Social Question

Berserker's avatar

How come aliens barely ever wear clothing?

Asked by Berserker (33548points) December 7th, 2012

Looking up old questions, and something about Stephen King kinda made me wonder this, although I could have sworn it was something someone asked on here…can’t find it.

This question deals with fictional aliens from stories and movies, but it most certainly doesn’t exclude aliens from anything else. Beliefs, myths, whatever.
Now before anyone beats me to it; I’m aware that some alien portrayals have them wearing clothing, or usually, some type of gear that’s sometimes something like armor, space suits or utility belts or…stuff. But very often they are shown nude.
Maybe it’s because they’re so evolved that they no longer need to worry about petty things like the weather, or maybe on their planet they don’t wear clothes, so they come over here flashin’ it. Or another thing that I notice is that aliens are often very monster like, when they’re not designed as humanoid in shape. We all know monsters never wear clothes, of course. I was thinking then, that when aliens are introduced in entertainment, we’re supposed to get a feeling from the beings that they’re not from here, of course. So they don’t need clothes, or they make them look like monsters…on that subject, it always seems weird to me to see something that looks like a mix between an army of zombie slugs and seven different types of dragons…something that just drools, can’t speak but has technology that rivals anything we can even imagine.

But then, aliens are super smart usually, and so our normal means of communication and living is probably pretty redneck and non evolved to them. Most of them also seem to be psychic, and can use telepathy and stuff. In fact, they’re probably so smart that them trying to communicate with us is like if I tried to have a conversation with a moth.

But where do the clothing fit in, man? Klingons wear clothes. Some races in Star Wars probably wears clothes. Is it because unless the alien portrayed is humanoid, it’s too hard designing clothes for them? But then how come most grays are all naked and stuff? Is there a reason for this? Some kind of…science or observation that has been conducted, and the deduction is, people like naked aliens in their movies and stories? Is it to show us how different and creepy they can be? By taking away anything from them that we might relate back to us? (like, clothes for example, or sunglasses for those big, buggy eyes)

So some of that is what I thought of, but doesn’t feel that it’s exactly right. How come aliens never wear clothing, jelli-os? I realize I’m talking about a lot of different kind of aliens here; a xenomorph isn’t a gray. A xenomorph has no reason to wear clothes and is more like an animal, and our animals don’t wear clothes…predators only wear stuff that is necessity. But grays don’t wear anything, and they’re a super popular type of alien, and many were fashioned after those. Many that came BEFORE grays are humanoid too; naked ones. Is there a reason behind this?
Don’t limit yourself to sexless grays…think naked aliens. All types of aliens.

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25 Answers

augustlan's avatar

They’re too sexy for their shirt, duh. ~

I wonder if we’ve got it backward, really. Maybe the question should be “Why do humans wear clothes?” I mean, if you think about it, no other animal does…so why would aliens be any different? We’re the oddballs, here. OMG. We are the aliens!

Berserker's avatar

Good point though…how come out of all animals, only we have clothes? I mean if we’re a part of nature as anything else is, we should be able to thrive in it as we are…hell, not only are we the aliens, but even our evolutionary adaptation can’t handle us lol.

zensky's avatar

You do not, you absolutely do not want to be naked on public transportation.

Berserker's avatar

speak for yourself homesplice

Unbroken's avatar

On the note that humans wearing clothes… well could we survive the elements or could we have in the past. Heat and exposure and frostbite and cold. We don’t I mean most of us don’t have fur or any adaptation to survive. We are like those hairless dogs and cats people dress up because they bred them so they wouldn’t shed or be allergic. I think, why do we have hairless breeds again? And know they are defenseless to the elements without the.

OMG we are the pets!

We were part of a breeding program and we are complete with mini jack offs and hairy grunty apes and so forth. But they hairless ones are much more aesthetically pleasing.

I really am ignorant on grays so no thoughts there. But hey I liked the question.

AshlynM's avatar

They’re nudists!

But seriously…maybe the green costume is their uniform. Also, why don’t they have any hair or sexually distinguishing features?

ragingloli's avatar

It is simple:
All the non-humanoid aliens are depicted naked to reinforce the impression of them being different from the human audience. It is racism.

ucme's avatar

It’s best to have uranus free of clothing, easier to evacuate waste then, better for anal probing too.

chyna's avatar

They have such bad taste in clothes, they choose not to wear them so other aliens won’t make fun of them. Aliens make the worst bullies.

reijinni's avatar

Because they are not as hung up on nudity as we are.

bookish1's avatar

Shouldn’t this question be NSFW?
I love getting glimpses inside your mind, @Symbeline.
Maybe the more important question is, why do Vikings wear clothes?

fremen_warrior's avatar

I’d say those Aliens (capital A, we are talking about a group of sentients after all) are mostly so advanced they have transcended the need for clothes. On the other hand I could never imagine say a Hydralisk sporting a cardigan and a pair of jeans, a pair of sandals and baseball cap to boot. Some Aliens are just too sexy to wear clothes! (@bookish1 is right btw about this being NSFW)

glacial's avatar

Maybe it’s assumed that we’re so curious about new life forms that we want to see as much of them as humanly possible?

“how come out of all animals, only we have clothes? ”
This question reminds me of the book Animal Farm. Have you read it?

Coloma's avatar

Probably because they don’t seem to have external genitalia. I bet ET could do some amazing things with that long glowing finger of his. lol

mazingerz88's avatar

Do you really wanna see ET in briefs and female ET’s in bras and panties-? C’mon-!

Coloma's avatar

^^^ LOL

PeppermintBiscuit's avatar

They have no clothes to emphasize their alien physique. They have no genitalia to keep the movie rating under R. That’s all I got.
Sheldon Cooper would answer it better for a cookie.

rooeytoo's avatar

Because they are all androgynous and beyond the tittilations caused by the sight of a naked body of a different sex.

filmfann's avatar

Maybe they are wearing something. It isn’t dockers, but it could be a space suit without obvious zippers or buttons.
Maybe they have no shame. Their breed never ate from the forbidden fruit of the garden, which is where Adam and Eve realized their nakedness.
Maybe they just need to occasionally warm themselves during an anal probe.

Berserker's avatar

@mazingerz88 To answer your question; yes. Yes I do.

@fremen_warrior Yeah, a hydralisk seems a lot like a xenomorph, much more animal/monster like. So there’s a good reason, given their design and, I imagine, behavior, that they don’t need clothes. (they’d just rip all of them to shreds anyway)

@bookish1 Vikings wear clothes not because they need to you understand, but because horns and skulls and the fur of some dire bear you felled while drunk is just that badass. :D

@ragingloli Yeah, I did figure that aliens needing to have that alien feel was a reason they never wore anything. Never thought much about racism in that context, though.

@AshlynM Yeah, the whole genital thing I think was discussed here on Fluther before, and about how like, how come aliens are so interested in human asses? I don’t get that much either. Unless they don’t reproduce like life here on Earth does, then there should be something. Maybe it protrudes though. (aliens seem pretty good at having body parts and stuff protrude)
I denno why but this reminds me of the whole three seashell thing from Demolition Man, and how people have learned to breed through osmosis or some shit, and don’t have to exchange nasty, slurpy juices.

mazingerz88's avatar

@Symbeline What the-? And I thought I’ll leave this earth without ever hearing about those three seashells from The Demolition Man again-! Be well…be well…

Juels's avatar

It is well known that aliens are not as fashionable as humans.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Aliens don’t have ridiculous modest hangups like humans do.

chyna's avatar

They don’t have boobies or penises.

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