What I Learned About Women's Bodies by Seeing Hundreds of Them

I recently watched a social media video that captured something I've been thinking about for years. A man was responding to a parent asking how to explain to their ten-year-old daughter that crop tops "aren't appropriate". His reply was simple and disarming:

What conversations are you having with your ten-year-old son about not sexualising girls who wear crop tops?

He's right. We spend enormous energy teaching girls that their bodies are the problem, telling them that they must cover up, manage reactions, and anticipate male behaviour, whilst leaving boys and men largely unchallenged. We warn our daughters that "men might look at us in ways that make us uncomfortable", but rarely ask why men are being taught to look at girls' bodies as sexual objects in the first place.

As a naturist man, married to a woman who once found nudity actively distressing, I've spent years thinking about how men learn to see women's bodies, and, crucially, how that learning can be undone. In this article I'm not going to insist you become a naturist, but I do want to share what I've learned about why sexualisation feels automatic to so many men, and why, despite common narratives to the contrary, it absolutely isn't inevitable.

The problem isn't natural, it's learned

Here is the uncomfortable truth: the way most men in Britain see women's bodies is not hard-wired piece of biological fact. It is the product of sustained cultural conditioning from birth.

Psychological research shows that people (men and women) have been trained to literally process the visual image of women differently from the image of men. Women's bodies are more likely to be perceived in fragments (legs, breasts, stomachs, etc.) whilst men are processed as a whole. This pattern mirrors how the brain recognises objects by their constituent parts, rather than subjects as a whole. In other words, objectification isn't just an attitude; it's a perceptual habit.

That habit is taught. From birth the language we use around our daughters differs from that of our sons, as does the permissions we give them. As they grow, they see everything our society has to offer, from advertising and film to social media and pornography; female bodies, especially nudity, are presented as a collection of inherently sexual parts and available to be looked at. Male nudity, when it appears at all, is framed as comic, athletic, or neutral, but most importantly as a whole person. Over time, this trains boys and men to associate female bodies with sexual meaning, regardless of context.

Consider how identical anatomy - nipples - are treated as neutral on male bodies but sexual on female ones. This arbitrariness reveals the system: sexualisation isn't about bodies themselves, it's about whose gaze controls the meaning. Indeed, the conditioning runs so deep that many women internalise this view of their own bodies, mistaking performance for the male gaze as personal empowerment.

History reinforces this point. In nineteenth-century Europe, female nudity was commercialised for clothed male audiences, such as on music-hall stages and in art studios, whilst the reverse arrangement was treated as scandalous. This gendered hierarchy of the gaze wasn't natural; it was constructed. And we are still living with its consequences.

What naturism taught me about unlearning

I grew up absorbing all the same assumptions as most British men. Female nudity meant sex and women's bodies were there to be judged as attractive or not. That was simply how the world worked.

When I met my wife Helen, she was still struggling with the repercussions from sexual assaults and had deeply negative associations with nudity. As such, seeing me naked at home initially repulsed her. "Never had I been faced with the prospect of casually seeing a penis when I was trying to cook," she later wrote.

What changed things for both of us wasn't ideology or moral persuasion. It was habituation.

Naturism isn't magical. Habituation is a well understood psychological effect. When you repeatedly encounter nude bodies in ordinary, non-sexual contexts, the automatic sexual response quickly fades. The brain unlearns the connection between nudity and sex and learns instead to treat them as the separate concepts that they are.

Gradually, through naturist environments, Helen discovered that male nudity did not have to mean sexual threat. And I discovered how reflexively I had been sexualising women's bodies, even when nothing sexual was happening at all.

What happens when bodies stop performing

Research by psychologist Keon West at Goldsmiths University, London, studied what happens when people participate in naturist activities. The most important finding was this: the benefits come not from being naked, but from being around others who are.

When people are exposed to a wide range of ordinary, non-idealised bodies - young and old, slim and large, disabled, pregnant, scarred - their brains stop treating bodies as sexual commodities. Social physique anxiety drops. Body appreciation rises. Sexual categorisation weakens.

This matters because it shows how shallow our assumptions really are. Sexualisation persists not because bodies are inherently sexual, but because we are rarely allowed to see them outside of commercialised or performative situations.

And, in turn, this exposes another crucial nuance: approval-dependent confidence versus genuine self-acceptance. Many women believe revealing clothing or breast augmentation gives them confidence, but that confidence requires an audience finding them attractive. When the validation stops, the confidence collapses. Naturism shows what body acceptance looks like when no one else is evaluating you; it's resilient, unconditional, and entirely yours.

In naturist settings, people are not posing, seducing, or presenting themselves for evaluation. They are swimming, reading, eating lunch, or chatting. The nude body becomes background noise. At first this feels uncomfortable because it is outside of the normal we know. Then it becomes normal. That shift is measurable and replicable.

