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dratsab
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From the breasts to the genitals, when did humans want to start covering themselves (not for protection), and what made them ashamed of their body? No bible jokes please.
leroyjenkens said:What made them ashamed of their bodies? Probably McDonalds.
Norman.Galois said:When were humans beginning to hide their private parts? Well we know Egyptians were covering themselves. That goes back 5000 years ago. It's a very interesting question actually. There have been cities up 10 000 years old. I wonder if they covered themselves then. There might be a real social reason. There might have been issues with walking around naked in a social atmosphere when social interaction started becoming a larger and larger role in our lives. Who knows... maybe humans just started humping each other constantly and clothing helped control that. (Quite the opposite of being ashamed.)
Evidence suggests that human beings may have begun wearing clothing as far back as 100,000 to 500,000 years ago
radou said:Maybe at some point they spontaneously realized that being naked all the time alludes to sexuality a bit too much. Indeed, could one function normally (even in stone age) while thinking about sex all the time? We think enough about it with clothes on, anyways.
radou said:Maybe at some point they spontaneously realized that being naked all the time alludes to sexuality a bit too much. Indeed, could one function normally (even in stone age) while thinking about sex all the time? We think enough about it with clothes on, anyways.
hypatia said:I know from cooking naked, and also working outdoors naked, that clothing offers a lot of protection.
skeptic2 said:The use of clothes to cover or hide the genitals is so ubiquitous that I too wonder if it doesn't have something to do with preserving premarital virginity and marital monogamy. Margaret Mead wrote in Coming of Age in Samoa that there was neither much of a nudity taboo nor much disgrace if a girl had a child before marriage because children were raised by the extended family and thus were little added burden.
That said, I wonder if the nudity taboo actually discourages sex outside of marriage. It probably has little effect either way but I can't help but wonder if casual nudity doesn't desensitize the libido somewhat just as some clothes energize it.
dratsab said:I'm surprised a few people ignored this part of my post:
when did humans want to start covering themselves (not for protection)
boteman said:John Kyff studied this and I learned from his research. Clothes cannot be made without needles, and those were not found as far back as 50-100,000 years ago.
brainstorm said:What about hand-weaving and animal skins?
You don't need needle made clothing for censorship of the body. All you need a censor:"Wrap this animal skin around your waste so no one can see your privates!"boteman said:Wearing animal skins to keep warm or to ward off enemies is not "censorship" in the context of this discussion. I don't know how you weave animal skins together effectively by hand. How does a Human weave together skins or cloth without needles?
I thought "censorship" referred to the intent to hide body parts, whether self-imposed or to accommodate external authority.boteman said:The o.p. asked about "censorship" which I interpret to mean that people were "forced" to wear clothes rather than "choose" to wear clothes.
This is vague. Are you trying to say something in a clever indirect way? It would be better just to say it directly.I myself am not a big fan of fashion or clothing other than as a necessity and I have studied this issue to some extent. But I am not allowed to exercise my judgment because Americans are "censored" (to use the original language). That is the essence of the question. It's as if the police have been enlisted as the fashion police.
I've heard of people using animal bones as needles. I can also imagine that you could use a sharpened stone or bone to make holes and then lace dried gut or tendon through the holes by hand.Wearing animal skins to keep warm or to ward off enemies is not "censorship" in the context of this discussion. I don't know how you weave animal skins together effectively by hand. How does a Human weave together skins or cloth without needles?
brainstorm said:I thought "censorship" referred to the intent to hide body parts, whether self-imposed or to accommodate external authority.
I've heard of people using animal bones as needles. I can also imagine that you could use a sharpened stone or bone to make holes and then lace dried gut or tendon through the holes by hand.
You do realize that humans lived in pretty small groups and were extremely innovative throughout pre-history. Why would you think that people didn't figure out tricks like that and forget about them again later when they migrated to a new situation where they weren't needed?boteman said:That's the point. Needles, however they were devised, did not exist as far back as was suggested.
Again, you seem to be assuming widespread hegemonic culture and institutionalized authority. In small informal societies, people would likely self-censor out of conformity to what they see other individuals doing. I doubt there was formal censorship in the form of laws or decrees until societies grew complex enough to have significantly powerful countercultures form that evoked authoritarian response.I understand the term 'censorship' to mean the widely accepted definition of an authority who takes it upon himself to deem certain ideas to be unacceptable for public consumption, based on whatever measure he uses, regardless of public opinion on the matter.
Playing naked is one thing. Having people mess with your "public parts" is something different. I'm sure there are many people who have no problem with nudity and don't find it the least bit exciting but still avoid touching each other's genitalia. Sexual control is important even when nudity control isn't. It's not like you want people engaging in sexual play all the time with anyone at any time - at least I've never heard of such behavior in any anthropological account. I think marriage is a cultural universal, actually.This whole idea of "private parts" does not exist apart from the concepts that I alluded to in my first post. If people have not already been taught by somebody that they should cover their bodies, then there is no such thing as "private parts". This is learned, not inherited. My college psychology textbook stated that as a caption to a photograph of a 3 year old girl watching horses at a ranch, naked as the day she was born. Perfectly innocent.
brainstorm said:You do realize that humans lived in pretty small groups and were extremely innovative throughout pre-history. Why would you think that people didn't figure out tricks like that and forget about them again later when they migrated to a new situation where they weren't needed?
Borek said:I think boteman refers to material traces - we know tools from archeological findings, that gives us relatively good idea about what our ancestors could do. And in this context I don't read "needle" as the tool exactly identical to the ones we use today, but as a tool that serves the same purpose - helps to combine two pieces of material/skin/whatever.
boteman said:...
And prior to that in the 1700s and 1800s in the fledgling United States it was commonplace for farmers to skinnydip in the pond or river. This practice faded in the 1970s and 1980s with urban sprawl encroaching on skinnydipping holes here and there.
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vibjwb said:I once read that humans wearing clothing started out as ornamentation for the body.