Are US sexual mores really "provincial" compared to Europe or is this US bashing?

[astro]

Well is it? Are we really repressed bumpkins when it comes to public acceptance of sexuality and nudity as wholesome things?

Are the English, French, Spanish and Germans etc. less uptight than we are about sex?

[jastu]

Ah...yes, and not only Europe, I'd have to throw in Australia in there too.

[Lobsang]

If the [reaction to] Janet Jackson incident is anything to go by, most definately YES.

[owlofcreamcheese]

every culture is degenerate and simaltaniously insainly up tight to every other culture.



say country A will not ever ever ever expose their elbow in public... never never never, it would be as embarassing as wetting your pants would be to you.

country B will never ever ever say the word gorilla. its a nasty ugly word that has no place in polite speach, or any other speach for that matter.

country A will end up looking at country B and saying "dear lord! what degenerates!!! elbows everywhere! how sickening! they don't even CARE that they are showing so much smut!"

the country B will end up looking at country A and saying "oh my, such foul mouths they have, they say gorilla in children's books even... so degenerate!"

however at the same time... country B will be wondering why the big deal with elbows? what sorta weird repressed degenerates worry about elbows? what the hell is wrong with them? and country A will go on laughing at country B for being so childish and immature that as a culture they can't even handle gorrillas like adults.

every culture is degenerate by every other culuture's standards... its called 'ethrocentrism"

[Freudian Slit]

But we're members of the U.S., (at least, I am) and we still think it's rather provincial. I thought that making a fuss over the Janet Jackson incident was stupid. I can't help but think that we as Americans act like children about it all: we celebrate nudity (or almost nudity...little flashes of skin here and there) on TV, in music videos, and then the other half of us (the not so moral majority) goes off half-cocked about how it means we're going to hell. It's like we're this completely scizophrenic country. Or so immature that we seem to like going, "hehe...boobies."

[JRDelirious]

Well, as mentioned this is a problem of frames of reference. It may be that US sexual mores are provincial and immature while Europe is relaxed, open-minded and sophisticated. But that can just as well get recast as whether the Americans are merely conservative and modest while Europeans are libertines and bawds,by merely shifting where you zero the scale.

[AZCowboy]

Agree with JRDelirious, but clearly the US is far to the "right" of the scale.

[Neurotik]

I dunno, we're uptight about different things.

For instance, while I was in the UK nobody cared about public nudity much on TV, but people were more uncomfortable discussing their sex lives. I found it was about the same, really.

[Celyn]

And, of course, the is the confusion of Celyn, on hearing her friend (from NYC) was irritated that, shopping that day, she had been unable to find any "elbows"

(Celyn was very confussed until it became sort of clear hat she just meant a shape of pasta)

At least, I think she did. (Quite a fierce person, really, so , who knows?)

:)

[furt]

Europe thinks we're puritans, and compared to them we probably are.

Most of the rest of the world thinks we're oversexed libertines ... and compared to them we probably are.

[mhendo]

I think it's more a case of how prominently, and in what contexts, sexual content is accepted as part of mainstream discourse and the media. In my experience (and i've lived here for almost four years now) Americans aren't especially prudish or repressed.

It certainly seems to be the case, however, that the sexual content of free-to-air media outlets is considerably milder than it is in places like Australia (where i'm from), the UK, and most of Europe. In Australia, for example, movies are frequently shown on free-to-air TV with no editing of nudity or sex scenes. Here in the US, however, i barely bother to watch movies on TV, because the level of content censorship is ridiculous.

This also applies to issues such as swearing. I think the strongest word i've heard of free-to-air TV over here is "shit," and even that is pretty unusual. Before i left Australia, shows like "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City" had begun to air on free TV, and they were all aired without any reduction in profanity. Even the famous "cunt" epiode on "Sex and the City" made it to air uncensored. By contrast, you can barely turn on a movie on free-to-air TV in America without being subjected to the laughable dubbing of swear words and blashphemy, such as "freak you" or "forget you" or "gosh darn it." It's really rather pathetic.

