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self-esteem, and showed increased acceptance of and comfort with their bodies and their sexuality. 92 Research by
Marie-Louise Booth at the California School of Professional Psychology found that "individuals with less childhood
exposure to parental nudity experienced significantly higher levels of adult sexual anxiety than did the group with
more childhood exposure to parental nudity." 93 Separate research by Diane Lee Wilson at The Wright Institute
reached the same conclusion. 94 Research by Lou Lieberman of the State University of New York at Albany, in the
late 1960s, found that "those young people who had casually seen both of their parents nude in the home were far
more likely to feel comfortable with their bodies and to also feel mo re satisfied with the size and shape of their
genitalia and breasts." 95
71. In general, "experts" such as Joyce Brothers and Dr. Spock speak out against family nudity without
empirical evidence to back them up. When research is actually done, it contradicts their dire warnings. 96
In several years of research at major national research libraries, I have yet to come across a scientific study
which contradicts the premise that openness about nudity is healthy for children.
72. Most commentators say that it's the context in which family nudity takes place, not the nudity itself, that
determines whether it's problematic. Children respond far more to parents' attitudes toward nudity than to the nudity
itself, and nudity is only a problem when it is treated as one. 97
73. Many psychologists argue that the implicit message conveyed by a lack of nudity in the home is that the
body is basically unacceptable or shameful--an attitude which may carry over into discomfort about nudity in the
context of adult sexual relationships. 98
74. Children of "primitive" tribes, surrounded by nudity of all forms, suffer no ill effects. Neither do
children who grow up in other societies which are more open about nudity than our own. 99 Presumptions that
exposure to nudity will lead to problems for children grow out of the preconceptions of our culture.
Paul Ableman writes: "It is interesting to speculate as to what kind of model of the human mind Sigmund
Freud would have constructed if he had based it not on clothed Europeans but on, say, a study of the naked Nuer of
the Sudan. Almost all the processes which he discerns as formative for the adult mind would have been lacking.
Freud assumes that children will not normally see each other naked and that, if they do happen to, the result will be
traumatic. This is not true of naked cultures. . . . Thus great provinces of Freud's mind-empire would simply be
missing. There would be no Oedipus complex (or not much, anyway), no penis envy or castration complex, probably
no clear-cut phases of sexual development. We are emerging rapidly from the era of Freudian gospel . . . and can
now perceive the extent to which he himself was the victim of prevailing ideas and prejudices." 100
75. Children who grow up in a nudist environment witness the natural body changes brought on by
adolescence, pregnancy, and aging. They have far less anxiety about these natural processes than children who are
never exposed to them except through layers of clothing.
76. Research has demonstrated that countries with fewer reservations about nudity (and sexuality in
general) also have lower teen pregnancy and abortion rates. 101
A 1985 study by the Guttmacher Institute found rates of pregnancy and abortion among teenage girls in
America to be more than twice those of Canada, France, Sweden, England, and The Netherlands. The disparity
couldn't be explained by differences in sexual activity, race, welfare policies, or the availability of abortion, but only
in cultural attitudes toward nudity and sexuality. The study found American youth to be particularly ignorant of
biology and sexuality, partly due to a climate of moral disapproval for seeking such knowledge. It found that lower
levels of unwanted pregnancy correlated with factors such as the amount of female nudity presented by public media
and the extent of nudity on public beaches. 102
77. Clothes-compulsion intimidates millions of mothers from breast-feeding their children, even though
breast-feeding is healthier and often more convenient for both the child and the mother. 103
In the U.S., barely half of all mothers breast-feed; only 20% do so for a full 6 months, and only 6% for the
Surgeon General's recommended 12 months. 104 Breast-feeding is also declining in developing countries. 105