"To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully clothed. I like to imagine what might be under there. It might not be the standard thing. Imagine, stripping a woman down, and she has a body like a little submarine. With periscope, propellers, torpedoes. That would be the one for me. I'd marry her right off and be faithful to the end"
About this Quote
The comedy works because it s deliberately coarse and weird. "Fully clothed" isn t just fabric; it s narrative. Clothing keeps desire in the realm of imagination, where it can stay wild, idiosyncratic, and safely unprovable. The "little submarine" is a perfect Bukowski move: childish, militarized, absurdly specific. It drags sex out of the aspirational (beauty, harmony, taste) and into the grotesque workshop of fantasy, where longing is less about bodies than about the mind s unruly prop room.
Under the joke, there s a bleak tenderness. "I d marry her right off and be faithful to the end" sounds like a punchline, but it also smuggles in a longing for permanence he usually distrusts. He can only admit devotion by attaching it to something impossible. That s Bukowski s emotional tell: sincerity, but only if it arrives wearing a clown suit and carrying torpedoes.
Quote Details
| Topic | Funny |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Bukowski, Charles. (2026, February 10). To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully clothed. I like to imagine what might be under there. It might not be the standard thing. Imagine, stripping a woman down, and she has a body like a little submarine. With periscope, propellers, torpedoes. That would be the one for me. I'd marry her right off and be faithful to the end. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-me-nudity-is-a-joke-i-dont-think-nude-people-185175/
Chicago Style
Bukowski, Charles. "To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully clothed. I like to imagine what might be under there. It might not be the standard thing. Imagine, stripping a woman down, and she has a body like a little submarine. With periscope, propellers, torpedoes. That would be the one for me. I'd marry her right off and be faithful to the end." FixQuotes. February 10, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-me-nudity-is-a-joke-i-dont-think-nude-people-185175/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully clothed. I like to imagine what might be under there. It might not be the standard thing. Imagine, stripping a woman down, and she has a body like a little submarine. With periscope, propellers, torpedoes. That would be the one for me. I'd marry her right off and be faithful to the end." FixQuotes, 10 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/to-me-nudity-is-a-joke-i-dont-think-nude-people-185175/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.
