“Objectification”, screeched an unnamed tabloid newspaper in reaction to the release of a naked calendar by the Warwick University Rowing Teams. “Shameless”, agreed a 45 year old from Blackpool in a comment at the bottom of the article, bolstered by 150 righteous “likes”. The student members of Warwick Boat Club joined the numerous other student bodies to produce a calendar displaying naked team members in rowing themed poses to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.
The disdain for their enterprise was echoed by feminist blogs and columnists across the internet, accusing the girls of resorting to a “cheap” fundraising tactic, based on the morally reprehensible idea that “sex sells”. As a (somewhat part-time) feminist, my position on this was confused. Out of principle, I wouldn’t support something that traded purely off the sexual appeal of participants, be they men or women…I looked at the photos, preparing for a healthy dose of righteous indignation. However, this unsatisfactorily failed to materialise. The photos, quite simply, were beautiful. They captured a powerful image of comradeship and unguarded happiness, displaying a raw fearlessness that empowered rather than objectified. These were real people, friends and teammates, who had come together to work for a wider cause; there was something greater than simply “sex appeal”. These were not the products of commercial pornography; in the fact that they are able to aesthetically convey reactions and discussion based upon interpretation, these are works of art.
This descent from my comforting certainty of feminist outrage got me thinking…about clothes. Anthropologically speaking, they certainly “make sense” – studies on the growth of lice suggest that clothes were adapted by hunter gatherers up to 72,000 years ago to protect against the elements. However, London fashion week does not advocate Cara Delevingne strutting up a catwalk covered in a warm (if slightly louse-y) bear skin tunic…things have moved on slightly. Clothes became part of our social, rather than survival instincts. My respect for the beauty of the human naked form would not amount to a naked trip to Sainsburys Local if the climate was particularly mild. However, there are cultures where this is not the case; Jimmy Nelson recently conducted a moving study of tribes in “Before They Pass Away”, a book which celebrates the multiplicity of lifestyles that exist on Earth. The Mursi Tribe of Ethiopia have retained this concept of clothing as a necessity rather than default position; on long walks they will fashion shoes to protect their feet, but on a day to day basis do not see the need to cover their bodies with material. Instead of using clothes to establish status or personal identity, they mark their bodies with natural paints. This is not done out of any statement or desire to be “liberalised” - the social norms of clothing simply do not apply to their way of life. Surely there is something to be learned from this entirely different expression of identity which relies on what we possess naturally rather than what we can acquire.
Some of the most celebrated Western art features the naked form…Botticelli, Picasso, Rubens, just a handful of the “greats” who produced naked artwork. However, the naked form is almost unilaterally exported as an artistic device; in Picasso’s “les demoiselles d'avignon” it is a statement as to the moral character of the Prostitutes it depicts, Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” displays Venus’s nudity as a temporary state; according to the Homeric hymn from which it drew its inspiration, she is about to be “clothed with heavy raiment” by the Gold Filleted Horae…lucky Venus. Her pose is “impossible” to sustain, with her weight being distributed too heavily on the left leg to be maintained. She’s naked, but only until a more preferable state of appearance better comes along. This reliance on clothes even permeates the sale of art; gallery websites filter their selections by demarcating the “nude” art. Being naked must always be a statement, a claim or particularly interesting comment upon some wider societal flaw or vulnerability. The French Film director Robert Bresson commented that “in the nude, all that is not beautiful is obscene”, a prime example of how the artistic value of the nude form is clouded by pre=suppositions and contextual lenses; it is instinctively judged before it is properly viewed. If we are ever to get to a “pure” appreciation of art, film and the wider cultural sphere, we must strive towards attempting an opinion upon art that transcends context. If we look at a naked photograph, our first instinct is to question why they are naked, and then promptly place a judgement upon this (be this political, sexual or social) as an aesthetically integrated statement.
Why is this important? We have become detached from ourselves. The post-“Adam and Eve” concept of “shame” that is attached to a naked form is deeply integrated into all aspects of Western society, to the extent where the beauty of the human form is lost to the context that enshrouds it. Please don’t misunderstand me; strolling around Cambridge in the nude is neither practical nor advisable…this is not an objective claim to the benefit of nudity. However, it is a suggestion that nudity should not be restricted to the invocation of an “end purpose”, or that dangerous moment between the shower and your towel…it’s not objectively right, but it isn’t objectively wrong. Or feminist. Or anti-feminist. It’s a fact of life, that’s been extended into a statement about life – separated from any societal narratives, the human body is a source of beauty rather than controversy.
So. Blake Society Naked Calendar..?
Rosie Irvine