Anasyrma

Mooning and flashing have had a varied and useful history!

I came across this unfamiliar word, anasyrma, while looking into ways to solve my conflict with the censorship of mere nudity on the internet. If nudity is tossed into the realms of porn by the corporate powers that bought the internet, it is teaching and reinforcement of the ideas that the sight of our bodies is improper, immodest, indecent, or even evil and dangerous…Anyway, one thing led to another and I discovered anasyrma. A lovely term about lifting a skirt, or kilt.

I looked it up. Here’s Wikipedia for starters:

“Many historical references suggest that anasyrma had dramatic or supernatural effect—positive or negative. Pliny the Elder wrote that a menstruating woman who uncovers her body can scare away hailstorms, whirlwinds and lightning. If she strips naked and walks around a field of wheat, caterpillars, worms and beetles fall off the heads. Even when not menstruating, she can lull a storm out at sea by stripping.

According to folklore, women lifted their skirts to chase off enemies in Ireland and China. A story from The Irish Times (September 23, 1977) reported a potentially violent incident involving several men, which was averted by a woman exposing her genitals to the attackers.”

Wiki continues, “According to Balkan folklore, when it rained too much, women would run into the fields and lift their skirts to scare the gods and end the rain. Maimonides also mentions this ritual to ward off the rain while expressing his disapproval. Stripping away clothing was perceived as creating a “raw” state closer to nature than society, facilitating interaction with supernatural entities. In Jean de La Fontaine’s Nouveaux Contes (1674), a demon is repulsed by the sight of a woman lifting her skirt. Associated carvings, called sheela na gigs, were common on medieval churches in northern Europe and the British Isles.

In some nations of Africa, a woman stripping naked and displaying herself is still considered a curse and a means to ward off evil.

In Nigeria, during mass protests against the petroleum industry, women displayed themselves in anasyrma. Leymah Gbowee used anasyrma when trying to bring peace during the Second Liberian Civil War.”

So, there is power perceived in nakedness.

I think back to Mel Gibson, “Braveheart.” It was disarming, disconcerting and of course insulting to someone trying to be serious about soldiering, to see the dropping of the dress up that symbolizes and legitimates the socio-cultural game (yea war). It can make a joke out of someone’s serious imposition. I’m sure that has been a driving force in the repression of nudity. Naked has been taken as an affront to the status quo and its controls, from hippies dancing naked, to irreverent kids sticking their butts out of car windows as they pass. It is defiant against repression. It undermines authority in its free expression. It is liberating. It can even be revolutionary, but not televised!

What strikes me as absurd is that in this state, Arizona’s statute law, it is legal to use nudity in any protest, but not to protest about the laws that are anti-nudity. I can playfully cavort nude on a bicycle to protest fossil fuel use, or walk the oppressed helpless naked to show my sincerity about any injustice. I’ll be arrested and lose in court for carrying a sign protesting anti-nudity laws, without dressing up first.

Anasyrma, a beautiful word, just seems like it should be about a beautiful thing, not the act of a teenager standing up on the seat of a moving car and shoving a bare butt out of the window, just to upset the cart of the status quo.

I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.

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