Why Don't We Go Naked Like Other Animals? So far, we have identified people in many different ways: a thinking animal, a talking animal, an animal that makes tools, and more... We realized that we were not unique in any of them, so these definitions fell into the water. But there is still a behavior that is quite human: wearing clothes. So can we call a person a "dressed animal"?
The oddity of wearing clothes and the taboo of nudity
Imagine, none of the animals in nature wear clothes. Of course, some abandoned shells of crabs and octopus, and "clothes" or "houses" is known for having, but its purpose rather than camouflage and hiding (although the skins of other animals such as hermit crabs and humans use clothing as largely dependent though). Another extreme example of this type of tool use is a caterpillar named Uraba lugens: although this caterpillar completely regenerates its exoskeleton, it does not discard its head part. So his outer armor, which wraps around his head, remains attached to his body with each exoskeleton renewal. As time passes and the armor continues to change, he rides head on head and thus gets a 7-8-story hat consisting of his old heads.
Does this behavior count as wearing clothes? Well, maybe, but even if we found other animals that use clothes in the sense that we know in nature, we would probably be the species that does it in the most complex way. Because we use clothes as an indispensable part of our lives and culture, that is, unlike other animals, this type of clothing is not a temporary tool for us. In addition, clothing does not appear to be an object specific to a single culture, which appeared only by chance or by chance: from West to east, from tribal peoples to the most complex civilizations, there is clothing in all.Of course, the levels, forms and dates of this have completely different patterns, but ultimately people seem to prefer to close their bodies, especially their genitals.
But why? Think about it; reproductive organs are one of the best ways to signal sexual success, and 1 of the 2 biological purposes of existence of each creature is reproduction. Think of the red butts of baboons that have evolved towards this... Or the swollen vulvas of chimpanzees... Yes, in chimpanzees, these intriguing puffiness are not buttocks, but vagina cheeks: they swell extravagantly, signaling that females are ready to mate.
In humans the situation is not very different: in women with puberty vulva, vagina, and labia have evolved, such as sexual organs, while in chimpanzees as distinctly swollen; but in the human female breasts irilesere same sex signals. Similarly, in both men and women, the genitals begin to report that they have reached reproductive age by bristling. But oddly, Homo sapiens, we cover and hide this basic biological signal!
In all "civilized" societies, the punishment for nudism can be quite severe: for example, consider attitudes towards nudism, a culture (and philosophy) aimed at social nudism that is not for sexual purposes, or, more accurately, naturism. In different geographies, these people are known for amenities such as private beaches, but they are forbidden in many places to mix with the general public. In other words, in our society, nudity is not seen as a choice, it is a prohibition, it is an anomaly.
It is very strange. Almost everyone watches porn, almost everyone desires or performs sex-both of which are extremely normal, extremely healthy behaviors unless they reach the level of addiction. Moreover, there is no mystery that can be covered up: everyone carries exactly the same organs in their bodies! So as the author of this article, it is not "secret information" that I have a penis, or that someone who is biologically female has a vagina or vulva, and it is not difficult to predict what this organ looks more or less like. Even so, when we encounter our sex-related taboos, even types of nudism that are not associated with sex, we are ashamed and bored and wave business, tabooize it, and avoid facing these childish feelings. To understand the absurdity of this, imagine another animal doing it: imagine, for example, that dogs are ashamed of sex or the organs in their bodies, or that elephants, bears, cats...
As a species that has built the most complex constructed civilizations and can be most aware of its own self and biology, our absurd obsession with the most basic biological behavior is quite unusual. Of course, the cultural, religious and social background of this shame is also very deep; but this is not the subject of this article, so we will not enter them in this article. But to understand the extent of the fear of nudity, we can give an example that tests the boundaries of society.
Stephen Gough, a British activist, managed to cross the island of Great Britain on foot naked from start to finish in 2003 and 2004, but when he tried to do so in 2005 and 2006, he was arrested and sent to prison. Gough, a former Navy soldier, wasn't trying to offend anyone, he was just minding his own business. But the UK and even then the European Court of human rights thought it was not a choice and Gough was jailed. He was often confined to solitary confinement for refusing to wear clothes in prison on hot days - which is an inhumane practice that is contrary to human rights. He was examined for alleged psychological problems, and not a single psychological problem could be detected. He went through all this just because he refused to wear clothes! You have always questioned in your life why nudity is so taboo, why clothes are so indispensable; but when you see such examples, you question even more: where does this clothing business come from?
When Did People Start Wearing Clothes?
Unfortunately, it's not clear when we started wearing clothes. Some say that we started 3 million years ago - which coincides with a time before the evolution of as many as 14 Homo species as we know, let alone Homo sapiens, while others say that the history of clothing is as "short" as 40,000 years. Archaeologists and anthropologists believe that our ancestors made clothing from organic materials such as branches, leaves, and animal skins, and none of these materials fossilized properly.
