A new Channel 4 programme Naked Education features adults stripping naked in front of 14-16 year olds to help encourage body positivity. While many in the sex positive field are congratulating this open approach, there have also been over 1000 complaints to Offcom.
How should we as Christians respond?
The subject of nudity goes back, of course, to the garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived blissfully unaware of their nakedness until they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. After that they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves clothes and when God banished them from the garden he made tunics to keep them warm. Nudity and bodies have been intertwined with shame ever since. One of the enemy’s tactics is to capitalise on the relationship we have with our bodies, creating a confusing mix of messages.
Children are exposed to perfect bodies on social media, and advertising and four in five UK teens have watched pornography by the time they are 16-17 (for more on that topic go here). The programme’s intention is that it could help children to see real, imperfect bodies and realise there’s nothing wrong with body hair, or being a different shape or size.
However the show crosses a line, showing nudity to underage children*. It conditions the British population to think that this is all okay because it’s framed as education. While the show appears to promote ‘body positivity,’ like much in our culture, it is actually pushing confusing mixed messages that appear liberating on the surface but are actually harmful. A number of individuals in the show have been through trans surgery, and what could be more indicative of body hatred, than having major surgery to change their appearance?
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