Random Musings on Nudity

"Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the
unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy,
you may find in them a harness and a drain. Would that you could meet
the sun and the wind with more of your body and less of your
raiment."
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Full nakedness! All joyes are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth'd must be
To taste whole joyes.
John Donne, "Elegie XIX"

"Bare skin is the one and only right criterion for receiving water's
gracious acceptance or any acceptance whatsoever from that element.
But Pliny also seems to say something more: Stripping off not caution
but the stale, crusty garments of preconception, peeling sensibly
down to raw, new nakedness, is the only way to enter and be properly
embraced by the world."
Janet Lembke, 'Skinny Dipping'

"It is so basic. A human being is an innocent part of nature. Our
civilization has distorted this universal quality that allows us to
feel at home in our skin. Other animals have coats that they accept,
but the human race has yet to come to terms with being nude."
Ruth Bernhard, photographer (1905- )

"Whatever the reasons, I enjoyed being nude; it felt natural to me. I
got the same kind of pleasure from being free of clothing that many
people get from being well dressed."
Charis Wilson, wife and model of photographer Edward Weston