But unexpectedly, a bit called Pediculus humanus (you can see his photo below) can give us some clues as to when we start dressing. Let's explain: our body may not seem that big to us, but for a bit, our body is like a huge continent. Therefore, how there are different geographies in different parts of a continent, and these species can evolve depending on the conditions of different regions, in different parts of our body there are different ecosystems, and the bits can evolve accordingly.
Specific creatures that we say have evolved into different groups here are head lice and clothing lice. We call the lice on your head the subgenus Pediculus humanus capitis. Subgenus Pediculus humanus humanus This latter is also called" body lice", but in fact they do not live in our bodies, they live in our clothes, they spawn in our clothes, and they only descend into our bodies when they should be fed.I mean, we're like their buffet.
But the important thing is that bits that are specialized to hold on to our different places are so differentiated that they can be more or less distinguished from each other, so they are classified as separate subspecies. Because we are the host of these lice, and they are our parasites, we have undergone mutual evolution with these insects; that is, our evolutionary history is not independent of each other. In this case, if we can determine when clothing lice first evolved, we can predict when clothes also began to be worn.
Using genome sequences to do this, researchers found that the head lice evolved for the first time only 170,000 years ago, in contrast to the hundreds of thousands or even millions of years of history. This, in turn, indicates that clothes were invented about this long ago. Of course, the history of clothes may be older (after all, lice did not evolve as soon as we started wearing clothes), but this is the most concrete evidence we have of the origin of clothes to date.
Why Are We Wearing Clothes?
The evolution of lice can give insight into the origin of clothing, but it cannot provide information about the cause of clothing-wearing behavior. Here are 3 major hypotheses about this cause competing with each other. Look at them individually.
Migration to northern latitudes and cold resistance
The first explanation that will come to mind is one of the most popular hypotheses: protection against cold. The biggest data to support this is that the most likely date of clothing's appearance is between 100 and 200 thousand years ago, as well as the period when people decayed from Africa and spread to more northern latitudes, hence facing colder climates. This makes sense, because it is a fact that clothing gives cold resistance and even sees a shield effect against heat. Especially considering we're a" naked monkey."..
In fact, the number of hairs per square centimeter in our body is exactly the same as our "hairy" chimpanzee Cousins. But our hair roots and hair thickness are largely atrophied compared to theirs. This is because the hairs lower the effectiveness of the sweat glands. Hair is very good at keeping the temperature constant, while sweat glands are very good at lowering the temperature quickly. Therefore, for hunting and migration, sweat glands need to multiply; but the presence of hair in places that hide our organs, such as the brain, where the temperature must remain constant, is advantageous.
A rapid drop in temperature is much more critical, as Homo sapiens and their ancestors actively migrated and hunted through a method that required walking and running for hours called Resistance hunting. For this reason, our hair is vestigial, and our sweat glands are increased. But how do we warm up when we don't need to actively sweat? Here, clothing may have contributed to keeping our temperature constant throughout the body, replacing the hair we have lost.
Indeed, anthropologists who have studied peoples living in places with extreme temperatures, such as South America and South Sudan, have found that these people have no problem walking naked, preferring to wear clothes in cooler weather. Similarly, our Neanderthal cousins made clothes out of animal skin, and in the northern latitudes where they lived, they were able to survive more easily. In other words, there seems to be a relationship between weather conditions and decadence.
But cold resistance cannot be the only explanation, because it is also very common to wear clothes in hot places and especially close the genitals. The fact that male breasts are free and female breasts are taboo is a behavior that develops later (and has a rather complicated history). In other words, this asymmetric taboo is a cultural pressure that begins to be imposed on women after the rise of male - dominated societies and religions-so much so that Western societies have even intervened to censor women's breasts in the cultures of the natives they encounter. Hunter-gatherer tribes only in the overwhelming majority of the reproductive organs are covered as a normal woman boobs man boobs are met (and even in some cultures, breasts, thighs instead of breasts censor in societies that are more "normal" looking places that can be covered). In many other traditional societies, covering breasts is a right recognized to women, not an instrument of cultural bullying.
But why are we shutting down the reproductive organs? That's the critical question.
Sexual Signal Control Hypothesis
Another hypothesis on this issue, in fact, is related to the inability of human babies, which we have already described. We strongly recommend that you read this article, but in a nutshell, our babies are incapable, because our brains are too big for our bodies. Therefore, babies must exit the womb before the brain is fully developed, otherwise no woman would have given birth - which, without modern medicine, many maternal deaths would have already occurred during childbirth.
