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The Why Factor: Nudity

Nudity

06/12/2014

BBC World Service - The Why Factor, Nudity

Why does the naked human form provoke such strong reactions?

We are all born naked, yet there’s a taboo about displaying naked bodies in public. Mike Williams asks why the naked human form provokes such strong reactions?

We are all born naked, yet there is a taboo about displaying naked bodies in public. Societies around the world have established conventions about who may see what, when and where. So why does the naked human form provoke such strong reactions? 

A fully-clothed Mike Williams visits a life drawing class, speaks to the founder of a topless protest group, and hears from an academic about how the former East German government tried, but ultimately failed, to ban public nudism.

(Photo: Tourists look at David by Michelangelo in Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, Italy. Credit: Lornet/Shutterstock)

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