fruit is also associated with a transformation of vision, in that our ability to
see color is an adaptation that allows us to rapidly detect the ripe and
therefore edible bounty of trees.^54
Our primordial parents hearkened to the snake. They ate the fruit. Their
eyes opened. They both awoke. You might think, as Eve did initially, that this
would be a good thing. Sometimes, however, half a gift is worse than none.
Adam and Eve wake up, all right, but only enough to discover some terrible
things. First, they notice that they’re naked.
The Naked Ape
My son figured out that he was naked well before he was three. He wanted to
dress himself. He kept the washroom door firmly shut. He didn’t appear in
public without his clothes. I couldn’t for the life of me see how this had
anything to do with his upbringing. It was his own discovery, his own
realization, and his own choice of reactions. It looked built in, to me.
What does it mean to know yourself naked—or, potentially worse, to know
yourself and your partner naked? All manner of terrible things—expressed in
the rather horrifying manner, for example, of the Renaissance painter Hans
Baldung Grien, whose painting inspired the illustration that begins this
chapter. Naked means vulnerable and easily damaged. Naked means subject
to judgment for beauty and health. Naked means unprotected and unarmed in
the jungle of nature and man. This is why Adam and Eve became ashamed,
immediately after their eyes were opened. They could see—and what they
first saw was themselves. Their faults stood out. Their vulnerability was on
display. Unlike other mammals, whose delicate abdomens are protected by
the armour-like expanse of their backs, they were upright creatures, with the
most vulnerable parts of their body presented to the world. And worse was to
come. Adam and Eve made themselves loincloths (in the International
Standard Version; aprons in the King James Version) right away, to cover up
their fragile bodies—and to protect their egos. Then they promptly skittered
off and hid. In their vulnerability, now fully realized, they felt unworthy to
stand before God.
If you can’t identify with that sentiment, you’re just not thinking. Beauty
shames the ugly. Strength shames the weak. Death shames the living—and
the Ideal shames us all. Thus we fear it, resent it—even hate it (and, of