic beliefs, spreading through Europe in the post-classical period. Traditional clothing in temperate regions worldwide also reflect concerns for maintaining social status and order, as well as by necessity due to the colder climate. However, societies such as Japan and Finland maintain traditions of communal nudity based upon the use of baths and saunas that provided alternatives to sexualization.

The spread of Western concepts of modest dress was part of colonialism, and continues today with globalization. Contemporary social norms regarding nudity reflect cultural ambiguity towards the body and sexuality, and differing conceptions of what constitutes public versus private spaces. Norms relating to nudity are different for men than they are for women. Individuals may intentionally violate norms relating to nudity; those without power may use nudity as a form of protest, and those with power may impose nakedness on others as a form of punishment. (Full article...)

Selected general article

A nude beach, sometimes called a clothing-optional or free beach, is a beach where users are at liberty to be nude. Nude beaches usually have mixed bathing. Such beaches are usually on public lands, and any member of the public is allowed to use the facilities without membership in any movement or subscription to any personal belief. The use of the beach facilities is normally anonymous. Unlike a naturist resort or facility, there is normally no membership or vetting requirement for the use of a nude beach. The use of nude beach facilities is usually casual, not requiring pre-booking. Nude beaches may be official (legally sanctioned), unofficial (tolerated by residents and law enforcement), or illegal.

The number of nude beaches in some countries is relatively low, and they are generally located some distance away from the city. Access is at times more difficult than at a regular beach and the facilities at these beaches tend to be very basic with a few notable exceptions. In other countries, like Denmark, most beaches are clothing-optional. Nude swimming is one of the most common forms of nudity in public. A nude beach should not be confused with a topless beach (or top-free beach), where upper body clothing is not required for women or men, although a swimming costume covering the genital area is required for both men and women. A nude beach should be considered as a clothes-free beach.

Nude beaches tend to be separate or isolated physically from non-nude bathing areas. In other instances people maintain a comfortable space between beach users. Signage is often used to warn unfamiliar beach users about the specially designated areas on the beach. This accommodates people who are not comfortable with nudity, as well as nude beach users who do not like to be watched by clothed individuals, particularly those engaged in voyeurism. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that, during production of the documentary Live Nude Girls Unite!, Julie Query told her mother on camera that she was a sex worker?
... that the music video for "It's OK I'm OK" was edited to make its singer appear naked?
... that a Golkar official claimed that he "would run around town naked" if Laurentius Say survived two terms as regent of Sikka?
... that the Indian politician Diwan Chaman Lall failed to get rid of the painting Nude of Indira?
... that a painting by Fabián Cháirez depicting a nude, effeminate Emiliano Zapata caused violent protests at the Palacio de Bellas Artes?
... that Ettore Sottsass's design of the Olivetti Valentine typewriter was inspired by the pop-art nudes of Tom Wesselmann?
... that The Battle of Calverhine, Henry Darger's largest collage, is ten feet (3 m) wide and almost impossible to make out with the naked eye?
... that the runway show for Scanners by Alexander McQueen concluded with a mostly nude model struggling through an artificial snowstorm in a wind tunnel?

