I have never been someone who is comfortable in my own skin. While other toddlers or preschoolers shed their clothes with abandon and loved to dash about in the buff before or after a bath, I never did.

When I was a kid I wouldn’t even undress in front of my best friend or her mother. I closed the heating vent when I used the bathroom, eliminating the chance anyone could see me undressed. As a teen I never liked the locker room, even though I participated in sports. I never went skinny dipping with friends at the river or hauled my girlfriends into a dressing room with me at the mall. I kept everything under wraps. Things didn’t change much when I hit adulthood. I never slept in the nude, I didn’t like to see myself naked, and I was even self conscious about it around my husband.

Since moving to Europe where attitudes about nudity are very different, I’ve tried to analyze why I feel and act the way I do. Europeans are not uptight about nudity; they see it as a natural state and not necessarily sexual, a perspective that makes sense to me intellectually. I’ve navigated mixed sex dressing rooms at pools and spas, seen people strip down to their underwear or go topless at the beach, and gotten used to the idea that there are no dressing gowns at the doctor’s office and I’m just going to have sit around mostly naked during medical visits. When I went to a European spa for my birthday, I wore my swimsuit but secretly admired the ease and assurance of those who chose to be naked. Why couldn’t that be me?

Certainly being raised Catholic probably has a lot to do with my modesty. From an early age, it was understood, if not openly communicated, that the body should be covered, that there was shame in being undressed, that it was somehow an invitation to trouble. The restrictions attached to both unmarried AND married sexual expression spilled over into attitudes about nudity. It was hard to shake the idea that being naked and unashamed was somehow a sin.

But there was more to my modesty than that. While I embraced feminism as a teenager, I had a hard time (and continue to have a hard time) with body image. Even as my higher self decries stereotypes and the power of the “beauty myth,” there’s an insecure 15-year-old inside of me that is forever awkward and adolescent regarding body image. It’s not easy to admit that because I want to think I’m too smart to buy into all that crap, but I’m being honest here. (As my friend N so deliciously put it: “I may be shallow, but at least I’m self aware.”)

While I’ve made great strides in accepting myself, I still occasionally battle self-consciousness. When I was younger and very thin, I felt gawky and stork-like. Older and rounder, I sometimes feel matronly and dumpling-like. Most of the time I’m fine with the way I look, but occasionally I find myself recoiling at my faults, real and imagined. The worst part of being smart enough to see how stupid all this is is that I get a dose of guilt along with my Bridget Jones moments of self-judgment.

Certainly those holes in the fabric of my self confidence explain a lot, but if I dig deeper into my psyche, I can see that the issue transcends the sexual shame entrenched in my upbringing and the all pervasive media images of perfectly toned, airbrushed young women. When I’m naked, I feel vulnerable and out of control. Shedding my clothes for me is exposing my tender white underbelly to the world visually AND emotionally. It’s as if uncovering my body also uncovers my soul. I prefer to keep it all concealed in a carefully wrapped package, protected from judgment.

How about you? How comfortable are you in your own skin?

July 10, 2007