%20And%20Why%20They%20Are%20Harmful%20To%20Your%20Body%20Image&media=https%3A%2F%2Fimg-mkr.buzzfeed.com%2Fbuzzfeed-static%2Fstatic%2F2014-10%2F23%2F11%2Fcampaign_images%2Fwebdr04%2Fnudist-exclusionary-radical-feminists-nerfs-and-w-2-28614-1414078173-13_dblbig.jpg%3Ftemplate%3Dpinterest-vertical-dots-v1%26title%3DTnVkaXN0IEV4Y2x1c2lvbmFyeSBSYWRpY2FsIEZlbWluaXN0cyAoTkVSRnMpIEFuZCBXaHkgVGhleSBBcmUgSGFybWZ1bCBUbyBZb3VyIEJvZHkgSW1hZ2U%3D%26color1%3Dpink){kind=link}
aikenareaprogressive.blogspot.com
This post has been updated to reflect the current state of nudity laws in the US States.
It is a possibility that most of "feminist" movement are in fact NERFs, however, the percentage of NERFs are unknown at this time. NERFs are actively opposed to legalizing public nudity, a move that would put everyone on equal footing as opposed to a certain group of people to have more rights than others (as is the case in 3 states, and in parts of 43 others). In fact, some would dare say that NERFs are also "prudes".
The agenda of the NERFs are severely damaging and can actually be fatal if we do not confront them.
Because nudity is banned in 3 states and in at least one town/city in 43 others, most Americans are not getting the essential health benefits they need. As I mentioned before, public nudity has health benefits that last a lifetime, much longer than the five years of benefits that breastfeeding holds. Public nudity promotes a healthy self-image, as well as a healthy body image. The reason why other nations have more world's oldest people than the US does is because they allow nudity, most of America does not. Nudity bans rob years from the lives of Americans. Bans on public nudity is literally a death sentence for men and people of color, and that is the #1 reason why women outlive men and why whites outlive minorities.
Because nudity is banned in at least one municipality in 46 states (including three whole states), body image events outside of New York City and Bangor, Maine are 100% meaningless. Sorry, Terri O'Neill. The National Organization for Women's Love Your Body Day event isn't promoting a healthy body image outside of states of Maine and New York, as event attendees are forbidden - unconstitutionally I wanna add - from being in their natural state during the annual fall event. We can't promote a healthy body image unless we address the big unconstitutional elephant in the room: bans on public nudity.
Children who see naked people are not harmed by the sight at all. In fact, children who see naked people grow up loving themselves, rather than being suicidal, as this study that the media and claptrap right wingnuts tried to censor.
Some of the facts this study, by Paul Okami, et. al. in 1998, use in destroying inane arguments against allowing public nudity include:
Given the vehemence with which clinicians and child-rearing specialists often condemn childhood exposure to parental nudity, it is paradoxical that their dire predictions are not supported by the (scant) empirical work that does exist. Findings are at worst neutral or ambiguous as to interpretation, and there is even the implication of possible positive benefits in these studies (particularly for boys) in domains such as self-reported comfort with physical affection (Lewis and Janda, 1988) and positive "body self-concept" (Story, 1979). Although these investigations are methodologically limited, their results are consistent with the view of a smaller group of child-rearing specialists and other commentators who have stressed the potential benefits to children of exposure to nudity in the home, in areas such as later sexual functioning, and capacity for affection and intimacy (cf. Finch, 1982; Goodson, 1991; Martinson, 1977; Mead, cited in Goodson, 1991). Although some of these writers (cf. Ellis, cited in Goodson, 1991) make reference to the cross-cultural ubiquity of childhood exposure to parental nudity - although objecting to alarmist positions taken by Western commentators who fail to provide supportive data - the cross-cultural record is not generally explicit on the question of actual exposure of children to parental nudity. It does, however, present a strong case for the universality of parent-child cosleeping or room sharing (e.g., Barry and Paxton, 1971; Caudill and Plath, 1966; Gardner, 1975; Lozoff et al., 1998; Morelli et al., 1992; Stephens, 1972; Whiting, 1964; Whiting and Edwards, 1988). It may tentatively be inferred that under such conditions large numbers of the world's population of children are exposed to parental nudity. Finally, a third group of writers stress the importance of the context in which childhood exposure to nudity takes place, insisting that outcomes are mediated by such contextual variables as gender, age of child, family climate, cultural beliefs, and so on (Okami, 1995; Okami et al., 1997).
The Okami study was also cited in a post about children and nudity from 2004.
What Casler wrote about childhood experience with naturism in 1964 applies just as well to children a mere forty years later. There is nothing harmful with either being human or appearing fully human. Children's welfare must be safeguarded, but so too must they be given the chance to learn to respect their own bodies and those of others. There is no evidence that children are harmed by nonsexualized social nudity, and there is good reason to believe they are benefited by it. Proposals for laws banning to children the innocent experience of being human, appearing human, and seeing others as such are unwarranted, unfounded, and have no scholarly basis.
The results of the study were clear: "Consistent with the cross-sectional retrospective literature (and with our expectations), no harmful main effects of these experiences were found at age 17-18" (376). Okami continued: "Exposure to parental nudity was associated with positive, rather than negative, sexual experiences in adolescence, but with reduced sexual experience overall. Boys exposed to parental nudity were less likely to have engaged in theft in adolescence or to have used various psychedelic drugs and marijuana. […] Thus, results of this study add weight to the views of those who have opposed alarmist characterizations of childhood exposure […] to nudity" (377).
These pieces lay bare the outrageous and blatantly false claims that children are harmed by nudity. They also eliminate the excuses prudes like those commenting on Savannah media pages on Facebook for why nudity should not be allowed in public. Summarily, the same pieces also expose the silent, but deadly agenda of the NERFs and others like them, who have long infiltrated the feminist movement with their bigoted and discriminatory beliefs against nudists and naturists.
I was intersectional before intersectionality became cool. The same thing that people have said in response to SWERFs and TERFs can be said in response to NERFs: my feminism will be intersectional, or it will be bullshit.
Intersectionality is recognizing that sex workers, transgender people and nudists are real human beings and working to advance their rights as well.
Mark Storey
TAASA.org (must have a browser other than Internet Explorer to view document)
Okami. P. (1995) ." Childhood exposure to parental nudity‚ parent-child co-sleeping‚ and 'primal scenes': A review of clinical opinion and empirical evidence," Journal of Sex Research, 32: 51–64.
Okami (1998). "Early childhood exposure to parental nudity and scenes of parental sexuality (‘primal scenes’): an 18-year longitudinal study of outcome, 1-18.
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