Clothed male, naked female

Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1800

Clothed male, naked (or nude) female (on the internet sometimes abbreviated to CMNF) is a genre of erotica featuring one or more nude women and one or more clothed men. Such a scenario is described as a sexual fantasy by some men and some women. A common (but not essential) feature of such fantasy scenarios is that the woman's one-sided nudity portrays the woman's sense of vulnerability and humiliation in relation to the clothed man.

One-sided female nudity can occur in actuality when a woman disrobes for the sexual pleasure of a man or other men, such as in a BDSM, sexual roleplay or other sexual activity, as an indication of sexual submission. Some women disrobe for men as a form of entertainment, such as during a striptease. One-sided female nudity in public is usually regarded as exhibitionism, streaking or flashing. The posing of a female art model in an art class can also involve one-sided female nudity, but is less overtly sexualized.

The opposite to CMNF is clothed female, naked male (CFNM).

Types

One-sided female nudity may involve sexual and nonsexual erotic scenarios. Sexual scenarios may involve male domination, female submission, exhibitionism and erotic entertainment. CMNF is also considered by some to be a form of sexual objectification of women. Feminist scholars argue that the one-sided female nudity is a form of objectification of women by reducing a woman's worth or role in society to that of an instrument for the sexual pleasure that she can produce in the mind of another.^[1][2] Pro-feminist cultural critics such as Robert Jensen and Sut Jhally accuse mass media and advertising of promoting the sexualization and objectification of women to help promote goods and services.^[3][4][5]

Some people regard such depictions to be pornography.

One-sided female nudity may also arise in nonsexual situations, such as figure drawing in an art class or a nude photo shoot. In several East African villages, by tradition women and girls do not wear clothing; clothing is considered to be part of the male role.

As a theme in art

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  The Slave Market, Jean-Léon Gérôme, c. 1884

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  Phryne before the Areopagus, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1861

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  Slave market in Rome, Jean-Léon Gérôme

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  Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, Édouard Manet, 1863

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  John Everett Millais' Knight Errant of 1870 saves a Damsel in distress and underlines the erotic subtext of the genre

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  The Pastoral Concert Titian, c. 1509, has been cited as an inspiration for Manet's painting

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  La Femme entre les deux âges, c. 1575, painter unknown [1]

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  1921 illustration of female submission

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  Pygmalion and Galatea

One-sided female nudity has also been depicted in art, particularly in the Orientalist paintings of the 19th-century. A typical scene would often contain depictions of white slavery in which one or several nude females would be displayed before an audience of men as part of a slave auction. The archetypal example of this type of scene is Jean-Léon Gérôme's The Slave Market, in which a nude female slave is examined by a potential buyer. Another example is Gérôme's Phryné devant l'Areopage (Phryne before the Areopagus, 1861) which was based on the trial of Phryne before the Areopagus in ancient Greece. The odalisque (harem scene) was also a popular subject for depicting one-sided female nudity, although the clothed figures in the scene were not always male.

Outside of the Orientalist style, a less popular scenario for one-sided female nudity in 19th-century art was the knight-errant, in which the stereotype of the damsel in distress was used to explore the erotic subtext of the powerful knight coming to the rescue of a helpless female. The best known example of this is John Everett Millais' painting Knight Errant, in which a nude woman has been tied to a tree and a knight is shown cutting her loose. The painting initially created controversy when it was first displayed, because the nude female was shown facing her rescuer, a posture which was considered too sexually suggestive for European audiences.^[6] Millais repainted the figure so that she was looking away from her rescuer.^[7] This reaction of shock by 19th-century audiences highlights the potential of CMNF as a mechanism for both challenging and reinforcing gender stereotypes.

Édouard Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe ("The Luncheon on the Grass"), in which a nude woman is depicted having lunch with two fully clothed men, is another famous painting whose themes were controversial when it was first displayed in 1863. The Pastoral Concert (c. 1510) attributed to Giorgione or his pupil Titian^[8] has been cited as an inspiration for Manet's painting.

Norman Lindsay's The Interlude [2] depicts a naked bride.

In literature

One-sided female nudity has been a subject in literature, appearing in both fiction and non-fiction stories (although rarely, if ever, is it specifically referred to using the acronym CMNF).

The topic of one-sided female nudity is featured in the book Topping from Below by Laura Reese.^[9] While journalist Nora Tibbs investigates the death of her sister Franny, she is introduced to sadomasochism. She meets Franny's boy-friend, “M.”, a music professor, and becomes his new girl-friend; but to get information from him she must be nude all the time when she is in his house. Her one-sided nudity is one of many tokens of her submission to him.

