Contents
About the Book
The human female form is the brilliant end-point of millions of years of evolution, loaded with amazing adjustments and subtle refinements. It is the most remarkable organism on the planet. At different times and in different places, human societies have tried to improve on nature, modifying and embellishing the female form in a thousand different ways. In this new study, people-watcher Desmond Morris turns his skill and attention to the female form and takes the reader on a guided tour from head to toe. Highlighting the evolutionary functions of biological features that all women share, Morris explores the enhancements and constraints that human societies have developed in the quest for control and perfection of the female form. Written from a zoologists perspective and packed full of scientific fact, fascinating anecdote and thought-provoking conclusions, The Naked Woman builds on Desmond Morris's unrivalled experience as an observer of the human animal.
About the Author
Desmond Morris was already the author of some fifty scientific papers and seven books before completing The Naked Ape in 1967, which was to sell over 10 million copies throughout the world. He has made many television programmes and films on human and animal behaviour, his friendly and accessible approach making him popular with both adults and children, and he is now one of the best-known presenters of natural history programmes. He is also an accomplished artist.
ALSO BY DESMOND MORRIS
The Biology of Art
The Mammals: a Guide to the living Species
Men and Snakes (co-author)
Men and Apes (co-author)
Men and Pandas (co-author)
Zootime
Primate Ethology (editor)
The Naked Ape
The Human Zoo
Patterns of Reproductive Behaviour
Intimate Behaviour
Manwatching: a Field-guide to Human Behaviour
Gestures: Their Origins and Distributions (co-author)
Animal Days (autobiography)
The Soccer Tribe
The Giant Panda (co-author)
Inrock (fiction)
The Book of Ages
The Art of Ancient Cyprus
Bodywatching: a Field-guide to the Human Species
Catwatching
Dogwatching
The Secret Surrealist
Catlore
The Human Nestbuilders
Horsewatching
The Animal Contract
Animalwatching: a Field-guide to Animal Behaviour
Babywatching
Christmas Watching
The World of Animals
The Naked Ape Trilogy
The Human Animal: a Personal View of the Human Species
Bodytalk: A World Guide to Gestures
Catworld: a Feline Encyclopedia
The Human Sexes: A Natural History of Man and Woman
Cool Cats: the 100 Cat Breeds of the World
Body Guards: Protective Amulets and Charms
The Naked Ape and Cosmetic Behaviour (co-author) (in Japanese)
The Naked Eye (autobiography)
Dogs: a Dictionary of Dog Breeds
Peoplewatching
The Silent Language (in Italian)
The Nature of Happiness (in Italian)
Picture Credits
Hair:
;
Eyebrows:
Ears:
Eyes:
/Baldomero Fernandez
Nose:
Cheeks:
.
Lips:
Mouth:
Neck:
Shoulders:
;
Arms:
Hands:
Breasts:
Waist:
Hips:
Belly:
Back:
.
Pubic Hair:
Buttocks:
Legs:
Feet:
THE NAKED WOMAN
A Study of the Female Body
Desmond Morris
Introduction
This book takes the reader on a guided tour of the female body, explaining its many unusual features. It is not a medical text, or a psychologists laboratory analysis, but a zoologists portrait, celebrating women as they appear in the real world, in their natural environment.
The human female has undergone dramatic changes during the course of her evolution far more than the human male. She has left behind many of the feminine qualities of other primates and, in the shape of modern woman, has become a unique being of an extraordinary kind.
Every woman has a beautiful body beautiful because it is the brilliant end-point of millions of years of evolution. It is loaded with amazing adjustments and subtle refinements that make it the most remarkable organism on the planet. Despite this, at different times and in different places, human societies have tried to improve on nature, modifying and embellishing the female body in a thousand different ways. Some of these cultural elaborations have been pleasurable, others have been painful, but all have sought to make the human female even more beautiful than she already is.
Local concepts of beauty have varied wildly and each human society has developed its own ideas of what is more appealing. Some cultures like slender figures, others prefer more rounded flesh; some like small breasts, others relish large ones; some like white teeth, others insist on filed teeth; some like shaven heads, others dote on long, luxuriant hair. Even within Western culture there have been striking contrasts as the fickle world of fashion keeps on changing its priorities.
As a result, each chapter as the book travels from head to toe not only explains the exciting biological features that all human females share, but also discusses the many ways in which these features have been exaggerated or suppressed, enlarged or reduced, and in this way attempts to give a rounded picture of the most fascinating subject in the world the naked woman.
On a personal note this book reflects a lifelong fascination with the evolution and status of the human female. A few years ago this led me to make a series for American television called The Human Sexes in which I examined in some detail the nature of the relationship between human males and females, all around the globe. The more I travelled, the more disturbed and angry I became with the way women were being treated in many countries. Despite the advances made by feminist rebellion in the West, there are still millions of women in other parts of the world who are considered the property of males and as inferior members of society. For them, the feminist movement simply did not happen.
To me, as a zoologist who has studied human evolution, this trend towards male domination is simply not in keeping with the way in which Homo sapiens has developed over a period of millions of years. Our success as a species was due to a division of labour between males and females, in which the males became specialized as hunters. Living in small tribes, this meant that, with the males away hunting, the females were left in the very centre of social life, gathering the food and preparing it, rearing the young, and generally organizing the tribal settlement. As men became better at focusing on their one, crucially important task, women became better at dealing with several problems at once. (This personality difference is still with us today.) There was never any question of one sex being dominant over the other. They relied totally on one another for survival. There was a primeval balance between the human sexes they were different but equal.
