"The naked human body, in its full masculinity and femininity, has the meaning of a gift from person to person. This is the basis of all ethical guidelines regarding nakedness. The dignity of the person must always be upheld.
"In the husband/wife relationship, the nude body achieves the nuptial meaning through the sincere gift of self. But in art, the nude body takes on a different meaning. First, it becomes a model for the artist; then, once the art is complete, the body becomes a subject for the viewer.
"To an extent, objectifying the body is necessary in art. This raises a number fo problems, which multiply as the motives of artists and viewers are brought into question. These problems do not mean that the nude human body is an inappropriate subject for art — only that this is a complicated moral issue, not simply a matter of artistic taste.
"When sin entered the world, there arose, along with shame, a need for bodily privacy — especially between the sexes. Among sinful human beings, sexual privacy shields the gift from the gaze of lust. We don't just wear clothing to protect ourselves from the weather, but to guard our dignity. …
When the boundary of shame is crossed, nakedness becomes an insult. In the Nazi concentration camps, forced nakedness was used to depersonalize victims and strip them of their dignity. An analogous assault on the person occurs in pornography.
"In art, as in life, the right to privacy must be respected in order to preserve the gift-giving meaning of the body."
Comment: Here the focus is on artistic depictions of the human body. I'm wondering, though, about the implications of what he says about the basic meaning of the body and the naked body, for non-sexual nudity among persons who are not husband and wife. For example, what if children had been born before the Fall. Nudity would not have signified a gift of self between parents and children nor among siblings like that which exists between husband and wife. It seems to me that the phrase, "especially among the sexes," suggests that in situations where lust is neither intended nor experienced, nudity can be permissible.
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