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General images

The following are images from various nudity-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1David (1504)
"And what barbarous judge is there that cannot understand that the foot of a man is more noble than his shoe? His skin than that of the sheep from which his clothes are made?"
— Michelangelo (from Nude (art))
Image 2A Nude Boy on a Beach (1878) by John Singer Sargent (from Nude (art))
Image 3Marilyn Monroe posing topless for Earl Moran around 1950 (from Nude photography)
Image 4Nudist couple at Terra Cotta Inn, Palm Springs, California, US (from Naturism)
Image 5The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1484–1486 (from Nude (art))
Image 6Virginia Biddle, by Alfred Cheney Johnston (from Nude photography)
Image 7Naturist couple at the Nambassa festival, New Zealand, 1981 (from Naturism)
Image 8Naturists in a river, 2014 (from Nudity)
Image 9Signpost at Mpenjati Naturist Beach (from Naturism)
Image 10The Barricade (1918), oil on canvas, by George Bellows. A painting inspired by an incident in August 1914 in which German soldiers used Belgian townspeople as human shields. (from Nude (art))
Image 11This year Venuses again... always Venuses!... (1864) by Daumier (from Nude (art))
Image 12Five nude people on the rocks around Black Pond, McLean, Virginia in July 1980 (from Nudity)
Image 13The Burney Relief, First Babylonian Dynasty (c. 1800 BCE) (from Nude (art))
Image 14Sunbathers at Müggelsee lake beach in East Berlin, 1989. (from Nudity)
Image 15Naturist family on Lake Senftenberg in 1983 (from Naturism)
Image 16Public naturist recreation area at Lake Unterbach; Strandbad Süd, Düsseldorf-Unterbach, Germany (from Naturism)
Image 17Sunrise on the beach, Taitung County, Taiwan (from Naturism)
Image 18Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos (1808–1812) by John Vanderlyn. The painting was initially considered too sexual for display in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Although nudity in art was publicly protested by Americans, Vanderlyn observed that they would pay to see pictures of which they disapproved." (from Nude (art))
Image 19Finnish Sauna (1802) (from Naturism)
Image 20Zoë Mozert was one of Earl Moran's first nude models in the 1930s. (from Nude photography)
Image 21Families bathing nude at a hot spring in Taiwan (from Naturism)
Image 22Randonue in Les Concluses, Gard, 2008 (from Naturism)
Image 23Kayapo women, Pará State, Brazil
Image 24Bathing in the center of East Berlin, East Germany (1958) (from Nudity)
Image 25Nude study (c. 1935) by William Mortensen (from Nude (art))
Image 26A necklace reconstructed from perforated sea snail shells from Upper Palaeolithic Europe, dated between 39,000 and 25,000 BCE. The practice of body adornment is associated with the emergence of behavioral modernity. (from Nudity)
Image 27Naked participant at Burning Man 2016 posing as Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (from Naturism)
Image 28Using birch branches in a Finnish sauna, 1967 (from Nudity)
Image 29Susanna and the Elders, 1610, Artemisia Gentileschi. This work may be compared with male depictions of the same tale. (from Nude (art))
Image 30Nude men at the Przystanek Woodstock festival, 2014 (from Naturism)
Image 31A Naga Sadhu, or naked Hindu holy man (from Naturism)
Image 32The far west end of Zipolite Beach, Oaxaca, Mexico (from Naturism)
Image 33WWI era Ivory Soap ad (from Nudity)
Image 34Nude people at the 2007 Fremont Solstice Parade in Seattle, Washington (from Nudity)
Image 35Banya [ru] (1913) by Zinaida Serebriakova (from Nudity)
Image 36Naturist swimmers in Australia (from Naturism)
Image 37Photograph by Jean Louis Marie Eugène Durieu, c. 1855 (from Nude photography)
Image 38Couple walking naked in the streets of Barcelona, Spain (from Naturism)
Image 39Outdoor bathing at Zhiben Hot Spring, Taiwan 2012 (from Nudity)
Image 40Crayon-style print by Gilles Demarteau with a nude man after original drawing by Edmé Bouchardon was acquired by Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw as a teaching material (from Nude (art))
Image 41A woman breastfeeding in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2017 (from Nudity)
Image 42One of the photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal: a naked prisoner being forced to crawl and bark like a dog on a leash. (from Nudity)
Image 43People taking part in the World Naked Bike Ride in London, 2012 (from Nudity)
Image 44Odalisque (1857) by Eugène Delacroix, a painting with similar pose (from Nude photography)
Image 45Naked person looking over the stern rail on the QNA nude boat cruise on the Gold Coast Broadwater, Queensland, in December 2025 (from Naturism)
Image 46Photograph by Jean Louis Marie Eugène Durieu, part of a series made with Eugène Delacroix (from Nude photography)
Image 47A publicity photo showing a North American naturist couple making tea (from Naturism)
Image 48People bathing naked after the World Naked Bike Ride in Brighton, 2017 (from Naturism)
Image 49A woman naked on the beach at Valalta, Croatia (from Naturism)
Image 50Florida naturists (from Naturism)
Image 51The Venus of Willendorf (made between 24,000 and 22,000 BCE) (from Nude (art))
Image 52World Naked Bike Ride in London, 2016 (from Naturism)
Image 53Max Koch's Freilicht (Open-Air), c. 1894/1897 (from Naturism)
Image 54A group of naturists at a nude beach in Crimea, 2008 (from Naturism)
Image 55Nudist hiker in British Columbia (from Naturism)
Image 56In many European countries, women may sunbathe without covering their breasts. (from Nudity)

In the news

3 June 2026 –: German filmmaker Wim Wenders withdraws his 1975 film The Wrong Move from distribution after actress Nastassja Kinski objected to a nude scene filmed when she was 13 years old, calling for the film to be re-edited. (AP)

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v t e Nudity
Nakedness and clothing	History Prehistory of nakedness and clothing Nakedness and colonialism Childhood nudity Sex segregation Modesty Nudity in religion Awrah Breastfeeding in public Public bathing Sauna Finnish sauna Massage Toplessness Topfreedom Canada United States Nudity and protest Dress code Clothing laws by country
Nudity and sexuality	Intimate part Exhibitionism Mooning Streaking Striptease Stripper Feminist stripper Voyeurism Anasyrma Candaulism
Issues in social nudity	Sexualization Sexual objectification Pornification Indecent exposure Obscenity Wardrobe malfunction Strip search
Naturism	Naturist resort Christian naturism Freikörperkultur Gay naturism Gymnosophy Naturist magazines Social nudity organizations Anarchist naturism Timeline of social nudity
Nude recreation	Nude beach Nude swimming Nude swimming classes Naked yoga Naked party Nude wedding Nude beaches Clothing-optional events
By location	Africa Asia Europe North America San Francisco Seattle Oceania South America
Social nudity advocates	Kurt Barthel Lee Baxandall Paul Bindrim Ilsley Boone Henry S. Huntington Heinrich Pudor Elton Raymond Shaw Richard Ungewitter
Depictions of nudity	Nude (art) Heroic nudity History Nude modeling (art) Nude photography (art) Nudity in live performance Body painting Nudity in film Nudity in American television Nudity in print media French postcard Nude calendar Nudity in advertising Nude photography Glamour photography Erotic photography
Related	Imagery of nude celebrities Naked News Nudity in combat Nudity clause Nude psychotherapy Softcore pornography
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