I watched as they bent their bodies gracefully around the stage in their underwear, my friend Martin Lofsnes and his 360 Degree dancers. “Brave,” I thought, as I stared at their various sweat-drenched bodies clad in nothing more than little bits of cloth.
It occurred to me then how silly it is that humans are embarrassed to be caught wearing so little. Wasn’t what the dancers were doing natural?
Nudity was a hot topic around my house. Especially when I came out of the shower or was in the midst of getting dressed or undressed. Then, there were all kinds of comments from the peanut gallery. “Oh, gross!” was my personal favorite.
Seeing the parts prompted questions from the boys. Penises they understood, but boobs? Vaginas? Why? What for? I tried my best to explain. But was it wrong, to be there naked? To prompt their curiosity?
I’ve been told by so many people how inappropriate it is to be naked in front of my two boys. In a writing class once, the majority of the class balked at my beautiful kiss through the shower glass with my then-5-year-old, me clothed on the other side. It seemed to my classmates, many of them childless, that the kiss was wildly wrong-headed. Because he was naked? My 5 year old?
It made me sad, and slightly scared. Really? I am supposed to be disgusted by my young children’s naked bodies? They are supposed to be disgusted by mine?
As with most things kid-related, I have to ask, “Where is that invisible line that separates a child’s thinking from what they will think as an adult?” Do we imagine that a child shielded from nudity, as if bodies are bad, can later feel good about finding them beautiful?
Oh. Right. There is no line, no sudden division between one mind and another. Life is a continuum from in utero on toward death, and finding naked bodies appealing ranks right up there as one of the most super-crucial things, a necessity one might say, to propagating the species.
And yet, here we are. Back to what’s “supposed” to happen, what no doubt one or many judgmental anonymous commentators might believe is “the right way” to comport myself as a mother. I am supposed to be clothed at all times, no doubt, and highly protective of my most maternal mammary glands and my lady parts. I’m supposed to quickly take cover if they should catch me in the buff.
No. I do not lock my door and keep my kids out if I’m changing. We still have some of our best chats when they’re in the shower or bath, when they’re captive and being soothed by the gentle forces of water, when they can remember to share with me the changes they see and feel in their bodies. I cannot imagine it should be otherwise.
Sometimes I think about doomsday, about what it would be like if modern society suddenly slipped away and “stuff,” including our clothes, disappeared into the vast ocean. Well then, we would be naked, wouldn’t we? We’d be down to less than just our skivvies. We’d be as vulnerable, more so, than those brave dancers on that stage, standing arm-in-arm, exposing themselves so the audience might feel empowered to do the same. And I realize we would have to adjust. And we would have to learn not to feel so ashamed.
I don’t want to wait until doomsday.
