Government – like dress – is a “badge of lost innocence.” Thomas Paine, who made this observation on the first pages of his famous American revolutionary pamphlet, “Common Sense,” was primarily concerned with government rather than dress. However, his further characterizations of government as a “necessary evil,” prompted by human “wickedness” and intended to restrain human vices and create distinctions, might also be extended to clothes. Presumably, in Thomas Paine’s paradise, there would be no need for government or for bodily coverings.

Paine’s imagined paradise is far from reality. Both government and clothes seem necessities. Moreover, government requires its subjects to be clothed, or, more precisely, that certain parts of certain bodies be covered under certain circumstances. However, the government may also require a lack of clothes. Strip searches and forced nudity, indecent exposure, nude dancing, and gender disparities in mandated coverings prompt complex constitutional issues implicating hierarchy, democracy, and sexuality.