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Thursday, January 31, 2013

Preface To The Naked Show: Gymnophobia

Gymnophobia literally means "naked fear" & I hope you don't have it.  Sure, it's a phobia, it's irrational, you know it's irrational, but like being afraid that bugs might be crawling over you, you start to think about it & then you're swatting your pants leg & then they're all over your back & you can feel them in your hair & you're like OH GOD THEY'RE EVERYWHERE EVERYWHERE AGGH! AGGGGHHH!

That very thing (in ALL CAPS!) may happen to you if you're afraid of nudity & you listen to Self Help Radio this week.  That would be the very definition of unfortunate.  As unfortunate, you know, as happening to listen to Self Help Radio.

The Wikipedia has a short article about it & has this tidbit, "Child gymnophobia is common due to peer pressure, bullying, & a fear of exposing sexual organs."

This reminds me of a weird experience in the field house - you know, the place where you "dressed out" in gym class in middle school - when I was in sixth grade.  I was not a terribly bright child & most probably hadn't hit puberty yet, & didn't have any information about what might happen when I did, & I remember watching two older boys - eighth graders! - teasing each other in a playful way by roughhousing & snapping each other with towels & that sort of thing so popular (one imagines) in gay pornography.  The freaky moment happened - & I think I was watching this because I found the field house so incredibly frightening & I "dressed out" in-between the wall & the door of my locker - one of the two older kids made the other feel bad by "flashing" him his junk, which, he proudly pointed out, featured public hair.  (I assumed the other boy didn't have any yet.)

Yeah, I had no idea that sort of thing - hair. down there. - was going to happen to me.

Imagine!  I went to gym class every day of sixth grade for at least nine months & that's all I really remember about it.  Trauma!

I don't know if I'm gymnophobic, but I certainly don't like to see people I know in states of undress.  Perhaps it's just prudishness, or perhaps it's some fear that there's something that's supposed to happen to my naked body that hasn't happened yet - & I'll see it on someone else - & that would freak me out as much seeing male pubic hair for the first time.

My show will probably not have anything to do with this story.  I just went where my memories led me.  Nakedness, so popular on the internet, has proved a bit of a weird tangent on this naked blog.

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