Nudity
Why wear clothes at all?
A new episode! The show ain’t over!
Seriously, thank you to those of you who were concerned about the podcast. I’m sorry I was being coy about it, but the fact is I’m going to disappear because I’m going to dedicate most of the year to writing a book.1
And so! I’m only making three episodes this year, but they all work together in a triptych. This is the first one.
Why wear clothes at all? I mean, you can probably answer the question on a gut level for yourself. But when the intrepid Will Coley approached me with this story idea, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. I dragged him into a situation where we both had to get naked, and we were both exceedingly uncomfortable.
And this was interesting, because Will is no stranger to nudity. He sometimes does naked yoga (with this instructor). Nudity, and our feelings about it, change all the time. And so much of it has to do, according to the sociologist Norbert Elias, with how we’ve been trained to be with other people.
Norbert Elias is very dead, but we spoke with sociologist Barbara Gornicka (who has the best Polish-Irish accent), who walked us through his theory of how society regulates itself.
Which led us to question- why do we then need extra laws to regulate ourselves?
The Pastie emerged as a way for strippers and burlesque performers to circumvent cabaret laws, which I talked about with the legend herself, the performer Fancy Feast. If you have the opportunity to see her perform, run don’t walk. She’s extraordinary. And if you can’t see her, you can get a dose of her magic from her book, appropriately titled Naked.
We also spoke with one of the original cast members of Oh! Calcutta! one of the most notorious Broadway shows of all time. Because everyone was naked in it.
Alan Rachins, who we spoke with, is in that original cast album. And he is in this amazing cast photo below. But he is not in the film of the play, which you can actually watch in its entirety here.
Ultimately, so many of Will’s and my hangups around nudity came from the very origins of the United States (we were, after all, literally founded by Puritans). And there’s no better example of how Americans saw notions of “civilization” and what was “appropriate”… than the American project to colonize Liberia.
I mean there are only so many images I can put on here for this story. But. If you’d like more audio pertaining to nudity, Will took the liberty of making you a little nudity-themed playlist. How sweet is that!
And truly, whatever degree of discomfort you might have, naked comedy night is just a straight up great comedy show and I recommend it. You can stay clothed if you’d like! Sign up to stay in the loop about it
A correction/ addendum:
Listener Jacqueline Nolis wrote:
You mentioned how some states don’t allow alcohol in strip clubs. There is only one state like that, Washington, and we just several weeks ago finally passed a bill to repeal it! It was part of a big stripper bill of rights law. For a number of reasons not serving alcohol made it less safe for strippers.
How cool is that? Instead, the “strippers’ bill of rights” mandates security guards at clubs, coded keypads for dressing rooms, sexual harassment training for all strip club employees, and instating specific procedures if customers become violent . It also allows strip clubs to apply for liquor licenses as either taverns or night clubs!
Thanks Jacqueline.
Next episode will be out next month. And in the meantime, I’ve got some fun stuff lined up here in the newsletter. Thank you for sticking around.
It will not be Articles of Interest: The Book. It’s actually about something! I wanted to make a book that would be worth the trees. I’ll tell you the topic soon …
Awesome to hear you're working on a book - excited to hear more when you're able to share. Also thank you for your work here, your culturally sensitive approach and insights are inspiring.
Late to the party, but I wanted to thank you for this episode (and your sacrifices to the gods of Naked Comedy Night). Here in Portland, OR, we host the PDX World Naked Bike Ride (https://pdxwnbr.org/) which is a protest ride against oil and capitalism, and has clearly spelled-out rules in the FAQ. Naked culture! Something that I find interesting about it is that the ride is legal, because OR state law permits nudity as part of a protest, as long as no lewd behavior is observed.
I'm also grateful for your exploration on the topic because I have an auDHD 11-year-old who keeps asking me why we're required to wear clothes. Now I have something I can share with her that's more complex than "because otherwise you would be cold."