Exhibitionism vs. Naturism

 The most frequent accusation made against naturists is that we are exhibitionists. I won’t deny it; it’s true. Although I can’t speak for everyone, I will admit: I am an exhibitionist. But not for the reasons people often assume.

I’ll bring to mind an event from a few years ago: the visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Italy in January 2016. During this official visit, Italian authorities decided to cover several nude statues in the Capitoline Museums in Rome with white wooden panels. Now I wonder, who was being censored? The stone statues? Or the artist's work?

Since censorship is the attempt to control expressions or ideas, it's impossible that the stone itself was being censored. The one being censored was the artist who created those works. Now, I believe that I am God's creation. I didn’t create myself. When I cover my body, whether with fig leaves, animal skins, cotton, wool, linen, or lycra, with the intention of hiding certain parts of it, I am undoubtedly concealing something. But what I am concealing was not created by me. It was created by God, so the censorship is not on me.

The word "exhibitionism" has become a pejorative term. That’s how our culture works: it’s easy to negatively point fingers at what falls outside of its norms. Yet our culture doesn’t see the beam stuck in its own eye because it doesn’t want to see it. There is no pejorative term to describe those who hide or don’t reveal themselves. On the contrary, the words used for them sound esteemed: discreet, moderate, modest, virtuous, and so on.

But, as Paul rightly said in his letter to the Colossians: "Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence" (Colossians 2:23). What Paul was criticizing is that external appearances are not necessarily a reflection of inner purity. Similarly, covering the body may seem wise or virtuous in the eyes of society, but in reality, it's simply a way to satisfy cultural expectations. Are Amazonian indigenous people “exhibitionists”?

These native peoples live in harmony with nature, free from the complexes or taboos associated with nudity, as if the body were something inherently shameful. They don’t cover themselves out of modesty or shame, simply because they don’t see it as necessary. For them, the body isn’t an object of desire or censorship; it’s simply a part of who they are. And yet, in our Western culture, they might be mistakenly labeled as “exhibitionists” simply because they don’t follow the norms imposed by a society that has learned to see the human body as something that must be hidden.

The real debate, then, isn’t about nudity or exhibitionism itself but about the cultural burden we assign to it. Why is it that we glorify those who hide and scorn those who reveal themselves? It’s a clear reflection of our social contradictions. What is natural and free from negative connotations for some becomes a scandal for others. This discrepancy speaks less about the “exhibitionists” and more about the fears and prejudices of those who observe them.

In the end, what is censored is not the body but our ability to accept who we are at our core, without imposed filters. True liberation doesn’t come from covering up or revealing ourselves but from questioning why we feel the need to do either. In this context, exhibiting oneself is not a provocation but an affirmation that there is nothing we should be ashamed of. It serves as a reminder that we are creations of a higher power and that no cultural construction should make us feel as though we must hide that.

And believe me, there is no sexual pleasure in “exposing” oneself in this way. Naturism isn’t about desire or the pursuit of sexual gratification; it’s a philosophy that seeks harmony with the body and nature. The naturist doesn’t expose themselves to provoke or seek an erotic reaction. On the contrary, in a naturist environment, the body loses that sexualized connotation our culture has assigned to it. The body simply is, just another part of the person, without the weight of eroticism we tend to associate with nudity.

But our prejudices are powerful. It’s not enough to point out the error. Our cognitive biases will do whatever they can to rationalize when we are confronted with arguments that challenge our deeply held beliefs. To do this, we will create counterarguments that claim public nudity is "indecent," "immoral," or "inappropriate," and that those who show themselves in such a way do so for impure reasons or out of a desire for excessive attention. We will even claim that we do it for the "protection" of social norms, to preserve order and "morality."

However, these counterarguments are nothing more than emotional defenses disguised as logic. The truth is that what is really being protected is our discomfort, that deep feeling of shame and fear we have internalized since childhood. We have been taught to see the naked body as something inherently sexual when, in reality, as in the context of naturism, there is none of that. But the weight of social teachings is strong, and we prefer to justify our reactions with superficial explanations rather than face the possibility that, perhaps, our ideas about nudity aren’t based on truth but on cultural conditioning.

They’ll say that nudity "corrupts" public morality when, in reality, there’s no evidence to support that claim. What does corrupt is how we have learned to sexualize the human body in every possible context, to the point where it’s difficult for us to see it any other way. We believe that seeing someone else’s naked skin automatically generates desire, when in fact, in environments where nudity is normal, like naturist beaches or camps, that effect almost entirely disappears. The body becomes what it truly is: a part of our physical existence, not a symbol of desire or provocation.

They’ll also say that naturism is a selfish act, that by showing ourselves naked, we are forcing others to see something they don’t want to see. But here’s where the real confrontation comes into play: is it really a problem with naturists, or is it a problem with those who can’t deal with their own discomfort toward what’s natural? What is often overlooked is that this discomfort doesn’t come from what they see but from what they feel. It’s a reflection of the internal tensions between what we have been taught to believe and what we inherently know is not harmful.

That’s why, when we are accused of being exhibitionists, it’s not about what we are doing but about how others perceive us through their own cultural and emotional filters. The word "exhibitionism" itself is a construct loaded with moral judgment, and those who use it to describe naturism are projecting their own discomfort onto something they don’t understand or that simply doesn’t conform to what they consider "normal."

Our biases also lead us to believe that hiding the body is a sign of "civilization," when in reality, many indigenous cultures that have lived in harmony with nature for millennia don’t see nudity as something that needs to be hidden or repressed. For them, the naked body is as natural as a tree or a mountain. But our ethnocentric bias makes us think that our way of viewing the world is the correct one, and everything that deviates from it must be censored or corrected.

Ultimately, these biases are a barrier that prevents us from seeing beyond our cultural constructions. We cling to them because they provide us with a sense of security and order, even though that order is based on false premises. Confronting our prejudices requires courage because it means questioning not only what we have been taught but also who we are and how we relate to others.

Nudity in naturism is not an act of rebellion or defiance but a way to return to the essential, to who we are without the layers of social conditioning. The fact that we feel so uncomfortable about it says more about us as a society than it does about those who practice naturism. Perhaps, instead of asking why some choose to be naked, we should ask ourselves why we feel the need to hide so much.

The next time the argument of "exhibitionism" arises, maybe we should ask ourselves: What is it that really bothers us? Is it the mere sight of the naked body, or is it the fact that it challenges our preconceived ideas about morality, decency, and control? Maybe the real issue isn’t who is showing themselves, but what we are trying to protect by staying covered.