What this all says about America's general level of prudishness is harder to determine. In my opinion, it tends to reflect the (perhaps disproportionate) political and cultural influence of a particular brand of religious values and social conservatism. I think the religious aspect is important, because i don't think that it's a coincidence that many of the countries with more liberal attitudes to sex in the media are also countries where religion is a much less important factor in politics and in the culture generally. In Australia, even religious people have no problem voting for non-religious candidates, and very few politicans make references to God etc. in speeches. The fact that a candidate for Prime Minister was an atheist or agnostic would not raise a ripple on the political waters. Not the case in America.

[kellner]

I think it is not so much about the view of single Americans vs Europeans. Many people are at least as prude as the "official" American standpoint but they have little influence on the rest. So a lot more can (and will) be done in public. e.g. There is no word that can't be said on TV at all. This doesn't mean that nobody objects but that nobody is able to prevent that. So European standards are not really that different but people seem to be able to live to their own standards more easily and are forced to live with the standards of others.

[js_africanus]

Europe thinks we're puritans, and compared to them we probably are.
"Victorian" would be more accurate. In the 19th century it got so bad in the states that people were putting "trousers" on piano legs and calling bulls "gentleman cows." We're still recovering, IMO. So, yes: Europeans are justified in making fun of us for our views on sexuality.

[Dogface]

Well is it? Are we really repressed bumpkins when it comes to public acceptance of sexuality and nudity as wholesome things?

Are the English, French, Spanish and Germans etc. less uptight than we are about sex?


Your question presumes a falsehood. The falsehood is that there is one and only one valid standard that must be universally applied across all cultures. The reality is far more complex. In general, the only real universal in this particular case is the universal of "ethnocentricity". Europeans see that US culture has different standards and ethnocentrically make slurs upon the USA for it.

[mhendo]

Your question presumes a falsehood. The falsehood is that there is one and only one valid standard that must be universally applied across all cultures. The reality is far more complex. In general, the only real universal in this particular case is the universal of "ethnocentricity". Europeans see that US culture has different standards and ethnocentrically make slurs upon the USA for it.
Interesting that you accuse the OP of making a false generalization, then proceed to generalize about Europeans and their attitudes to America.

[epepke]

Well is it? Are we really repressed bumpkins when it comes to public acceptance of sexuality and nudity as wholesome things?

Are the English, French, Spanish and Germans etc. less uptight than we are about sex?

Europe is less sexually open than they pretend to be.

If Great Britain is considered to be part of Europe, then they're pretty puritanical themselves. It's only within the last decade or so that actual pornography has been legal there.

People bring up Janet Jackson's nipple. But tell me, has there ever been a deliberate nipple flash during a European sporting event? The World Cup? Cricket? Skating? Anything?

[mhendo]

People bring up Janet Jackson's nipple. But tell me, has there ever been a deliberate nipple flash during a European sporting event? The World Cup? Cricket? Skating? Anything?Well, Mark Roberts (http://www.thestreaker.org.uk/main.htm) has shown much more than a nipple, and on multiple occasions.

[furt]

So, yes: Europeans are justified in making fun of us for our views on sexuality.So should we in turn mock Arabs, Africans and Asians who are more conservative than we?

[Silentgoldfish]

When they had a news story about Janet's nipple flash here they showed it uncensored, at about 5 in the evening. TV is a lot less uptight here. I saw Basic Instinct on free to air a few years back :).

[rjung]

People bring up Janet Jackson's nipple. But tell me, has there ever been a deliberate nipple flash during a European sporting event? The World Cup? Cricket? Skating? Anything?
That doesn't prove much -- it could be that European sporting events don't have "flashers" because the organizers don't think it'd garner much attention.

"Topless dancers? Where's the novelty in that? Let's see some talent, by jove!"

[Brutus]

So should we in turn mock Arabs, Africans and Asians who are more conservative than we?

