Although totally tolerant of it in animals, very young humans, tasteful art, truth and truly toothsome females, I am only limitedly approving of nakedness.

Call it Philadelphian prudery, of which I am not in complete denial, but I much prefer sensibly clad people to the growing number of those who - as expressed in one of our more graphic metaphors - let it all hang out. (For specific word pictures, visit your nearest shopping mall, greasy spoon, charity gala, gin mill or bathing beaches.)

My personal involvement with nudity these days is pretty much limited to an annual physical and daily shower, the latter exercise conducted in a private enclosure wherein all the mirrors are mercifully fogged up.

That said, my personal preferences should not be construed as criticism of those who feel otherwise, such as habitués of nudist colonies, genuinely libertine spirits, locker room occupants and those who simply don't care a rat's ass about how bad they look to others.

Early history suggests that humans first covered up simply to protect against the elements, although the biblical version introduced fig leaves, both as a means of coping with newly-discovered embarrassment and, presumably, heralding the dawn of haute couture.

Through subsequent ages, personkind alternately dressed up, dressed down and/or played peekaboo with various body parts, in consonance with local custom, religious proscriptions or, when free to exercise it, personal preference.

It is this last option, as it relates to nudity, which is our topic du jour.

A growing and puzzling number of mainstream men and women seem to be opting for the voluntary and public shedding of their garmentry, for reasons other than rank exhibitionism or a "back to nature" movement.

A decade ago, "The Full Monty" won rave reviews and an Academy Award, hilariously depicting six run-from-the-mill Englishmen, who staged a strip-tease to raise money - hardly what you'd call normal behavior for otherwise proper Brits.

That, of course, was fiction, which is also not the subject at hand.

Aside: I'm often asked why I don't write fiction; the following text explains why I've never found it necessary to make things up.

In May of 2007, American photographer Spencer Tunick persuaded 18,000 people to strip down to their birthday suits in Zocalo Plaza, the main square of Mexico City.

By dawn's early light, he shot them, first in a standing salute to their flag and a statue of national hero Simon Bolivar, then crouched in a fetal position, literally head-to hindquarter in an area the size of five football fields.

The final product resembled a panoramic peep show of undraped Muslims at prayer (just kidding, folks, and no disrespect intended).

Although long-time readers are aware that this column writes only of that which is unquestionably true, skeptics may copy, paste, then visit http://tinyurl.com/376uv48 for verification. (Clearly, it would be easier to take my word for it, but thy will be done.)

During the preceding decade, Spencer The Shootist had snapped 7,000 Spaniards in the buff at Barcelona and 4,500 Aussies in Melbourne.

Smaller, similar showtimes had been memorialized at such disparate locations as Argentina, Canada, Brazil, Germany and the cosmetic department of Selfridge's department store in London.

Here in the land of freedom from many other restrictions, he assembled volunteer flashers in various settings, ranging from a chilly beach in Rhode Island to the streets of Manhattan and the Big Apple's Grand Central Terminal.

Over the years, Tunick (an interesting name for one opposed to clothing, what?) compiled a rap sheet in NYC of five arrests and no convictions, an interesting contrast to Rudy G's closure of the indoor skin shows at and around Times Square.

His most recent - and, arguably, most remarkable tour de farce was on the frigid Aletsch glacier in Switzerland, to which he attracted 600 protestors against global warming. They, in turn, pressed their goose-bumped flesh against the ice, "to establish a symbolic relationship between the vulnerability of the melting glacier and the human body." (Well, that, at least, makes a lot of sense, right?)

No comparably sound motive is recorded for the thousands of others who peeled for Mr. Tunick, since they received no expense reimbursement and no reward beyond a copy of his groupie photograph (easily retrievable as noted above).

In the old Movietone News, Lew Lehr used to say, "Monkeys is the kwaziest people."

He was wrong - and Tunick's Nudniks are evidence of that bare fact.