1. No report to report, but I read that in Quantanimo Bay the prisoners tortured wear clothes, hoods, their hands tied behind their backs, and wear some discomfort-shoes and other accessories, but one thing the reporter who wrote the report did not notice at first, only it dawned on him, that each prisoner had their pants cut so that their enitre penis was visible.
2. This is not a formal philosophical treaty, but the bible, in particular, genesis, talks a great deal about how the first humans were shamed by their own primary sexual characteristics, after they ate the forbidden fruit.
3. In a Simpsons' episode, Homer defiles the founder of the boy's club he finally gets elected into by way of his father having been a member. He has to pull the stone of shame (a huge rock boulder) across town, totally naked, it being tied to his balls. Then, while naked, it is revealed that he has the birth mark that prophetically makes him the absolute ruler of the club. Now he has to pull the stone of honour, which is twice as big in diameter (and 9 times as heavy) as the stone of shame, across town, tied to his balls, naked.

I think the Biblical account is a good place to start. Velleman starts there, though as far as I'm aware he's not Christian. What he suggests is that shame relates to lack of self-presentation; after the fall, we couldn't prevent our organs from betraying us. They expose our desire, even if we don't want them to.

My problem with his argument is that even if our organs are incapable of such a response, we still feel ashamed of our nudity. Perhaps less so, but why at all?

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Were I writing your paper, I would look among anthropologists, psychologists, or sociologists. Some philosophers might have written on the subject, but scholars in other fields definitely have.

I am thinking of Keep The River on Your Right by Tobias Schneebaum. It was published in 1969, and is a good lively read. The book deals with Schneebaum's encounter with the isolated Arakmbut tribe in Peru. The book deals much more with cannibalism than nakedness, but the description of his first encounter, in which he was stripped naked and investigated in detail is worth a read. Schneebaum wasn't mortified, apparently, and certainly the Arakmbut were not embarrassed either.***

Not every group of people is troubled by nakedness and shame. Any number of groups have been encountered who did not feel shame about being naked, though their "discoverers" (like missionaries, anthropologists, or conquistadores) may have felt intense shame about their own own nakedness. Shame and nakedness need not be seen as natural and necessary.

People feel shame about certain actions (theft, nakedness, sexual acts, religious acts, etc.) because they think these actions are wrong. Or they believe their bodies are very inadequate -- too thin, too fat, too pale, too dark, too this, too that -- and they are embarrassed if other people see them naked.

I overcame a good deal of shame about my body by a method similar to "flooding" which is used to overcome phobias: I found a park where other gay men sunbathed in the nude and I did likewise. Undressing in public and laying on a towel in the open took a lot of nerve on my part, but it was curative. After a few visits to the nude park I began to feel less and less shame about my appearance. (I discovered that I had misapprehended how others saw me.). In a couple of weeks I was cured.

There is also "modesty" -- a condition where people avoid being seen naked because they think it is wrong, They may not feel shame about it, but they do avoid nakedness in the sight of others.

All that sunbathing was about 40 years ago. Its benefits (aside from a couple of basil cell skin cancers) has endured.

***Summary: Keep the River on your Right is a short memoir written by painter/anthropologist Tobias Schneebaum and published in 1969. It is an account of his journey into the jungles of Peru where he is accepted by "primitive" Indians and ultimately a tribe of cannibals named the Arakmbut, which he refers to by the pseudonym Arakama. Schneebaum was presumed dead by colleagues, friends, and family after he disappeared for years into the jungle, the last westerner to see him was a missionary who had given him instructions he would find the cannibals if he "kept the river to his right." However, Schneebaum struck up a friendship with the Arakmbut based partially around his considerable art skills and his interest in theirs. The book is most renowned for its anthropological observation of flesh-eating rituals and the honest, light-hearted style in which it was written.

I think the Biblical account is a good place to start. Velleman starts there, though as far as I'm aware he's not Christian — icor1031

I ain't no Christian, either, but I can criticize the bible too. I think Velleman was a Nordic Gods worshipper (Votan, DonotvoteAnne, Valhalla, Brumhilde, Broomhandle, etc.) to whom he had sacrificed his first wife. It was easier and waaaay cheaper than a conventional divorce.

You asked why the exposure creates shame. I think all that is connected to social conditioning. Some parts of the world showing your parts is not shameful. And sex has become a shameful activity ever since man feared overpopulation and critically limited availability of resources.

Man had to curtail its tendency to overpopulate the land beyond its capability to support the expanding population. Birth control was needed. Shame was one damned birth control pill.

I think that some of the most insightful stuff I have ever read related to this topic was in Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death. Very interesting. And I am not usually a fan of psychology.

I satisfied my curiosity this past summer and checked off a bucket list item by going to a nudist colony; does that count!?

I did it as a thought experiment. I wanted to see how comfortable or uncomfortable I would feel in that environment. It was interesting...yet very natural for me. There were families, children, etc.( I've sunbathed nude for years on my boat(s) naked...).

It's a fascinating topic nonetheless. The psychologist theory is that we are not born with a shame of nudity. Instead we learn it, as an important behavioral code that allows us to operate in human society.

I'm a bit on the fence about it. I think it is more existential in nature. Meaning, it comes back to higher levels of consciousness/self awareness. If we were made to be not aware through instinct only, why would we care to be ashamed? Why would we care to be self-conscious...