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Comment by seydor | Hacker News Reader

some of the explanations given sound quite fantastical, like those suntanned asses. Couldn't it just be that peopel were often naked because the greek summer is hot? People did not have swimming suits and one can easily suntan in a few days.

nudity is not just a greek thing, it s natural in many tribes around the world. Some african tribes still perform their dances and fighting naked.

There s a certain undertone in the article that men and women should be dressed for modesty reasons. While modesty and confinement at home was enforced on women, they all had probably seen various men naked

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Nudity is also common in countries such as Finland which has a strong sauna culture, where you find Sauna everywhere, including in the workplace.

Also in the former East Germany, where FKK (naturism) was encouraged at the time

>Also in the former East Germany, where FKK (naturism) was encouraged at the time

Yes, in East Germany. There were political nuances to that. FKK very much proclaimed "we are free here in East Germany," much like the no speed limit in West Germany proclaimed, "We are free here too." Hard choice that, nude cavorting in nature or driving fast!

Kraft durch Freude, for a dubious rabbit hole

Strength Through Joy (KdF) was not the same as FKK. KdF was focused on the "beauty of labor", middle-class leisure, physical health, and (domestic) tourism.

Freikörperkultur (FKK) has roots in the 19th century Lebensreform reactionary movement, and got an official structure as of 1898, so it predates the division of Germany into BRD and DDR by several generations.

> There s a certain undertone in the article that men and women should be dressed for modesty reasons.

I read the article through and didn’t see that at all. Can you quote some of the parts that indicates that to you?

> all without their pants on. Why?

The question is right there in the title. just by observing all the native tribes the answer could be "why not" . greece is not tropical, but i can't see why always clothed would be assumed to be the default other than for protection. There's no explanation why casual nudity should not be expected , or why nudity signals something. If anything, in most societies it is clothing that singals something

then there is the part about phalluses - but phalluses are not particularly related to nudity nor does greek art create any connection between the two. The connection from nudity to phallus betrays modern biases about nudity.

There's also no mention of baths, another place where nudity is the natural state.

Then there is this which sounds so colossally revisionist:

> It is difficult to deny the elegance of a simple explanation for the prevalence of nude dudes in Greek art: they were the ultimate, high-class sex symbol and – then as now – sex always sells.

Sex was almost free in athens since Solon established public brothels. Relationships with young boys were erotic and long-term, not just sexual. Also notice that greeks use a few different words for love and lovemaking , none of which directly translates to sex. This was not 20th century hollywood

always important to remind ourselves that what we consider normal and outrageous is often a quite recent phenomenon (and also vastly different across social groups even in the present). While I can't predict detail, I am 100% with this prediction: in 200 years, should we still be around, people will look at our ways of handling things as outrageous, and this will include things we find completely unremarkable and wouldn't give a second thought to.

An interesting study would be “outrage” culture. It seems that social media and global connections certainly exacerbated our feeling of seeing or being closer to other cultures and countries. And feeling that what is different can be scary.

It may also have started with the industrialization and its effects on becoming aware of stuff outside your locale, and ofcourse missionary work in the colonized world.

From local accents, local customs, local dresscodes that pretty disappeared in these two hundred odd years. Only recently do we see lots of reclamations and restoration of that (and sometimes a form neoism where the original as completely disappeared)

People of the past traveling to the future would think the same about us.

Half a century ago, homosexually was outrageous. Today it is heteronormativity which is considered as outrageous. That's a 180° change.

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