By Heather Little-White, Ph.D., ContributorEMANCIPATION PARK...Kingston Laura Facey's bronze sculpture of a black man and woman symbolises the need for man and woman to emancipate themselves from mental slavery.
The sculpture has created heated discussion ahead of pressing national issues. In our culture, anything that relates to sexuality usually generates talk in all quarters. Though hard to believe, some persons have difficulty with this piece of art cast in copper because they claim that the statue arouses them.
Others feel that that almost life size penis on the man is shocking and overbearing, creating penis envy perhaps. Yet for others, it is simply the fear of nudity, having to face the penis (its size) and the vagina dead on.
I recall an interesting conversation I had with a mother who took her three children, girl aged 10, sons aged 13 and 15, to visit the park during the Independence celebrations. She admires the artwork in the statue and seized the opportunity to explain to her children its relevance to emancipation.
As she saw it, Laura Facey's statue was well past emancipation from slavery with the physical chains that kept us captive. It calls for each person to free themselves from mental slavery, a condition which binds many Jamaicans today.
Neither she nor her children had any discomfort with the nudity of the statue, because in their home nudity was natural as parents and children would not necessarily cover up when leaving the bathroom or getting dressed. For her family, there was no fear of nudity.
Historical activity
Nudity is a normal condition that has been a part of man's existence, dating back to prehistoric times throughout Greek and Roman civilisations and into the Middle Ages. History shows that nudism was practised in early Egypt for spiritual and personal advancement and as part of a lifestyle of freedom.
Ancient Greece also embraced a lifestyle of nudity, advocating freedom from clothing when necessary, with clothes so designed to slip off easily when there was the desire to dance or work in the nude.
The Greek had a penchant for a healthy looking body and emphasis on athletic training in the gymnasium. The root of the word 'gymnasium' means naked, so the gym was designed to strip naked to exercise. Nude male and female athletes entered competitions with comfort. The Greeks admired the human body.
Respect and shamelessness
As a result, young men who gathered to watch naked Spartan girls in dance processions would display no lust or wantonness. Instead, the appearance of the maidens brought about admiration, respect and shamelessness.
Due to the success of Spartan Greek athletes in competitive sports, other Greek athletes adopted nudity so that it even became part of the Olympic tradition up to 393 A.D.
Certain sects in India walked about naked as a part of their discipline. Most of the naked holy men in India are part of Janis, a major Indian religion and they insist on complete nudity in taking up the vow to give up all worldly goods and embracing a simpler life.
Communal bathing
The Japanese practised nude communal bathing up to the 20th century. Bathing habits of Orientals dictated body-image attitudes. Both sexes took part in communal bathing because the emphasis was on values such as cleanliness, health and socialising rather than on physical differences.
Turkish baths utilising thermal hot springs from natural volcanic activity in Japan were constructed during the Ottoman Empire as a social centre.
As a part of the Shinto purification rite, nude bathing for spiritual and physical cleanliness spread throughout Japan until westernization made community bath houses almost obsolete westernised urban centres. Today, communal nude hot springs are promoted to tourists. The hot tub spas in the Western world originated from the ancient communal tubs of Japan, Turkey and Scandinavia.
Today nudity is still practised among primitive tribes in warm countries but modern civilisation and the puritanical laws have frowned on nudity in mainstream tropical cultures as offensive.
Missionaries, settlers and tradesmen promoted Western dress to cover tribal nakedness among primitive tribes. In effect, the cultures of the aborigines, Africans, Indians were destroyed by the invasion of western clothing and customs, with natives enticed to them by offers of trinkets and modern conveniences.
Slave trade
African slaves were traded to kings, rich men and prime merchants in their naked state. The slaves were severely and barbarously treated by their masters, who beat them inhumanely inflicting scabs and wounds on their naked bodies. Slave masters scarcely allowed them a little rag to cover their nakedness which was taken off them when they were sold allowing them to travel on the ships in the nude.
Nudity is also given a negative rap because some people associate it with witchcraft and Satanism. Nudists in contemporary religious movements accept the human body in its natural state, citing biblical references such as apostles who worked naked as fishermen.
Christianity promotes the belief that human bodies are God's creation and nothing of which we should be ashamed. However, there are those who associate nudity with sin to the extent that women are excluded from full responsibilities in the Church. The naked woman is viewed as a symbol of seduction and sex.
Lady Godiva
In the city of Coventry, England, Lady Godiva, wife of Leofric, earl of Mercia, became famous for her legendary ride in the nude through the city in the early 11th century. As a benefactor of several monasteries, Lady Godiva's husband agreed to reduce heavy taxation on the people of Coventry if she rode naked through the city on a white horse. She boldly carried out the act, a bronze statue was erected and it has become a popular landmark in Coventry. Chocolates named after Lady Godiva are world famous.
The British habit of streaking arose out of a strange attitude to nakedness and sex that it be quite funny when someone takes off clothes in public and run to create laughter and to be famous for even 15 minutes by getting media attention.
This is a practice at sporting events in Britain over the last 20 years, with each streaker trying to out-perform past streakers.
Phallic emblems
Sexual representations date back to statues and cave paintings of the Palaeolithic era, 30,000 to 10,000 B.C. phallic emblems which started out as fertility emblems gradually became endowed with added significance of power and authority by the time of Egyptian civilisation. Phallic worship was an important part of Roman religious observance. Phallic emblems were placed on tombs and walls as sex associated with the renewal of life.
The Greeks accepted female nudity in art but were far more open with the public display of male genitals. Phallic symbolism is a striking feature of Greek eroticism but was not meant to be obscene or frivolous. In phallic worship, sexual emblems were part of Greek religious life in the same way that other religions rely on other emblems for devotional purposes.
Off-limits
Some reasons why persons fear confronting nudity in adulthood is that they were not socialised to discuss the genitals, let alone familiarise themselves with the sexual organs. Any accidental self-discovery during childhood was almost kept as a secret as of teachings that the genitals were considered dirty or off limits. This led to a fear of nudity, whether viewing themselves in a mirror or from viewing it in reality or in an art form.
Self-esteem is an integral part of one's sexuality. A strong sense of self relates to one's acceptance of nudity - the stronger the self-esteem the greater the acceptance of nudity and all things sexual, leading to a healthier sex life. The reverse is true - the lower the sense of self the lower the acceptance of nudity and sexual matters. Self-acceptance is necessary for intimate relationships to work. Acceptance of one's body image determines the kind of sexual relationship he or she will have. There is no need to fear nudity - it is life!
