This is going to sound weird, but I had an interesting conversation with a funeral home attendant today. Yes I know, that's odd to most people, but I work in a hospital, so it's pretty normal for me. Anyway he made some comments that got me thinking. Many nudists feel that clothing can give us false impressions about people based on how we dress. We automatically predict what a person is like just based on the clothes they wear. This is one reason many nudists prefer to get to know someone based on who they are on the inside, thus the lack of clothing.
Well this funeral home attendant was mentioning how difficult it is to tell someone's age when he sees them post-mortem. At that stage, they're naked and thus there is only the person's body to use as a judge of age. He was saying that when he sees them later when they are prepared for viewing, he is often surprised to find they look much older. How interesting that our naked bodies will so often present a younger image than our clothing will. Do we try so hard to dress a certain way that we actually make ourselves look older than we are, or do our wonderful natural naked bodies just present themselves better than a bunch of clothing?
I found this conversation interesting because nudists are always talking about false images presented by clothing, but I don't hear much about clothing representing our age incorrectly. Equally as interesting is the fact that the patient he was immediately referring to was 89 years old and he figured she looked much younger. I think that says a lot about the misconception we are presenting to people on a daily basis. When we dress, we are often putting on a false impression of who we are, and people see that false impression and come to conclusions about who we are based on that impression.
I've heard a young girl comment before about how she met another young girl at a nudist youth camp one year and they became good friends. As it turned out, when in the textile world one of them was what would be called a 'goth' and the other would be called 'preppy'. Those two people would never have met and become friends if they were in the textile world because of the false impression the clothing gave. And yet as it turned out, when they met each other without all of that, they were able to realize that their personalities matched and they got along well.
Nothing profound in this post, but just some interesting things to think about. Personally I prefer to get to know the person, and not the image.
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That's an interesting observation and a perspective that hadn't occurred to me.
ReplyDeleteThat could give nudism a new PR angle - "Want to look younger? Go nude!"
I have thought the same thing myself. I am not the way I am sometimes perceived due to my manner of dress. I am sure the same is true for other nudists as well. We all begin making assumptions about people as soon as we see them it's natural I suppose. However, and this is the wonderful thing about nudism, we are so much more than what we see on the outside. The clues we use to judge people are stripped away and we are then forced to look at them as a blank slate. I think this is one of the wonderful things about nudism. I have met fellow nudists in the textile world and often thought they look much better nude. Our clothes say an awful lot about us and we may not even know it.
ReplyDeleteI live in a townhouse and find that there's little to no privacy; but the times I do have the time to go nude, I feel so much more freer because I don't feel as thought I'm trying to put any signals to anyone.
ReplyDeleteI have found that my mini-skirts are getting shorter... a sign perhaps that I want that freedom more and more.
I prefer life wothout clothes. I really enjoy practicing nude yoga. I do it on the beach in the summer time. During the winter time I practice naked yoga at home and in the sauna.
ReplyDeletehi, i think his observation that the body looks younger compared to later when he sees the face all made-up is not the clothes that make the person look older, but the fact that the face ages faster than the body. esp when the body is lying horizontally (which it will be if it is in a mortuary)rather than standing when gravity might sag the muscles.
ReplyDeletethe clothes are just incidental.