The Nude Bomb

Looking at a nude body is sexually arousing. This fact has not escaped advertisers who will pop nude or semi-nude bodies into promotions at every opportunity. Bikini sellers find this easy to achieve although purveyors of egg whisks and carpets still manage to find ways to work a bit of flesh into their ads. You would have to guess that this is no random event and that advertisers must believe that nudity sells, and new research suggests that at a brain level, they are right.

Of course, it is not just advertising where nudity is favoured. The nude body is a classic subject in art and nudity is widely used in films even where it does not apparently advance the plot all that much. There is no doubt that most people find viewing a nude body a pleasant experience. We do know that there are areas of your brain that are specialised in detecting human bodies but what has not been clearly established is whether nude bodies are processed differently to clothed bodies at a neural level. That has now been cleared up.

In a new study from Finland two universities have teamed up to study how nude images are processed in your brain. Subjects were shown pictures of men and women who were either wearing full clothes, swim-wear, or were nude. They were also shown images of faces and cars. As the subjects were viewing these images visual brain responses were measured via an EEG.

This electrical activity revealed that the brain processes a nude body in less than 0.2 seconds. This is significantly faster than it processes other images. Nude images also lead to emotional arousal and their effect lasts for much longer than other images.

The effect of nudity is quick, emotionally stimulating, and long-lasting: it is like a bomb exploding in your mind. No wonder the advertisers (and magazine publishers) are onto it, and artists have been onto it for centuries.