In 2017, why is nudity still taboo?

Modigliani's 'Reclining Nude'

21 July 2017

You may have read about that young woman who was arrested in Saudi Arabia earlier this week for walking around an ancient village in a mini-skirt. You were probably shocked and appalled. You may have also read the good news that ‘Model Khulood’ was subsequently released without charge.

You probably thought, like me, that it was a massive step forward for a country where women are still not allowed to drive a car, or go out without a full-body robe and a headscarf, or go about their business without a male guardian. So we should applaud this tentative step into... I was going to say the 21^st century but much of Saudi’s sharia law is rooted in the 6^th century teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, so there’s still a long way to go.

Khulood was dressed in a fashion that would be perfectly normal on a street in London or Paris or New York or just about anywhere outside those states with a strict interpretation of Islam. But before we start slapping ourselves on the back for our enlightened views, perhaps we should stop and think about how we’d feel if Khulood had not merely worn a miniskirt and crop-top but had gone topless. And, for example, done so not in Saudi Arabia but in London or Paris or New York. Or imagine that Khulood was a pop singer, onstage at the SuperBowl, and she – accidentally or otherwise – flashed a nipple.

The fact is that our own attitudes towards nudity – or partial nudity – are a taboo that seems not to have changed much since the 6^th century either, even in what we like to call ‘the Western world’: a term that increasingly seems pejorative, and designed to make us feel superior, much like ‘First World’ (where’s the Second World, by the way? We never hear about it).

Michaelangelo's David (1501-04)

Getty Images

Although it is not strictly illegal in many parts of the world for men – or, in fact, women, if you look up the laws – to be topless in public, we all have a massive difference in attitudes depending on which sex is involved. However enlightened you may think you are, stop and ponder the difference in your attitude towards, for example, a bloke wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a tool belt on a building site, or a man jogging around your local park in a pair of shorts and trainers – no one gives them a second glance, do they? - and a woman doing the same thing. You can’t, can you? Because you just don’t see it. And if you did, someone would complain. And she would probably be arrested, even though the law is full of grey areas on this particular point.

It’s something to think about while we’re pondering notions of equality, which we’ve all been doing this week due to the BBC salaries scandal, which is either scandalous because so many men are being paid so much for doing things a lot of people don’t think merit such a high salary (Lineker, Evans, Shearer... especially Shearer), or because so many women (Winkleman, Balding, Jones) are being paid not so much for doing the same sort of thing, or just because we’re all jealous of how much money you make if you’re on the telly, even if it pales into insignificance against people in Hollywood films, or tennis players, or footballers (where the men are still paid more than the women).

Because we’re all hypocrites at heart. We all want to see equality as long as we’re not threatened by it. Just as we all think we should have the same rights, so long as nobody else has more rights, or better rights. And that includes the right to be naked. I mean, do you walk around naked in your home? If so, do you do so when your partner is there or only on your own? When your children are there? When you have guests?

Of course not, you’re probably saying to at least one of those, but why not? What’s so shameful about the human body? After all, we’ve all got one, and artists have been depicting them in various states of undress from the dawn of time. I mean, have you ever seen a picture of Adam and Eve wearing anything except a fig leaf (or three fig leaves in her case)? As for Michaelangelo’s David, let’s face it Dave hasn’t got much to brag about but he’s still the most famous sculptor in history.

These questions came into sharper focus for me this week when a friend of mine, a photographer called Anna, fell foul of what seem to me unnecessarily puritanical rules governing what can and cannot be seen on social media. First she posted a Facebook invitation to her first photography show, an exhibition called ‘Gender Trouble’ consisting of black-and-white photographs of men and woman exploring gender stereotypes: men dressed as women, women dressed as men, that sort of thing. A topical subject in the week that trans rights were enshrined in TfL policy.

Her invitation was overlaid on the image of a male torso and she posted it on her profile, inviting friends to the opening. The next morning she opened her account to find a notification that it had been removed for violating ‘Facebook community standards’ along with a warning that if she posted it again her account would be suspended, with the stern words: “To keep your account active, please remove any photos that contain nudity.” Anna was baffled because the man in the photograph was not nude: he was wearing hold-up stockings and a mesh body stocking and he was not engaged in any sort of sexual activity (something that was abundantly clear from the photo).

But by then the story had moved on. Anna posted some more of her photographs, as she often does, on her Instagram account. This time the black-and-white images were of naked women, but were clearly ‘artistic’ rather than ‘sexual’. Despite more than 300 ‘likes’ and no complaints at all, they were removed overnight as well, and Anna was only able to re-post them by photoshopping pink hearts on to her subjects’ ladyparts, which made them look silly. She believes they were removed as a result of a complaint by someone who saw them. “It’s happened at least ten times over the past 18 months,” she said. “Always with nipples. Always with women. Never with men.”

Anna Constance Sampson

I contacted Instagram’s press office, which is not as easy as it might be, and spoke to a woman called Charlotte who promised to look into it. She confirmed that the sites is a “self-reporting platform” and that someone must have complained about Anna’s images (although not directly to the artist, in the comments, which would have been the obvious thing to do). Instagram’s online guidelines shed further light. They state categorically: “We don’t allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos, and some digitally-created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals, and close-ups of fully-nude buttocks. It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos of post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding are allowed. Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, too.”

So there we go. But who decides that the naked male form is permissible but the naked female form is unacceptable to be shown in public? Who decides that it’s OK if it’s a sculpture by someone who died centuries ago but it’s banned if it’s a photo made by someone in the 21^st century? More than anything, why is nudity not allowed? What are we afraid of? After all, we’ve only been wearing clothes for the last 170,000 years. Before that we were all naked, and some tribes in Africa and South America still are.

When there’s a debate going on about social media facilitating terrorism by allowing material that could encourage jihadists, it seems odd that there’s a flat-out ban on showing naked people when they’re not engaged in anything sexual. Especially when it would take you only a few seconds on your phone to find plenty of images of naked people engaged in all sorts of sexual activities. It simply doesn’t make sense, and societies that censor art – or, indeed, pass moral judgement on art – are not open societies.

I understand of course that some people are offended by nudity but surely that’s their problem? Or their religion, which is their personal choice, rather than one to impose on the rest of us. We should not be afraid of the naked human form, whether it’s male or female. I’m not banging the drum for naturism here: I’m just as shy and repressed as anyone else, and you wouldn’t catch me dead at a nudist resort. But I’m sensible enough to realise that that’s got entirely to do with my own hang-ups and I enjoy looking at art. Including nudes of both genders. Nipples and all.

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