Entertainment columnist Earl Wilson details several experiences involving one-sided female nudity in his book Show Business Laid Bare.^[10] In the chapter titled "Cheri Caffaro: A Strange Interlewd," Wilson writes about his experience interviewing actress Cheri Caffaro while she was nude and he was fully dressed.^[11]

Erotic entertainment

Gatherings of men and women interested in viewing one-sided female nudity do occur, although the initialism CMNF is not always used to describe such activities. Examples include the Nudes-A-Poppin Pageant,^[12] which is an annual event hosted by the Ponderosa Sun Club, and modern burlesque shows such as Behind the Pink Door,^[13] where performer Lily Verlaine ^[14] recreates onstage Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe.

Several websites feature various aspects of CMNF. For example, Nude-in-Public.com^[15] focuses primarily on female exhibitionism, while A Measure of Curiosity^[16] features photo stories involving females playing stripping games and ending up naked in various situations, and Slaves in Love ^[17] which focuses on BDSM and male domination, often with photos and videos depicting aspects of CMNF. One website entirely devoted to CMNF in all its forms is CMNF-Videos^[18] which features all aspects of the CMNF genre by catering to both the exhibitionism and BDSM genres. Although all these sites are subscription-based, there are a few free resources created by enthusiasts, such as Embarrassed Nude Female, ENF-CMNF.com,^[19] Schambereich.de,^[20] and All CMNF community.^[21]

Websites may feature CMNF content, but rarely label themselves as being part of the CMNF genre, unlike most CFNM sites, which generally contain the acronym in their website name and make explicit reference to CFNM content.^[22] One notable exception was CMNF.co.uk, a now defunct website which both used the CMNF acronym in its website name and made specific reference to CMNF content in its pictorials.^[23]

Beyond niche websites, CMNF continues to enjoy mainstream popularity at bachelor parties, strip clubs and erotic conventions, where the majority of viewers are male and the performers are female.

Professional situations

Nude art model at work

At times, one-sided female nudity may be encountered as part of a professional engagement, such as a female art model posing in an art class or a nude photo shoot. It may also arise on a film set, where the only nude person being filmed may be a woman.

One-sided female nudity has also been used in music videos, such as Black Velveteen[3] by Lenny Kravitz and Thank U[4] by Alanis Morissette.

See also

• Bottom (BDSM)
• Candaulism
• Clothed female, naked male
• Erotic humiliation
• Exhibitionism
• Female submission
• Voyeurism

References

1. ^ LeMoncheck, Linda, Loose Women, Lecherous Men: A Feminist Philosophy of Sex (Oxford University press, 1997), ISBN 9780195105559, p. 133
2. ^ Barry, Kathleen, Female Sexual Slavery (NYU Press, 1994), ISBN 9780814710697, p.247
3. ^ Jensen, Robert, 'Using Pornography' in Dines, Gail, Robert Jensen and Ann Russo (eds) Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (Routledge, 1998), ISBN 9780415918138
4. ^ Jhally, Sut (dir) Dreamworlds II: Desire, Sex, Power in Music (Media Education Foundation, USA, 1997)
5. ^ Frith, Katherine, Ping Shaw and Hong Cheng 'The Construction of Beauty: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women's Magazine Advertising' in Journal of Communication 55 (1), 2005, pp.56–70
6. ^ Refer to the section on "The Problem Nude" in these notes from 2005/2006 course lectures given by Carol Jacobi at Birkbeck College: http://www.shafe.co.uk/art/19thC_The_Nude.asp
7. ^ A recreation of what the original painting may have looked like can be viewed on Oxfordshire Church Illustrations' Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfordshire_church_photos/1898994511/
8. ^ From the Louvre Museum Official Website
9. ^ Topping from Below, by Laura Reese, ISBN 0312144350, St Martin's Griffin Ed (May 1996)
10. ^ Show Business Laid Bare, by Earl Wilson, ISBN 0399112766, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1974. Second Printing
11. ^ The story can be found on pages 45-56 of the hardcover second printing of the book.
12. ^ Nudes-A-Poppin' Pageants
13. ^ MySpace.com - Burlesque Behind The Pink Door - 27 - Fille - SEATTLE, US - www.myspace.com/burlyqbehindthepinkdoor
14. ^ MySpace.com - Lily Verlaine - SEATTLE, Washington - Classique / Glam / Jazz - www.myspace.com/lilyverlaine
15. ^ Nude-in-Public
16. ^ A Measure of Curiosity - Dedicated to Girls Undressing
17. ^ slaves in love
18. ^ CMNF-Videos
19. ^ ENF and CMNF Blog
20. ^ Schambereich (in German)
21. ^ http://cmnf.coccozella.com/ All CMNF
22. ^ For a typical example of this type of self-identification on a CFNM website, see: http://www.cfnm.net/
23. ^ Although the website no longer exists, its home page can be viewed as it appeared in 2007 here: http://web.archive.org/web/20070312183007/http://cmnf.co.uk/