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I took an art class that covered it in some detail.
Regarding Greek clothing,
"The painting by Degas at the top of this page illustrates what is thought to be a not atypical scene of a (coed) Spartan gym class. However, it seems that the Spartans were not in step with the rest of Greece, where somewhat more prudishness was evident.
Although in Greece generally people were sufficiently used to the sight of nakedess, this costume of the Spartan girls was ridiculed. Hence they were called "thigh-showers", "those with bare thighs", and the expression "to dress in Doric fashion" ... was used of those "who liberally bared a great part of their body". In gymnastic and bodily exercises Spartan girls also put off this single piece of clothing and appeared completely naked.
Sparta aside,
In the rest of Greece the chiton as a single article of dress was only worn in the house; in public the himation was indespensible for women; this, with the exception of the somewhat modified cut required by the differently conditioned build of the female's body, was not essentially different from the man's himation."
I don't know if your misrepresentation was purposeful or not, but it is apparently somewhat common knowledge that Sparta was the exception and not the norm, and certainly neither is accused of being overly Christian, so where did they get these habits from?
The site also seems to dispute your assertion that all Greeks tended to get naked at the drop of a hat in clothing got in the way, and if you have ever done strenuous work of any kind, you will find in short order that clothes tend to keep certain sensative bits out of the way rather than being a hindrance.
You next go into a description of native dress in some cultures which I have already stated several times I am aware of. I am also aware of the concept you describe regarding shame being more of a result of breaking expected social norms. What I have said before is that in general, clothing's utility makes it near universal in use, and that once it becomes common to wear clothing, it tends to take on significance sexually since sexual characteristics that are normally hidden come into plain view, which has the natural effect of making this sudden appearance more sexually arousing than the same body parts would be if they were in plain view all the time. This bit seems to have been lost in translation somewhere, but if you look back you will surely see that I covered that ground.
Regarding Indian and Celt issues. Of course they had different ideas of what nudity meant, but the point is that it MEANT something. In cultures where clothing is habitually worn, I think it is a given that nudity will begin to mean something, since it will be the exception. I find it hard to fathom how it would not carry sexual connotations because it is necessary to get partially naked at least to have sex at all, and even in a culture where nudity is common place, one at least has to have the capacity to see a person of the opposite sex and be attracted to them and sexually aroused or else sex becomes impossible, so I don't think it makes sense to try to insinuate that the naked form does not carry with it a certain sexuality.
You accusation of me not having made even the slightest investigation into Celts belies the fact that I pointed out a specific point in their history where the courage and "fear factor" of going naked in battle became a negative rather than positive thing. Nor was the point at all that it was "right" that they were defeated. My point is that there are physical realities about nakedness that I believe play into the development of cultural norms concerning nudity and the privacy of sexual behavior, and I have stated this before as well. For some reason, you seem to like to shift from that thrust in my posts though and off into things I neither said nor intended. I wish you would stop. It would make getting on with things that I actually don't know much easier if you would stop accusing me of not knowing things that I do, indeed, know, and have even given examples of knowing in previous posts.
I did not discard the list of tribes as invalid. I specifically stated that they do not appear to make up a large portion of historical cultures, and my argument concerns the natural development of sexual mores and folkways around certain physical necessities, most notably clothing, and how the use of clothing would then give rise to dynamics that lead so many cultures to behave differently than the handful that you mention. In other words, it is invalid to argue that Christianity is somehow uniquely anti-sex when so many other cultures share the same or similar mores and folkways. I used the example of a tribe I had heard of because this tradition of rattling off little known tribes as examples of how narrow minded Christians have made western culture ignores the fact that not all tribes lack the taboo against nudity.
I never asserted that clothing was about shame. I said the use of clothing probably gives rise to the shame that then turns into a sexual taboo about nudity and the privacy of sexual conduct. ou ascribe that to me and then proceed to deconstruct the argument with little regard to what I have asserted.
About the only thing I have asserted forcefully is that it is unfair and off topic to take a slap at Christianity in a forum thread about sex in muds.
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