Some additional historical perspective on athletic nudity in Greek from academia exploring the introduction of nudity in the Greek Olympic Games. The quote and the two papers by the same authors illustrate that nudity was not always a part of the Olympics. In fact there were 15 Olympiads over 50 before the introduction of any nudity in the games. They suggest its introduction was utilitarian in nature. Not some high minded acceptance of public nudity, as is oft implied in current modern nudist mythology.Nudity at the Olympic Games was neither primitive nor original, by all accounts it was deliberately introduced around the l5th Olympiad or 720BCE, more than 50 years after the traditional founding of the Games.11 Before that, athletes presumably competed in loincloths (zomata) that covered their genitals, as they had in Homer's epics-our earliest written account of Greek athletics. Outside of sport and certain religious rituals, nudity was and always had been considered shameful in Greek societyInterestingly enough, explanations for the introduction of athletic nudity at the ancient Olympic Games include (l) performance enhancement and (2) safety. The 2nd c. CE travel writer Pausanias tells us that Orsippus of Megara initiated the practice by winning the footrace after losing his loincloth. "My own opinion," Pausanias adds, "is that at Olympia he intentionally let the girdie slip off him,realizing that a naked man can nm more easily than one girt."3 On the face of it, this story seems plausible since we commonly think of athletes as doing anything and everything to improve their performance. Dionysius of Halicarnassus concurs that the runner intentionally dropped his shorts, adding that before the incident Greeks were ashamed to appear naked at the Games.Ancient Athletic Nudity and the Olympic Ethos of AreteNaked Virtue: Ancient Athletic Nudity and the Olympic Ethos of Arete
In the text and footnotes of the cited "Naked Virtue: Ancient Athletic Nudity and the Olympic Ethos of Arete," it's fascinating how concepts regarding nudity in ceremony, sport and the Olympics varied in periods of history in their symbolism and significance. A nice overriding statement is: "The ancient Greeks acted as if everything was visible to the eagle-eyed god they honored at the Olympic Games. Athletes competed in the nude because they had nothing to hide and the virtue symbolized by their naked bodies itself was divinely beautiful." Whereas the modern Olympic Committee suggests games were universally performed naked, it appears that it was a gradual development that emerged around the 7th century BCE, perhaps initiated by performance and safety, and then taking on virtuous qualities. The Greeks did not appear to consider nudity shame-free, but may rather viewed that its heroic, divine, athletic, and youthful attributes trump the shame attached to the nakedness. Key for me is that there is a historical precedent in Greek culture that nudity implies authenticity, transparency and vulnerability, from which courage, integrity and glory arise.
Maybe the genitalia on Michelangelo's David are undersized for a similar reason.Undersized? From what I've seen around nude men, that size isn't unusual at all. I think it only seems that way because much of the rest of David's anatomy is supersized, so to speak.
I was going to say the same thing.
If we look at average penises in Greek statuary, to those that are even smaller, I think it is largely representative of most men, to be honest.
As a former athlete I was in a lot of locker rooms. And since then I have been in a lot of gyms, not to mention nude beaches, etc., and most men are not hung huge. Mostly average.
I know that what I have witnessed is only a cross section of men, but often times a cross section can give you a fairly decent idea of what is out there.
We certainly live in a more exhibitionist type society now where "size" is everything. No matter what it is, it seems. And when it comes to male members, that is certainly the case. In fact, even though nudism is meant to be a celebration of the human body, many seem to lose focus on that point. Which is why men who have size often flaunt it, and then the reactions that follow would suggest that his size has some innate sense of "special" to it.
For me, that's not what nudism is about. Maybe the TS form of nudism, but not the TN brand.
A large size is the luck of the DNA draw at the end of the day ;)
But as far as the statuary is concerned, I see it as being largely representative of most men.
Michelangelo was an amazing sculptur, so any difference in proportion was surely intentional. David's hands are indeed much larger than other parts of his anatomy.
Very true. At the end of the day if you had a museum full of male nude statuary, and every single one of them was hung, it would be distracting to the rest of the art. And again, it wouldn't necessarily be representative of most men. It would seem too contrived, almost cartoonish, and deemed by some as vulgar. Even though a large penis is certainly neither cartoonish nor vulgar. But again, the art would lose something in my opinion, because now the focus is on the size of the phallus and nothing else.
Always believed ancient Greeks had it right about penis size. Smaller is better. Back then, men would be praised for it but somehow society got it all backwards so now we have to feel ashamed about not being big enough down there. It ain't fair
Always believed ancient Greeks had it right about penis size. Smaller is better. Back then, men would be praised for it but somehow society got it all backwards so now we have to feel ashamed about not being big enough down there. It ain't fair
We do not have to be ashamed of our size. However, some choose to do so. My wife insists that girth is much more important than length and what I have satisfies her. But this has nothing to do with nudism. We are to be non judgemental, uncaring about what others have, and that being naked is an eqalizer. What the Greeks depicted must have been about right since their civilization remains to this day.
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