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Why guys hate being 'nude'

While Hollywood doesn't tire of showing a woman's body in the nude, a full frontal 'male' nudity is strictly a 'no' proving that stereotypes still reign.

Updated on: Mar 8, 2004, 20:20:00 IST
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It's not just Bollywood which shies away from all things bold. Hollywood, too, seems to have its share of inhibitions. One of them being showing a 'male' body for female fantasy. Movies showing full frontal nudity in men is few and far between.

HT Image
HT Image

European cinema, however, begs to differ. Sample this. A smitten young man in

Bertolucci's The Dreamers has scenes that leave nothing to imagination.

Bernardo Bertolucci's

The Dreamers

steals a photo of his inamorata and puts it next to his private parts, then is understandably embarrassed when she forcibly peels off his briefs and discovers it.

Rather than being appalled, she appears quite complimented by this different kind of Kodak moment - a close-up that leaves nothing to the imagination as the picture gently catapults toward her. Scenes of such kind were last seen in another Bertolucci film, Last Tango in Paris.

But in the three decades, scenes with full-frontal male nudity usually can be timed with a stopwatch while those with nude women can be measured with a sundial.

Even in The Full Monty, filmgoers didn't get the full monty - not even for a split second.

Pop-culture observers maintain that's because a de facto sexism still exists in Hollywood, where women can parade around in the altogether but men can't.

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