Gymnophobia is a
fear
Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...
(
phobia
A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avo ...
) of
nudity
Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing.
The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to ...
.
Symptoms
Gymnophobics experience
anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
from nudity, even if they realize their fear is irrational. They may worry about seeing others naked, being seen naked, or both. Their fear may stem from a general anxiety about sexuality, from a fear that they are physically inferior, or from a fear that their nakedness leaves them exposed and unprotected.
Gymnophobia refers to an actual fear of nudity, but most sufferers with the condition learn how to function in general society despite the condition. They may, for example, avoid ill fitted and revealing clothes, changing rooms, washrooms, showers, and beaches. However, the condition can be regarded as hypochondriasis or an
anxiety disorder
Anxiety disorders are a cluster of mental disorders characterized by significant and uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear such that a person's social, occupational, and personal function are significantly impaired. Anxiety may cause physi ...
if the person cannot control the phobia or it is interfering with their daily life.
Gymnophobia has been likened to the fictional condition "never-nude" portrayed in the comedy series ''
Arrested Development
The term "arrested development" has had multiple meanings for over 200 years. In the field of medicine, the term "arrested development" was first used, ''circa'' 1835–1836, to mean a stoppage of physical development; the term continues to be use ...
''.
Etymology
The term ''gymnophobia'' comes from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
γυμνός - ''gumnos'', "naked" and φόβος - ''phobos'', "fear". A phobia that has a significant amount of overlap with gymnophobia is dishabiliophobia, which is the fear of undressing in front of others.
See also
*
Sex-negativity
The sex-positive movement is a social movement, social and philosophical movement that seeks to change cultural attitudes and norms around sexuality, promoting the recognition of sexuality (in the countless forms of expression) as a natural and he ...
*
List of phobias
The English suffixes -phobia, -phobic, -phobe (from Greek φόβος ''phobos'', "fear") occur in technical usage in psychiatry to construct words that describe irrational, abnormal, unwarranted, persistent, or disabling fear as a mental diso ...
References
{{Nudity
Phobias
Prudishness