Book review of Barbara Górnicka’s Nakedness, Shame and Embarrassment: A Long-Term Sociological Perspective (Springer, 2016)

Abstract

How and why has the Western culture related nudity with shame and eroticism? Being so, how is it possible that nudist clubs can socialize without displaying sexual arousal expressions nor shame? What is the process to become a nudist? In what ways is gender visible in places with naked bodies interactions? These questions find a deep and accurate response in the recent book Nakedness, Shame and Embarrassment: A Long-Term Sociological Perspective by sociologist Barbara Gornicka. She has a fine look on how behaviors and emotions are part of long-term social changes registered in the body. The book knits a reflection on attitudes and emotions linked to nudity from an Eliasian perspective throughout 8 chapters. In them, she moves between her empirical research in Club Nautica –a nudist group from Dublin, Ireland– and her theoretical reflections on Norbert Elias’ postulates on the process of civilization.