we must make our way to the rough part of the law,

begging these men.. . to be serious; and reminding

them that it isn't so long ago that it looked black
and ridiculous to the Greeks-as it does now to the
many among the barbarians-to see guys nude; and
that when the Cretans originated the gymnasiums,
and then the Lacedaemonians,it was possible for the
urbane of the time to make a comedyof all that. But, I
Assume, when it becameclear to those who used these
practices that to uncover all such things is better than
to conceal them, then what is ridiculousto the eyes vanished in the light of what's finest ....
And this revealed
that he's empty who considers anything is silly
Aside from the sight of the silly and the awful; or,
again, he who looks seriously to any standard of
beauty he sets up other than the great .... Then the
women guardiansmust strip, since they will clothethemselves in virtue instead of robes, and
they must take
commonpart in war and the rest of the city'sguarding,
and mustn't do other things .... And the man who
laughs at naked women practicing gymnastic for the
Benefit of the finest, "plucksfrom his wisdom an unripe
fruit for ridicule"and doesn't know-as it looks-at
what he laughs or what he does. For this is really the
fairest thing that is said and will be said-the
beneficialis honest and the harmful ugly.85
Apart from the differentiation between men and girls
in Greek life, and Platonic notions, the passage touches
on several significant aspects of Greek nudity: its
Objective in instruction (music, athletic exercises, the artwork
of war), as a prep for military service; laughter
as a reaction to something embarrassing and shameful-the sight of a naked girl, as before
the sight
of a nude guy; the adoption of public male nakedness
in everyday life as an initiation; and the explanation
of athletic nudity as a useful, rational custom.
Other authors gave an assortment of rationalizing explanations for the association. Plutarch
sees a social purpose in the nakedness of men and women together in
the institution of the gymnopaidia at Sparta: Lycurgus needed to support in the young men
the desire
to marry as soon as possible.86
This rationalizing tendency of the Greeks is undoubtedly

[AJA93
passage in Pausanias, in which he credits the custom of having trainers entering the arena
nude to a
historical episode. According to this account, a mom
who had disguised herself as her son's trainer at Olympia became so excited at his success
that she leapt
over the fence, and so endangered herself as a girl.
She wasn't penalized, but a law was passed to make
sure that henceforward only men were accepted."
Modern scholars have in some cases taken such explanations seriously.88 In contrast to
historical explanations, most modern interpretations, nevertheless, have
concentrated on the aesthetic aspect of the occurrence. This is perhaps natural, since nudity
in art is
most familiar, having long been consideredan expression of the Greek ideal. Since the time
of Polykleitos
the picture of Guest Website: Making A Naturist Documentary Film with FKK , ideally
beautiful,
remained,for generations,the favoritetheme of Greek
artists. Yet we cannot take Greek nudity for allowed.
One can simply explain its origin in Greek culture, and
the relationship of fit nudity with the artistic nudity of the kouros, the phallic herm, the satyr,
and the
actor of Old Comedy, by taking into account the originally spiritual, rite, apotropaic motives
for Greek
nudity, which lead us back to its early status of
taboo. At a later point in its history, its meaning
was comprehended in a different way. The association
was transformed, and a distinct set of connotations
developed. This is clear from the signs of ancient
authors who cope with this custom, as we have seen, in
Provisions of their own historical context.
Maybe we can better understandthe scenario in
Greece by looking at those who did not share in this
institutionalizednudity:girls and barbarians.
WOMEN
For girls in Greek art, literature, and life, the
tabooagainst nudityremainedin total force,with all its
sense of humiliation and vulnerability as well as its

evident in the "practical"explanations offered for the

"Launch"of athletic nudity at Olympia-that it
facilitatedthe athlete'svictory.It's additionally illustratedin a
magic power.
In art the female nude appears briefly, in the early
Archaicperiod, as a religiousfertility motif, following
the Near Eastern model of the naked mothergoddess.
After these early figures the picture was used for pathetic appeal, for It was a noticeable
rendering of a dick, huge and arching upwards. It cannot have had any practical or erotic
appeal, or for scenes
from the life of a courtesan.89

NUDITY AS A COSTUME IN ANCIENT ART

The sense of shame which was so pervasive in the
Near East was still found in Homer's accounts of the
punishment of Thersites, as we have seen. The anxiety of
exposure long remained an effective risk for girls.
At Miletus, a decree was passed to discourage a rash
of suicides among the girls of that city: those who
killed themselves were threatened with being taken