But golly, that would 'culturally insensitive'!

[Nightime]

If you watch TV at night in the US, you will no doubt run across commericials for "Girls Gone Wild".

These commercials are IMO degrading to both females and males, and try to push horrible ideas onto impressionable youths in order to make sales.

But because they carefully block out the nudity, they are shown to everyone.



The Janet Jackson superbowl example is similar.

If a dancer actually lost their top by accident, would there be any reason to make a big deal over it? Does the actual sight of a nipple cause harm? Of course not.

It is only because it was done on purpose and as part of an entire set of crass and suggestive acts that it was bad.

Yet, it was only the nudity which got it noticed, and the methods being used to combat it are along the lines of "Ban nudity and profanity, regardless of context". The response to Bono's use of an expletive is an example of that.




Further exploration of US media will provide more examples like those above.

You will find things that are in actuality much more vulgar and fundamentally nasty than what you would find in other less "repressed" cultures.

But you will find that they blur out nudity, and bleep out profanity, as if that somehow makes them wholesome.




So, the question about US sexual mores is not so simple.

Certainly, those from many cultures would laugh at our frenzied and bizarre conniption fits over nudity and profanity.

But at the same time they would likely be repulsed by the nastiness of much of our media, and would not be relieved by our grinning insistence that it "doesn't really show anything".




Personally, I believe that the irrational US attitude towards nudity and profanity, almost completely without regard to context, is a root cause of the more fundamental nastiness.

If you repress something, then it pops up somewhere else. By treating nudity and profanity as always indecent, resulting in the ridiculous censorship that mhendo alluded to, we create an artificially powerful appetite for sleaze.

I see it on much of reality TV. I see it on carefully edited, yet disgusting, late night TV. I see it in our national fascination with teen girls performing suggestive acts on stage. I see it in the disturbing collections of pornography that many people I know have, *especially* those in good families who you wouldn't expect.



It's sort of a vicious cycle. Our Victorian attitude towards nudity and sex made us repressed, and created the unnaturally large appetite for sleaze.

And then all the sleaze made sure that we never got over that Victorian attitude, by making it nearly impossible to show nudity and sex in a natural way.


Thus does the US simultaneously have one of the most repressed and openly nasty attitudes towards nudity and sex in the world.

[mhendo]

So should we in turn mock Arabs, Africans and Asians who are more conservative than we?andBut golly, that would 'culturally insensitive'!I think these are fair points to make, in light of js_africanus's comment. To the extent that i mock US attitudes to sex at all, it has less to do with whether or not people are "prudish" or "conservative" than it does with what seems to me to be an overall level of cultural hypocrisy or inconsistency, one that doesn't reflect the thinking of all Americans, but that is an important part of the cultural landscape nonetheless.

For example, if people are very conservative about sex and don't think it's a matter for public display and titilation, then i fully support their right to that opinion, and i don't mock it. The inconsistency, however, comes in at a more general cultural level, in which certain types of sexual content (e.g., full-frontal nudity; sex scenes; sexual profanity) are deemed inappropriate for display, but advertisements that use sex and the exploitation of (usually women's) bodies to sell beer or viagra or cars or soda are considered fine.

In the weeks after the whole Janet Jackson Superbowl incident, many people pointed out how silly it was that some people got all riled up about the exposure of a single breast, yet apparently have no problem at all with advertisements that constantly imply that consuming the right beer/car/soda/shoe will get you laid by hot chicks with big tits. I didn't see many of the conservative heartland types who were so infuriated by Jackson's breast complaining about the Coors ads that are such a prominent part of NFL gameday advertising.

I should stress that this critique in no way applies to "all Americans." In fact, i know of virtually no generalization that would ever apply to "all Americans." Nor am i saying that this type of inconsistency in the culture is not at all peculair to the United States. However, of all the countries i've visited, it is most noticeable here.

[mhendo]

Oops.

