Student Bodies

If you went to college in the Fifties or early Sixties--even if you attended a relatively hip institution such as Reed, Bennington or Black Mountain--chances were that you didn't see many naked people. You may, of course, have glimpsed a few if you studied art or medicine. Physical education may have shown you the forms taken by members of your own sex. On occasion, you may have induced a progressive (or bombed) coed into baring her all. If you were really far out, you may have found a secret sharer for your offcampus pad. But you and your fellow students never appeared nude onstage, nor posed in the buff for your spending money--and those of the opposite sex didn't hang around your dormitory in casual undress. God knows what might have happened if they did. Nowadays, however, the undergrads do all the above, and more. They don't hesitate to remove their garments in order to splash about in a pool, absorb a little sunlight or dramatize a political point--and it's mostly in a spirit of naturalness, unaccompanied by giggling or grabbing. Sex itself isn't that much freer than it used to be, at least not for everybody; but it's easier to get the where and how of it together, and there's little need to debate the why. Today's students are afflicted by no dichotomy of the flesh and spirit. The human body, in disrepute for too long (and still viewed with anxiety by some), has made a joyous debut on campus; the human image can only prosper.