Born Naked, Taught to Be Ashamed and What Are We Really Covering Up?
Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, yoga therapist, and thanatologist guiding fellow mindful mortals at the threshold of life, death, devotion, and (r)evolution. His work blends neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration to invite braver ways of being human.
As a naked yoga teacher for men for more than 20 years, I was chagrined to see another naked body become a New York Times headline. What is humanity doing? We have these wonderful human bodies, yet we keep finding ways to attempt to make them a scandal. Meanwhile, I’ve spent decades holding space for men carrying shame and self-hatred, trying to take little bits of that away as we practice naked.
Reading the full New York Times (NYT) article gave my bemusement a more specific direction. In Amelie Claydon’s reporting for The Athletic, published on the Times’ website, female athletes challenge Sydney Sweeney’s advertisement for the sports prediction market Novig. The campaign features an otherwise naked Sweeney covering herself with sports equipment. Athletes, including sprinter Amy Hunt and swimmer Ariarne Titmus, object to the sexualization of women in sports, answering with images and accounts of their own strength, training, and dedication.
I hear them. Women who have worked relentlessly to have their abilities taken seriously deserve better than another conversation organized around their sexual appeal. Their criticism is about how a body is being used. My concern is what happens when that conversation slips into treating the body itself as the offense.
Protective gear and fancy athletic wear have their place. Cringing at another person’s choice to share their body reveals a different social issue: our discomfort with nakedness itself. We can question what an advertisement is selling while respecting someone’s choice to appear in it. A body doesn’t become shameful because it shows up without a uniform.
Can we challenge objectification without adding to the shame people already carry? What are we doing with ourselves by fixating on this?
One detail in the article deserves more attention than the strategically placed sporting goods. Novig’s chief executive described the campaign as a way to force the company into national discussion. Sweeney is an equity partner who helped develop its message. Our attention is part of the business arrangement, whether we arrive applauding, scolding, or forwarding the controversy to everyone we know. Before we donate another afternoon to the campaign, I’d like us to ask what we are learning from it and who is benefiting.
There is always another flaw to finance
We know how to sell bodies and sell things to bodies. Shrink this. Enlarge that. Tighten whatever has had the audacity to age. Then we wonder why people struggle to feel comfortable in their own skin. There is always another flaw to finance, and apparently even our outrage can be put to work.
In my naked yoga classes, I meet the human beings living with those messages. Too fat, too thin, too old, too hairy, too small. Men who have learned to measure their worth against bodies selected, posed, and presented for an audience. Sometimes I catch myself saying they were born with shame. They were born naked. The shame required instruction.
As a gay man, licensed clinical social worker, and yoga therapist, I have spent years helping people question what they were taught about themselves. Naked yoga is one place where that questioning becomes physical. We breathe, stretch, wobble, and practice being seen without constantly correcting ourselves. Gravity offers the same customer service to everyone.
Taking off clothing does not automatically make someone feel free. It can bring discomfort closer to the surface, which is why consent, privacy, and clear boundaries are essential. Nobody owes anyone access to their body. But adults who choose this practice deserve room to experience it without being treated as though they have confused a yoga studio with a sex club.
Japan deserves a place in this conversation. Japan’s tradition of communal bathing deserves to be named. In onsen, or hot spring baths, and sento, public bathhouses, people bathe naked together, generally in separate bathing areas for men and women. There are expectations about washing first, respecting others, and behaving considerately. Ordinary nakedness belongs within an established social practice. People can share a bath without everybody becoming a sexual proposition. Japanese bathing etiquette.
I’ve also watched German television programs where fully naked women stood while anatomy was discussed with a matter-of-factness I found affirming and refreshing. The bodies were visible, the conversation continued, and civilization survived. In Finland, naked sauna bathing is customary, and guidance on sauna culture explicitly distinguishes the practice from sex while accommodating different preferences about covering up.
These cultures have their own contradictions. I’m not handing out gold medals for national enlightenment. I’m asking why we act as though our discomfort is an unavoidable truth about being human. Other settings demonstrate that people can learn to encounter nakedness with composure, courtesy, and very little drama. We can learn, too.
A few questions for the habitually clothed
The “Heterosexual Questionnaire,” attributed to Martin Rochlin, challenged prejudice by reversing familiar interrogations of gay people: “What do you think caused your heterosexuality?” and “When and where did you decide you were a heterosexual?” As a gay man, I appreciate how quickly a supposedly reasonable question reveals itself when the person asking it has to answer.
So let’s give our assumptions about clothing a turn. Were you raised in a clothed household, and do you think that influenced your lifestyle? If nudity is inherently sexual, how do you manage a shower? Have you ever confused being appropriately dressed with being a decent person? If consenting adults practice naked yoga in a private room, what exactly needs rescuing?
Keep your clothes on while considering your answers. Clothing offers warmth, protection, self-expression, and excellent pockets. Faith, culture, and personal comfort are good reasons to cover ourselves. We can respect those choices while questioning the lesson that somebody else’s bare skin is a character defect.
Every naked body is sacred, can we act like it?
I have often said that every body is beautiful, and I understand the tenderness behind those words. Still, on a day when you cannot find yourself beautiful, do you have permission to stop being cruel to yourself? Your body should not have to win you over aesthetically before it qualifies for care. For more about the health benefits of being naked, check out this article from the Netherlands.
That is something we can practice without undressing. Notice whose voice you hear when you criticize your appearance. Ask whether a comment about somebody else’s body was invited. Move, rest, or stretch without making improvement the price of participation. When a headline provokes you, read closely enough to distinguish your reaction from what the people involved are actually saying.
The athletes in this story are asking for their work to be recognized. I am asking us to examine the shame that makes simply inhabiting a body so difficult. We have enough intelligence to hold both conversations, and enough humanity to stop turning every body into something to grade.
As a NYT-featured certified death doula, I am aware of how little time we have to waste despising the bodies that carry us. There are people to hold, losses to grieve, and some dancing left to do. During this Anthropocene, with so much asking for our care, I want to know what becomes possible when we reclaim some of the attention we spend policing flesh.
For more than two decades, I’ve helped male-bodied humans practice putting down something they were never born carrying. I call that a subversive act of humanity. The clothes are the easy part. Naked yoga classes already exist around the world, with gay men helping create spaces where we can move, breathe, and celebrate our bodies without shame.
Could Ms. Sweeney and the athletes challenging her campaign help nudge that conversation forward? Imagine using this attention to create more safe and brave spaces where being naked doesn’t require a sales pitch, an athletic achievement, or an apology.
Thank you, Ms. Sweeney, for baring the naked truth, and the New York Times for daring to share a story that gets us talking. Now let’s give that conversation somewhere brave and humane to go.
Read more from Kenneth J. Breniman
Kenneth J. Breniman, Grief Guide & Mindfully Mortal Therapist
Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, certified yoga therapist, and thanatologist whose work lives at the intersection of mortality, meaning, and transformation. Drawing from neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration, he challenges the myth of human exceptionalism while honoring the precious role each of us plays in the ongoing evolution of our species. Ken is the author of a three-body solution and subversive acts of humanity, and the creator of the See-Soul children’s grief literacy series. Through writing, teaching, and ritual-informed practice, he guides mindful mortals toward deeper humility, resilience, and collective becoming.
