Attitudes in Western cultures are not all the same as explained above, and likewise attitudes in non-western cultures are many and variant. In almost all cultures, acceptability of nudity depends on the situation.
Cultural and/or religious traditions usually dictate what is proper and what is not socially acceptable. Many non-western cultures allow women to breast feed in public, while some have very strict laws about showing any bare skin.
In some hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates, near-complete nudity has been, until the introduction of Western culture, or still is, standard practice for both men and women. In several African tribes, men going completely naked except for a string tied about the waist are considered properly dressed for hunting and other traditional group activities. In a number of tribes in the South Pacific island of New Guinea, the men use hard gourdlike pods as penis sheaths. While obscuring and covering the actual penis, these at a longer distance give the impression of a large, erect phallus. Yet a man without this "covering" could be considered to be in an embarrassing state of nakedness. Among the Chumash Native Americans of southern California, men were usually naked, and women were often topless. Native Americans of the Amazon Basin, usually went nude or nearly nude; in many tribes, the only clothing worn was some device worn by men to clamp the foreskin shut. However, other similar cultures have had different standards. For example, other native North Americans generally avoided total nudity, and the Native Americans of the mountains and west of South America, such as the Quechua, kept quite covered.
In the ancient culture of Southern Asia, there is a tradition of extreme ascetism (obviously minoritarian) that includes full nudity, from the gymnosophists (philosophers in Antiquity) to certain holy men (who may however cover themselves with ashes) in present Hindu devotion.
In Islam the area of the body not meant to be exposed in public is called the awrah, and while referred to in the Qur'an, is addressed in more detail in hadith.
The example of the Turkish baths, where men go to get washed by other men, and women to get washed by women, is good example of how some Islamic cultures do not accept the strictness of the above interpretations.
Still very different traditions exist among, for example, Sub-Saharan Africans, partly persisting in the post-colonial era. Whereas some tribes and family-groups including some Togolose and Nilo-Saharan(e.g., Suri) tribes still commonly parade fully naked or without any covering below the waist (especially at massively attended stick fighting tournaments, where well-exposed young men can hope to catch the eye of a prospective bride), amongst Bantu people there is often a complete aversion from public nudity— thus, in Botswana when a newspaper printed a photograph seen here:[3] of a thief suffering lashes on the bared buttocks imposed by a traditional chief's court, there was national consternation, not about the flogging (actually extended soon to age 50 and to women) but about the 'peeping tom'. The Ugandan Kavirondo tribes, a mix of Bantu and Nilotic immigrants, traditionally went practically naked, but the men adopted European dress.
cs:Akt
da:Nøgenhed
de:Nacktheit
es:Desnudez
eo:Nudeco
fr:Nudité
gd:Luime
ilo:Kinalabus
it:Nudità
hu:Meztelenség
nl:Naaktheid
ja:裸
no:Nakenhet
pl:Akt
pt:Nudez
ru:Нагота
simple:Nude
fi:Alastomuus
sv:Nakenhet
zh:裸