That quote is from Radar O'Reilly on M*A*S*H.
Of course, servicemen and women are required to get naked for physicals, mainly. I myself had a draft physical during the Vietnam War era. It was all rather humiliating because the doctors were rude and unconcerned about us human cattle passing through. One used his stethoscope, noted that my heart was racing (no, it was not because of all the other naked men around me), and bluntly demanded to know, "What are you nervous about?" "The whole thing," I replied.
What was fascinating was that not too many weeks later, I took a physical for the Marine Corps in the same building on Wilshire Blvd. in Southern California. The doctors were polite and deferential because I was now a volunteer. I breezed along while the potential draftees, seeing different doctors and following a different color-coded line on the floor, were treated the same indifferent and crude way that I had been treated before. I also had a physical later for the Coast Guard and another for the Air Force, so I was getting used to stripping down for the government and the several branches of the military. At Marine Officers Candidate School, we also used communal bathrooms and showers and toilets, with nary a bit of privacy. We camped out in the woods, stopping along our forced marches to urinate as a group, and slept in tents in pairs. After we returned from each march, our platoon commander was required to make sure our feet were OK--a Marine Corps, like the army, does travel on its feet. We'd sit there on our footlockers, in various stages of undress, and await the inspection--we failed to give a hang at that point if we were nekked or not. However, after the first inspection, the sensitive lieutenant requested, through the platoon sergeant, that we cover up our hairy genitals for the next foot perusal.
Today, thanks to the Internet and porn and personal Web sites and several sites designed to help anyone meet Mr. Right, or Mr. Right Now, nudity is prevalent. Even in comic books, you find more flesh, even in regular comic books that are not intentionally graphic or feature otherwise "adult" content.
Frankly, my dear prudes, we seem no longer to give a damn. At least not like we used to. If the government or any other agency or group cares to, they can find many of us citizens showing off what used to be referred to as our "privates". That term really no longer applies, does it?
I still remember a comic book from the past decade in which Kyle Raynor, who for a time was the primary Green Lantern before Hal Jordan re-assumed the role, was running down a hall in his apartment in his birthday suit. The only object that covered his privates was a towel that the artist had drawn in the air for strategic reasons. But Kyle was otherwise depicted in the all-together. That image would never have passed the comic book sensors or editors in the 60's and earlier.
But by the 70's, even Cosmic Boy's uniform had dispensed with some of the light pink fabric and his naked chest was shown instead. (Silly me, I thought it was still his uniform rather than his flesh.) Women characters began to feature "tit windows" like the one you can see Redwood/Jane wearing on the column along the left of this blog, making their breasts and cleavage more prominent.
There really is very little privacy left in any of our lives now, am I not correct? Not for anyone in or out of the government, it seems. Our preferences and proclivities--of all kinds--are revealed everywhere. Our lives, or at least significant facts about our individual lives, are also detailed in several places and blogs and profiles and Web sites all over the Internet, many voluntarily provided by ourselves. Even if each of us did not want to expose our personal details and formerly private parts to the world, someone else may do that for us by posting photos or videos of us sans clothing--if such images exist, they will eventually find their way onto the Internet.
Many more of us are not even bothered by all of this personal exposure, regardless of what others think. It's almost become like hiding in plain sight. If you place a few fully revealing shots of yourself here and there on the Internet, some may make that fact publicly known, and there could be some adverse reaction. However, if you make it perfectly clear that you are not at all bothered by your own body as it appears au naturel, then it doesn't really matter much, does it?
I suppose that some readers or viewers were still bothered by Dr. Manhattan in the comic book and then the movie of the WATCHMEN. At this point, why does anyone bother to still be bothered by nudity? In comic books, in movies, or especially on the Internet? It's everywhere, and I, for one, have certainly gotten used to it, even quite comfortable with it, frankly.