Second last paragraph in my previous post should read:

"Nor am i saying that this type of inconsistency in the culture is peculiar to the United States."

[gex gex]

Nightime, I'm sorry, but pretty much everything you've posted is completely wrong.

For instance:

If you watch TV at night in the US, you will no doubt run across commericials for "Girls Gone Wild".

These commercials are IMO degrading to both females and males, and try to push horrible ideas onto impressionable youths in order to make sales.

But because they carefully block out the nudity, they are shown to everyone.
Yeah, we get stuff like that here, too (in Australia). The ads are stupid, but why get all worked up about it? Your portrayal of GGW as a product of a depravity shockingly unique to the United States only supports the argument that attitudes in America are more repressed than elsewhere in the western world.

Similarly, you telling us that Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" was bad because "it was done on purpose and as part of an entire set of crass and suggestive acts," rather than because of the actual nudity is largely irrelevent. The ensuing furor still seems a big deal about nothing, even taking in to account a few pop lyrics and some dancing. We get MTV over here, too, you know. It's just not shocking.

You will find things that are in actuality much more vulgar and fundamentally nasty than what you would find in other less "repressed" cultures.
Unless you can come up with an example, I am going to regard this as completely false.

But at the same time they would likely be repulsed by the nastiness of much of our media, and would not be relieved by our grinning insistence that it "doesn't really show anything".
You simply seem to be assuming the rest of the western world shares your own prudish attitudes.

I see it on much of reality TV.
Oh yeah? Like MTV's Cribs? The show where they blur out breasts in paintings?!? My mother laughed at that! Or Survivor, where they blur arse cracks?

Now, I know it's foolish to assume that all, or even most Americans share the moral puritanism discussed in this thread. But certain sectors of society there appear to have greater power than in other countries, and that has a noticable impact on some of America's cultural output.

[ralph124c]

Just back from Rio..and the beaches are amazing! Brazilian girls wear next to nothing on the beach (a few square inches offabric). The weird thing is, in Rio, it is considered indecnt for a girlto go topless on the beach..as iff askimpy bikini top made any differences! :)

[Eva Luna]

You know, one point I haven’t seen anyone raise here yet is that “Europe” is not some sort of cultural monolith, and levels of public nudity and sexuality which would be fine in one place might not be in another, or weren’t in another until very recently.

For example, the North Caucasus is still at least nominally part of Europe (it is in the European part of the Russian Federation). However, my North Caucasian ex nearly flipped out when visiting me here in Chicago; he couldn’t believe that it was socially acceptable for men, let alone women, to wear shorts in public, even knee-length ones (we were playing soccer in the park). But your average person growing up in central Russia would have much less of an issue with that, or with women exposing quite a lot of skin in public, something which would likely get a woman branded a slut in the North Caucasus.

And one Spanish teacher I had in high school told us many stories about what she called the “Swedish Revolution,” which was when Spanish women started going topless on beaches (this would have been maybe in the 50s or 60s); apparently so many Scandinavian women would go topless when vacationing on Spanish beaches that the Spanish guys were all too busy drooling after them to pay any attention to the Spanish women, who then decided “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Even when I was studying there 15 years ago, I finally gave up telling people I was American because there was still a perception that American women (apparently in contrast to Spanish women) would sleep with anything on two legs. I wish they had thought Americans were prudes; then maybe we could have gone out without an obvious male partner and be left in peace and quiet.

[Nightime]

I don't think you understood my post gex gex, since you are basically repeating my points.


Yes, the US has a prudish Victorian attitude towards nudity. That is part of my point.

You provide the example of blurring out paintings. I can go one better, and provide the example of putting curtains over a STATUE.

However, while to you these are merely things to laugh over, I think they actually send a bad message here, and are harmful.

Nudity is not inherently indecent, and by treating it as such we create a society of unnatural repression. You may not agree, but IMO repression of this sort causes problems.




