A final thought from Osho, this time on pornography …

What is pornography, and why does it have so much appeal?

Pornography is a by-product of religious repression. The whole credit goes to the priests […] pornography is created, managed by the Church, by the religious people.

In a primitive, natural state, man is not pornographic. When human beings are naked, man knows the woman’s body and woman knows the man’s body, and you cannot sell Playboy. It is impossible. Who will purchase Playboy? […]

The whole credit goes to the religious establishment. They have repressed so much that man’s mind is boiling. The man wants to see the woman’s body. Nothing wrong in it, a simple desire, a human desire. And the woman wants to know the man’s body. A simple desire, nothing wrong about it.

Just think of a world where trees are covered with clothes. I have heard about some English ladies who cover their dogs and cats with clothes. Just think, cows and horses and dogs dressed. Then you will find new pornography arising. Somebody will
publish a nude picture of a tree – and you will hide it in a Bible and look at it!

This whole foolishness is out of religious repression.

Make man free, allow people to be nude. I am not saying they should continuously be nude, but nudity should be accepted. On the beach, at the swimming pool, in the home – nudity should be accepted. The children should take a bath with the mother, with the father, in the bathroom. There is no need for the father to lock the bathroom when he goes in. The children can come and have a talk and chitchat and go out. Pornography will disappear.

Each child wants to know, “How does my daddy look?” Each child wants to know, “How does my mother look?” And this is simply intelligence, curiosity. And the child cannot know what the mother looks like, and the child cannot know what the father looks like; now you are creating illness in the child’s mind. It is you who is ill, and the illness will be reflected in the child’s mind.

I am not saying sit nude in the office or in the factory […] there is no need to be naked, it should not be an obsession; however, this continuous obsession of hiding your body is just ugly.

And one thing more: because of the clothes, bodies have become ugly because then you don’t care. You care only about the face. If your belly goes on becoming bigger and bigger, who bothers? You can hide it […] let one hundred people stand nude, and they all will be ashamed […] and they will start hiding themselves. Something is wrong. Why is it so? They know only about their face – the face they take care of; the whole body is neglected.

This is bad. This is not good. It is not in favour of the body, either.

Any country where people are allowed a little freedom to be nude becomes more beautiful; people have more beautiful bodies […]

Nudity should be natural, should be as natural as animals, as trees, as everything else is nude. Then pornography will disappear.

[Osho, Sex Matters, pp 137-8]