The reason was simple, and indeed simple-minded.

The Church was passionately eager to fight against what it called "the flesh," and thus fell into the error of confusing the subjective question of sexual desire with the objective spectacle of the naked form.

"The flesh" is evil; therefore, "the flesh" must be hidden.
And they hid it, without understanding that in so doing they had not suppressed the craving for the human form, but, on the contrary, had heightened it by imparting to it the additional fascination of a forbidden mystery.
Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Part III, Sect II, Mem.
II, Subs.

IV), referring to the recommendations of Plato, adds: "But _Eusebius_ and _Theodoret_ worthily lash him for it; and well they might: for as one saith, the very sight of naked parts, _causeth enormous, exceeding concupiscences, and stirs up both men and women to burning lust_." Yet, as Burton himself adds further on in the same section of his work (Mem.

V, Subs.