This isn't about morality — it's psychology

We already accept this principle in other domains. Doctors and surgeons perform intimate examinations without sexual arousal. Art students draw nude models whilst concentrating on line and proportion. Parents bathe young children without any thought of sexual meaning. Context matters.

If a doctor can see a body as a biological system and an artist can see it as a collection of shapes, a teenage boy can be taught to see a midriff as just... a midriff.

Longitudinal studies of children raised with non-sexual family nudity found no evidence of harm. In fact, researchers observed better sexual adjustment in adolescence and clearer understanding of sexual boundaries. Children learned that nudity and sexuality are not the same thing.

The lesson is simple: sexual meaning is not inherent in the body. It is learned and is context dependent.

What this means for your daughter's crop top

When you tell your daughter to cover up because "men might look," you are accepting male sexualisation as inevitable. You are teaching her that her body is responsible for other people's thoughts, and that managing those thoughts is her burden.

At the same time, you are teaching your son that if he is distracted by a girl's body, it is her fault for not hiding it better.

This dynamic is visible everywhere: in US school dress codes that describe girls as "distracting," and in the persistent myth that what women wear causes male behaviour. There is no evidence for this. Research shows the opposite: policing girls' clothing increases body monitoring and reduces academic focus, consuming the mental resources studies have shown as casualties of objectification.

Your daughter will encounter messages claiming that sexualising herself is empowering. But empowerment that requires constant performance and approval isn't freedom; it's just the male gaze, or the common female interpretation of it, in disguise.

If we want to protect girls, the solution is not to shrink them. It is to raise boys and men who have learned that bodies are not automatically sexual objects.

Practical steps that don't involve getting naked

You don't need to embrace naturism to interrupt this pattern, although it is possibly the easiest route. But if that is not for you and your family right now, then you do need to start having different conversations.

Follow a 3-to-1 Rule: For every conversation you have with your daughter about her clothing, you should be having three with your son about respect and boundaries. If you don't have a son, talk to your friends who do, pressing them to ensure they are having these discussions.

Audit your inner monologue: When you catch yourself sexualising a woman's body or judging a girl's outfit, ask whether you would respond the same way to a man in an equivalent situation. Remember that if someone makes a girl feel uncomfortable about her body, that is the observer's problem to fix, not hers.

Intervene in "locker room" talk: Real change happens when men call out other men. When you hear inappropriate comments about women or girls, challenge the idea that their bodies are there for male consumption.

Normalise the neutral body: Move bodies out of the "sexual-only" category by exposing your family to non-sexual contexts, such as art galleries, educational TV programmes, or by openly breastfeeding. Have honest conversations with the men in your life about why a ten-year-old's stomach should never be considered sexual in the first place.

Shift the definition of protection: Stop teaching your daughter that "covering up" is her only shield. Protect her by teaching her that her body belongs to her and her alone, and that she has the right to wear what makes her comfortable and confident. And if anyone calls her out, then that is their problem, not hers.

The wider picture

These arguments about crop tops isn't really about clothing. They're about whether we are willing to challenge a culture that trains men to sexualise women's bodies and then treats that training as unchangeable.

Other societies demonstrate that it is not. In parts of northern Europe, non-sexual nudity is ordinary. These cultures report lower body shame and greater comfort with physical diversity. If sexualisation were inevitable, this would not be possible.

My wife, who once could not bear to see me naked whilst making a cup of tea, now appears nude in national media advocating for body freedom. What changed was not her morality. If anything, that was strengthened. What changed was her mindset.

The same process works for men - but only if we stop pretending the problem lies with women's and girl's bodies. Your daughter should not have to cover her stomach because some men haven't learned how not to sexualise children.

That is not her responsibility. It is ours.

References

Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification theory: Toward understanding women's lived experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(2), 173–206. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00108.x

West, K. (2018). Naked and Unashamed: Investigations and Applications of the Effects of Naturist Activities on Body Image, Self-Esteem, and Life Satisfaction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19, 677–697. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9846-1

West, K. (2021). I Feel Better Naked: Communal Naked Activity Increases Body Appreciation by Reducing Social Physique Anxiety. Journal of Sex Research, 58, 958. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1764470

Okami, P., Olmstead, R., & Abramson, P. R. (1998). Sexual Experiences in Early Childhood: 18-Year Longitudinal Data from the UCLA Family Lifestyles Project. Journal of Sex Research, 34(4), 339–347. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1018736109563

Lewis, R. J., & Janda, L. H. (1988). The Relationship Between Adult Sexual Adjustment and Childhood Experiences Regarding Exposure to Nudity, Sleeping in the Parental Bed, and Parental Attitudes Toward Sexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 17(4), 349–362. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541812

Manin, L., & Pavard, B. (2021). Nudity and Gender in Nineteenth-Century France. Clio: Women, Gender, History. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27291422