Warmer summer weather makes it possible to have more bare skin without freezing to death. Living in the UK (and not having great circulation) I feel the cold and I spend much of the year covered up. With more skin exposed, I am acutely aware of sun, wind, rain, shade, temperature changes and so forth. I’ve had some intense personal encounters with brambles and stinging nettles this summer and, as usual, blood sucking insects find my bare skin really appetising. Bare skin increases my sense of connection with the natural world.
It’s good to be able to uncover my body without fear of having that sexualised. This is part of why I think it’s so important to deliberately celebrate our bodies, making a clear statement of the joyful innocence that bare skin can also signify. We should not be reading sexual possibility into bodies that happen not to be heavily clothed. We should not be imposing desire on other people’s skin.
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