Subject: Tolkien would agree with you.
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Posted on: 2019-02-04 19:37:00 UTC

There's actually a fair bit of nudity in Tolkien. Nienor, of course, but also Saeros (who Turin set to run naked like a beast) and maybe Beren and Finrod ('naked' there might just mean 'exposed'). And then over in LotR we have 'run naked over the grass' from Bombadil, and naked Frodo in Cirith Ungol... okay, it's not Game of Thrones, but it's there.

What it isn't, ever, is sexualised. Actually, I'm wrong about him agreeing with you, because it's not even aesthetic- it's always symbolic, either of innocence or vulnerability.

I don't think that's just a stylistic choice, either. There's a page of sketches by Tolkien of home life at Gypsy Green, including several of Edith (from behind, Tolkien hated faces), and one of then clearly shows her bare to the waist while washing up:



I dunno... put that together with the fact that when he does talk about sex, Tolkien often tends to the poetic (he literally has a poetic Qenya term for the act), and the fact that this Catholic family only had 4 kids (my dad's parents had 9), and stopped immediately after the first girl... has the idea of Tolkien being asexual been floated before? Because the argument is there, for sure.

hS

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