@oldfort Wow, awkward!
Humans with ancestry in sunnier areas tend to have darker skin to mitigate the problems associated with too much UV exposure. Presumably, this helped survival before the invention of clothing, or when clothing was found to hinder cooling in hot weather.
People also died a lot younger centuries ago so didn’t have to worry as much about overexposure to UV catching up to them in older age and causing potential skin cancer and other issues.
Centuries or millenia ago, the main issue with excess UV exposure was the painful sunburns that could prevent one from working outside (hunting, gathering, or farming). Of course, sunburns correlate to the risk of skin cancer later. Darker skin allowed humans in sunnier areas to spend more time outside without being disabled by painful sunburns.
In less sunny areas, lighter skin allowed more UV for greater generation of vitamin D by the skin.
Obviously, someone with lighter skin living in a sunnier area needs to pay more attention to avoiding excessive UV exposure, while someone with darker skin living in a less sunny area needs to pay more attention to getting enough vitamin D.
We spend a lot of time at the beach in Long Island (NY) and it’s not uncommon to see topless women. They are usually just seated or lying down and generally way off to the side of the main crowd.
It doesn’t bother me and I don’t recall anyone making a fuss over it.
Boobs, whoop-ti-do.
“Humans with ancestry in sunnier areas tend to have darker skin to mitigate the problems associated with too much UV exposure. Presumably, this helped survival before the invention of clothing, or when clothing was found to hinder cooling in hot weather.”
There is another possible reason for skin color variations, dealing with vitamin D, that in more strong sun climates dark skin prevents over producing vitamin D, whereas lighter skin allows more. The problem with the darker skin as UV prevention is that having darker skin does not prevent skin cancer to the point where people don’t need to worry, whether of African Ancestry, mixed Ancestry, Southern European, the fact that they tan heavily and/or have darker skin is not necessarily gonna prevent skin cancer (in part because of the differences in UV A and B from what I recall).
If people are nude or topless on a beach, or wearing a bikini or swim shorts, the amount of protection they have isn’t h different, so basically they should be using sunscreen, and after a while cover up/get under an umbrella…seeing the bathing suits these days, not gonna protect a lot:).
As far as people at nude beaches, it is true many of them are not what others would consider ‘beautiful people’ (including myself!), but it is kind of nice that people feel it is a come as you are kind of thing, most of the ones at the beach I have gone to tend to be my age and it is nice to see, to be honest, all kinds of body types, because the people who go to these places don’t go to look at other people, or if they do don’t mind seeing people who aren’t on the Swedish Bikini team or on the cover of a romance novel.
If someone has trouble with nude bodies because people aren’t perfect, I wonder if they go to regular beaches, where a lot of people are not exactly ‘body beautiful’ (and I put it in parenthesis), so how is it any different?
To me it is sad that people so sexualize the body, assume that parts of the body are going to drive others to distraction with lust. As others have said, the lust is in these people’s minds, 10 minutes on a nude beach and it kind of becomes no big deal. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been problems on nude beaches with people with inappropriate behavior, but the other people there often are the ones stamping that at, people going around ogling (at the beach I have gone to, it often is kids from backgrounds/cultures that are really puritanical, who go and ogle IME) are dealt with, and many of the nude beaches are on federal land, and park rangers are really, really tough on people who violate the rules, so it isn’t ‘anything goes’. Of course there is such a thing as practicality, I don’t think all beaches should be nude beaches, for example, I think people should have the option, what I object to is people who wish to go topless or nude don’t have the option because of the hang ups of others.
While having dark skin does not completely avoid skin cancer, it does apparently significantly reduce the risk.
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/skin/statistics/race.htm shows melanoma rates by race and ethnicity in the US. Although race and ethnicity are imperfect proxies of skin color, those who tend to have darker skin colors have lower melanoma rates.
@ucbalumnus:
I didn’t say it wasn’t lower, I said it wouldn’t necessarily prevent skin cancer, even if let’s say African Americans have half the risk of getting melanoma, is it smart to play russian roulette and go out in the sun without sunscreen? It is kind of like saying in your family the risk of heart disease via genetics is small, it wouldn’t be smart to eat a diet high in saturated fat, eat cheeseburgers and french fries and junk food:)
From the CDC page, it looks like black people have about 1/30 the incidence rate and 1/9 the death rate of melanoma compared to white people.
Yes, it is best to avoid sunburn, and some African American people have a high percentage of European ancestry and lighter skin color and should be more careful, but a very dark skinned person need not be as paranoid about being sunburned or increasing his/her skin cancer risk after 20 minutes in the sun like a very light skinned person may have to be.
The highest rate of melanoma is found in Australia. Light skinned Europeans + living close to the Equator=skin cancer.
I found myself on a clothing optional beach one time in the Caribbean. Only a handful of folks were on the beach that day. I and a friend were the only Americans around. The nude couple were Canadian senior citizens, the hotel guy said. I must admit that I spent most of the time looking in every direction other than where the senior citizens where relaxing.
Good grief, they are mammary glands. How can we still be so hung up on seeing them as they are.
Sounds like a massive ‘wardrobe malfunction’ is in order.
As someone that frequented clothing optional beaches in my younger years (not a beach goer at all these days, clothed or not) I can say with certainty…the unclothed area was much less sexualized than the neighboring area sporting string bikinis and thong panties.
http://www.10tv.com/article/judge-grants-injunction-allowing-women-be-topless-comfest
It’s not against the law to be topless in Ohio but this is the only place I really ever see it.
At a lot of clothing optional areas, skimpy swimsuits and lingerie are NOT allowed, because it’s felt they are more problematic than nudity is. And at a lot of resorts, clothes of any type are not allowed at the swimming pool or beach to eliminate the possibility of gawkers.
Why is nudity less likely to have gawkers than skimpy clothing? I’m mystified by that thought process.
^It’s to eliminate people who come clothed to the resort just to gawk at those funny nude people instead of being there to use the facilities.
Because everyone is nude, @HImom .
The idea is that if clothing is permitted, clothed people will show up to gawk at the naked people. They’re less likely to come if they are required to be sans clothing.
I’ve always thought it was a little weird in this country that topless really just means having the nipples uncovered. Any other part of the breast exposed is ok. What’s the big deal with the nipple? Why is that the part that needs covering?