Hairlessness and nudity
BEING naked and hairless was the only proper way to be in Ancient Greece and Rome.
That is to say, wearing clothes was the norm in the cities of these two civilisations, but there were frequently occasions when it was thought proper to be naked, and in those circumstances one not only had to be free of clothes, but free of hair from the neck down – and, for the men, generally beardless to boot.
The word gymnasium comes to us from a Latin word meaning “school”, and before that from the Greek gymnasion (gymnasion), which in turn is derived from gumnazein (gumnazein), meaning “to train naked” or to practice gymnastics, from gumnoV (gumnos), “naked”.
Generally the
sexes were segregated in such places. Mostly men did gymnastics, and when women
did it, they did it separately.
The gymnasium was not the only place where nakedness was proper. Athletics was another such sphere.
Again, this was a sexually segregated exercise. The purpose of athletics was generally to train soldiers, who in most of the Greek city-states were only men.
But Sparta also allowed women to do athletics, and to fight in war, and Spartan women also did this naked.
However, women did occasionally excel at athletics – especially sprinting – in centres away from Sparta, as classical myth informs us.
The third place where nakedness was normal in Græco-Roman society was the public baths, which were not segregated. Men and women mixed freely in the baths.
In all these activities it was expected of their civilised participants that they be hairless. Body hair, and especially pubic and underarm hair, was shaved or plucked to present a smooth appearance, and anyone who did not undergo this treatment was called a barbarian.
We have evidence of this kind of hairless nakedness in the form of classical statues, modelled on ideal human figures. Invariably they are sculpted naked and hairless (but with hair on the head), even though it was often the intention that the statues be clothed, like real people. (Statues were also painted so that they had real [or close to real] flesh colouring.)
We have become used to seeing these statues in plain stone – usually white marble – because during the Dark Age the money that wealthy citizens had traditionally donated for the painting of statues and other public works was no longer forthcoming.
Ordinary weathering ensured that all trace of the paint had disappeared by the time the Renaissance came along and Classical art was again taken seriously.
The result was that Renaissance sculptors like Michelangelo worked in unpainted marble, and established a norm observed to this day.
Even when the society of Christian Europe (both Catholic and Protestant) was at its most repressive, and clothing was expected to cover the body from neck to ankles at all times, it was tolerated for young people, especially girls, to have miniatures of Classical statues, often showing nude women – provided the woman was portrayed as being hairless.
This aspect of classical tradition was not much on the minds of the people who, in the late 19th century, revived the idea of enjoying recreation in the nude, particularly in the form of the Freikörperkultur[1] of Germany.
Although fashion (as demonstrated in Classical society) has a tendency to tamper with the body’s natural hairiness, people habitually clothed from the neck down are quite normally hairy, so these exponents of free body culture remained hairy when they disrobed.
Naturist magazines, especially around the mid-20th century, invariably showed naked people with visible pubic and underarm hair.
But towards the end of the 20th century a new fashion emerged, with the belief that hair is ugly, and that both men and women should shave – partially or completely removing the hair from the pubis, among other body areas – before presenting themselves naked.
It is by no means a universal trend, and many naturist picture galleries show that the currently fashionable shaving of underarm hair (especially by women in the English-speaking world, but also Afrikaners) is ignored by a good proportion of naturists.
On the other hand, for many Continental nudists in the 21st century, encouraging “smoothie” naturism, as it is called, is a business. Websites promote the new, clean look of the smoothie and even sell handy shavers for the removal of “unsightly” hair.
Many smoothies tend to make up for their lack of hair by indulging in body tattoos, sometimes quite attractive in their appearance.
And certainly if one looks back to the Classical tradition this all seems unexceptionable. But I wonder how much of the Classical tradition is understood well enough.
An aspect of Classical Greek culture that has often been swept under the carpet is its strange concept of sexual behaviour.
Encyclopædias for many years entirely ignored the subject, although there were hints at times that the three great philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, had engaged in seducing the youth. But even that was covered up by explanations that the word seducing was meant in a non-literal context.
However, the Encyclopædia Britannica took the wraps off in the 1990s in a new article on Classical culture:
“In Classical times, strong homosexual attachments were another way in which values were inculcated, passed on by the older man (the erastes) to the younger eromenos, or beloved. The gymnasium was the venue where such relationships typically developed. As with the symposium, there was an almost ritual element to it all; certain gifts—such as, for example, the gift of a hare—were thought especially appropriate.”[2]
This is not to say that men engaged exclusively in homosexual behaviour. Marriage was regarded as a sacred duty – sacred, that is, to the mother goddess – and sexual relations between man and wife were performed under obligation to the goddess.
But it seems that the erotic attractions of the gymnasium outweighed those of the marital bed.
This is clearly homosexuality of a quite different nature from that currently espoused by the so-called Gay and Lesbian Liberation Front.[3]
Now before I am attacked by gay liberationists, let me say that I have several friends who follow this lifestyle. I respect their privacy.
But I also am obliged, as a Christian, to hold that it is an undesirable way of life, especially when it is presented to young people as an ideal, as “harmless fun” or as an “alternative choice”.
Adopting the hairlessness of Classical Græco-Roman society entails, in my view, approving of the corrupt way of life encouraged in that society.
My preference will be to keep the hair that grows on my face and my body as God-given, knowing that many (even today) might condemn me as a barbarian.
As a descendant of Germanic and Celtic tribesmen who invaded or resisted conquest by by the Roman Empire, I am proud to be identified as a barbarian.
This is not to say that your average smoothie nudist is corrupt. Most, from what I can gather, are married heterosexuals, faithful to their partners.
But I don’t feel comfortable with the effects of their hairlessness. To my mind, smoothies look a great deal like plucked chickens, and a man with no pubic hair looks as if he has a sausage attached to his body.
And the effect on women is more than merely ludicrous.
The vaginal lips are a beautiful part of the body, and deserve to be treated with great respect. But it is a very delicate kind of beauty that is best hidden behind pubic hair, as God intended it to be, not opened to public display – as it inevitably is when a smoothie woman lies down on a beach or a poolside for a session of sun-tanning.
Indeed, a woman with an adequate curtain of pubic hair can sit quite comfortably and naturally with her legs fairly wide apart without making an offensive sexual display, while a smoothie woman must keep her legs close together or reveal all.
– Strandloper
To learn more about nakedness in Classical times, see Nudity in Ancient Greece on the website Being and Nakedness.
