Naturism and paruresis are not, at first glance, subjects that naturally belong together. One concerns the voluntary removal of one's clothes in the company of others; the other concerns the rather less voluntary inability to use a toilet when someone is nearby. Both, however, have a good deal to do with embarrassment, privacy and the peculiar social rules surrounding the human body.

There is something distinctly British about being quite prepared to discuss the weather, the price of a pint or the state of the nation, while becoming acutely uncomfortable at the prospect of either being naked or using a urinal within sight of another person. It is this slightly absurd territory that makes the relationship between naturism and paruresis rather more interesting than it might initially appear.

Read how one man unexpectedly discovered that becoming a naturist had a dramatic effect on his paruresis.