Because of this" underdeveloped birth", our babies need years of care, because their brains are barely developed enough for themselves. Meanwhile, on the one hand, raising a newborn baby in the Wild, on the other hand, constantly sexually signal that we are ready to mate and correspondingly that it can mate with the new birth, it would be disadvantageous for our species. So our species, which requires intensive parental care, may have needed a tool to control their sexuality signals. According to this hypothesis, this tool is clothing!
The 2 most important data lines that support this hypothesis come from other human behavior. Now let's look at these.
Courtship and random mating strategy
The first data line to support the hypothesis that clothing gives humans the opportunity to control signals of sexuality is pre-mating courtship behavior. This occurs in almost all animals: no animal suddenly moves into the mating phase, first the parties must prove to each other that they are a good partner. This, in turn, usually happens with a catch or show of strength game.
In fact, couldn't it be switched to mating immediately, what's the need for a game? Of course, it would be passed; but those who do this pre-qualification can choose better quality spouses than those who do not. During this game, partner candidates have the opportunity to prove that they are a good partner and really want to mate with that person. "Random mating" is a method in nature, but when the pressure of selection is high, it is a bad strategy.
Here's part of this pre-game in humans, can be the control of sexual signals with clothes. Clothing that only covers the genitals, in particular, may have served as a kind of "mate filter", paradoxically making them inaccessible on the other hand, while drawing more attention to the genitals with things like their colors and textures on the one hand.
Here, clothes like skirts should not be considered only (although probably Winston Churchill did not invent this saying, "a speech should be like a skirt: long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting."his word was made famous by Churchill). Examples of this include how clothes made for men are also specially designed for areas of the genitals, or how men also wear narrower clothing that emphasizes body contours and genitals to signal sexuality. Moreover, this is not a behavior that has evolved in the recent past: in more ancient times, this was done by special dyeing of clothing covering the genitals, as we will soon see.
Chastity Hypothesis
A second point (or "sub-hypothesis") that supports this hypothesis is that we feel embarrassment, that is, advanced shame, not anger or sadness towards nudity. Why not joy or bewilderment or hate but shame? Because shame is associated with our sense of what we call" chastity "or" humility", which in English is referred to as" modesty", which has become one of the weapons of cultural bullying today.
Let's explain: shame is also associated with trustworthiness and a healthy mind.Studies show that when they are praised after a success, people who are proud of it are less reliable, and those who are ashamed of it are more reliable. So in our evolutionary history, we may have established a relationship between the genitals and reliable and healthy partners, and the emotional reflection of this may also be shame decency towards the genitals.
Here it is worth emphasizing: sometimes people think that this taboo on the genitals has religious origins. Although religious rules have imposed very serious pressures on this issue, the behavior of dressing and covering the genitals is also based long, long before organized religions. In other words, as with many moral issues, religions have gone on the path of regulating and monopolizing existing moral norms, rather than inventing new behavior in this regard. In other words, the behavior of covering the genitals is not something that originates from religious beliefs, its history is much older (but many of the rules of dressing in our modern life are determined by cultural assumptions developed later, rather than this ancient behavior).
Clothes As A Signal In Their Own Right
A final hypothesis about this is that dressing, which begins with very simple purposes, later acquires a lot and various meanings. So the clothes could have gone beyond covering the body and protecting it, turning into a signaling tool in their own right.
Because signals that reflect emotions and identity are very important in human culture, so a T-shirt or skirt that we wear can reflect a group that we feel belongs to. Similarly, for example, the fact that the flux of our eyes is so pronounced compared to other animals is because we can communicate emotions intensely with our eyes. Similarly, the hair on our head protects the brain, but the hair on our face signals the sexual maturity of men. The fact that our eyebrows are prominent is also related to the communication of emotions. So many of our features have evolved around this signaling.
Indeed, the fact that indigenous tribes paint their clothes and signal strength, health, social status with it adds strength to this hypothesis. Similarly, there is evidence that Neanderthals also painted their clothes. So, once the so-called" garment " has become a signal on its own, it may also have acquired other cultural meanings, such as sexuality and a status symbol. In this way, he may have acquired a permanent place in society.
Result
As a result, when we first started wearing clothes, and what were the evolutionary and psychological reasons for this, it is difficult to make a very precise judgment on this issue, because the data usually comes from secondary evidence. Therefore, it is also difficult to tell which hypothesis or hypotheses are closest to the truth. But regardless, we can say that the garment has a certain duty of protection and signaling. If new anthropological and archaeological data that will be obtained in the future will illuminate the origins of this interesting behavior of our species, we will update and improve this article.
We hope these findings also showed how absurd it is to judge people by the clothes they wear. There is a wide variety within our species, and the choice of clothing is also part of that. No one can be forced or denied their rights to do anything against their consent because of the clothes they are wearing, this is very clear. Therefore, it is useful to leave these meaningless discussions behind.
Ha... If we were wrong at first and you're watching this video Naked... Cheers!