I think there’s absolutely no question that clothing brings out a form of exhibitionism in people and could be the reason they feel so self conscious when naked. They’re used to being observed and critiqued for what they’re wearing; or not.
As part of my job in IT I wear a lot of branded clothing that makes me fully aware I’m a walking billboard. It has an upside because people ask, “oh do you work with (tech brand here)?” This often leads to an exchange of business cards.
Some days I intentionally dress to be incognito. No branded attire. Just a plain polo etc.
On weekends typically don’t wear any branded swag. There’s a reason this stuff is “free”. It’s cheap advertising.
I’m always conscious of what I’m wearing and the image it’s projecting. More accurately the persona it projects and who I feel like being on that day in a given place.
None of this applies when you’re naked. Your face and body language tells the tale.
Like others, at some venues you notice people with body piercings or other modifications. Often it’s a Kath and Kim “Look at me, look at me” seeking attention. To be fair though, it’s also somebody expressing who they think they want to be.
This is the irony of revealing clothing. I think if either gender wear tight revealing clothing that draws attention to their butt, crotch or cleavage, it shouldn’t surprise or bother them when people stare.
There’s often a lot of discussion that women in particular should be able to wear what they like and not be ogled at, or feel unsafe about it.
On one level yes, that should be the case. On a whole other level, if you’re not comfortable with people starting, don’t wear clothes bound to draw unwanted attention.
It hasn’t been uncommon in work environments throughout the years to have female colleagues dress in a manner that if they choose, allows them to curry favour by wearing clothes that permit leaning over a desk in front of you, in a manner that it takes sheer will power to look up into their eyes despite the lure of ample cleavage dipped to your eye line.
Similarly short dresses that can be permitted to be incredibly revealing when sitting on a desk top. Again at a sitting person’s eye line. The irony being even if pulled completely up would show no more than you’d see at the beach wearing a bikini. Nonetheless the ensuing peep show requires stoic demeanour to ignore.
It’s not just clothes that people wear, but how they wear them. How they behave while wearing them. It’s perhaps for this reason people have reserved ideas about full nudity.
Maybe their thinking is “If this is how people behave with clothes on, what’s their behaviour going to be with them off!”
It reminds me of a similar “slippery slope” logical fallacy we have in IT.
“What if we spend all this money on training to up-skill people then they leave?”
The counter argument is “what if we don’t and they stay!”
So conclusion it is perhaps the way people behave as opposed to how they dress or not that probably determines their inclination towards or away from exhibitionism.
It’s in that vein I sometimes wonder about “willy” shots. Of all the many photographs depicting nudity there are those where it’s just a body, a whole body in nature. Then there’s those that somehow manage to highlight; “here’s my willy and me. Naked.”
