The Difference Between Nakedness and Nudity
As Explained by My Seventh Grade Art Teacher, and Remembered by Me Seven Years Later

The following was originally explained to me by my seventh grade art teacher, Mr. Goldman of Kenmore Middle School. It is with great regret that I have not written down these words before, and so they are subject to the vagaries of time and memory. Hopefully the gist remains.

Although both nudity and nakedness involve the unclothed human form, there exists a very important difference between the two terms:

Nudity is the use of exposed flesh in the presentation of art, or in a comfortable form.

Nakedness is the existence of exposed flesh in a form that is either sexual, or embarrassing.

This may seem a bit confusing, so an example will be required...


Say you are taking a bath. Assuming you are not wearing any clothes, you are nude. You are comfortable without any clothes on.

Now say the house catches fire, and flames begin to lick on the doorway. Fortunately your bathroom has a window that you can jump out of to safety. There's only one problem.

Your clothes are on fire.

You grab a bath towel, but suddenly that catches fire as well. The hand towel you reach for suddenly catches aflame as well, leaving you a mere washcloth. Taking what you can get, you dive out of the window.

Unfortunately, just as you dive through a tiny strand of the washcloth catches fire. Fueled by the rushing oxygen of your heroic dive, the washcloth is consumed in seconds.

As you get up you notice that you have just dived out of the window of your house into the front lawn, where several fire-fighters, paramedics, police officers, neighbors, and that punk kid from down the street are all staring at you.

Congratulations. You are now naked.

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