Up to this point, I think we agree. The point of contention seems to be that I believe that much of US media is more degrading and exploitative of sexuality than that of other western countries, while you argue that, in fact, the Australian media is just as degrading and exploitative.

Admittedly, I am no expert on Australian media, so I can't say for sure, but I'll just list some examples.


Temptation Island, on which a couple with a child were split apart and tempted to cheat on each other by groups of singles.

Joe Millionaire, in which men pretend to be millionaires in order to scam women.

Elimidate, Chains of Love, etc... mean spirited and demeaning dating shows which rely on exploiting the young women on the show. They blur the nudity, but does that really make them better?

Various talk shows which are based on demeaning the guests, and which in at least one case resulted in murder when a guest was set up for an unwanted surprise.

GGW and similar, commercials for which are shown on many stations with the nudity blurred. Even so, the message of degrading women and treating teenage girls as sex objects comes through loud and clear.

Intentionally degrading pornography is much more commonplace in the US than in Australia, from what I hear from my friends in Australia.

These are just examples, but the demeaning of women and sexuality and the treatment of teen girls as objects of lust is ingrained in the culture.


The film "American Beauty" dealt with some of this, and it is partially because of it that I thought that the US did these things to a greater extent than other western countries.


If Australia's media is equally degrading and exploitative, as you propose, can you give some examples?



In any case, the state of Australian media is not part of my main point.



My main point is that in the US we are so crazy in our frenzy over censoring nudity, even to the extent of covering paintings and statues, and cutting apart great films even on cable channels, that we create an unnaturally repressed society. This leads to bad attitudes towards nudity and sex, gives people bad attitudes towards their own bodies, and leads to more fundamentally degrading and exploitative media.

[furt]

Thus does the US simultaneously have one of the most repressed and openly nasty attitudes towards nudity and sex in the world.You have obviously never been to Japan. Or Korea. Or parts of the Arab world. Or a lot of other places.

[Rysler]

Nightime, I think you're spot on. Props for having the courage to post the naked truth. :D I take issues with your examples, though of course you have demographics behind you. But what about the alternatives? How would you rate shows that "tastefully" push the envelope and give us what's presumably a European perspective on abundant nudity, sexuality and language--Bliss, NYPD Blue, La Femme Nikita, Buffy, etc. There are diverse choices in American culture that I don't think non-Americans realize we have.

I would say Japan has the most conservative/repressed attitudes toward sex that I'm familiar with, and yet pornography and "fan service" is abundant on the air. So the issue is far more complicated than a simple link to the quantity of skin/acts.

Most of the rest of the world thinks we're oversexed libertines ... and compared to them we probably are.

Hee. Well put.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

It's like we're this completely scizophrenic country. Or so immature that we seem to like going, "hehe...boobies."

Also there's a strong gender dichotomy here, though that's not limited to just Americans. Think about it...women have more "naughty bits" that MUST be covered, yet this culture permits them to expose way more skin than men can.

[Ravenman]

I laugh thinking about the furor that would arise if one took phoneboxes -- and all the ads therein -- from Central London and transported them to any major American city en masse.

"What about the children?! They can't even call home without being visually assaulted by ten thousand Janet Jacksons!"

Heheheh... pretty funny.

[noname]

Most of the rest of the world thinks we're oversexed libertines ...

you betcha! :)

[dangermom]

For example, if people are very conservative about sex and don't think it's a matter for public display and titilation, then i fully support their right to that opinion, and i don't mock it. The inconsistency, however, comes in at a more general cultural level, in which certain types of sexual content (e.g., full-frontal nudity; sex scenes; sexual profanity) are deemed inappropriate for display, but advertisements that use sex and the exploitation of (usually women's) bodies to sell beer or viagra or cars or soda are considered fine.

In the weeks after the whole Janet Jackson Superbowl incident, many people pointed out how silly it was that some people got all riled up about the exposure of a single breast, yet apparently have no problem at all with advertisements that constantly imply that consuming the right beer/car/soda/shoe will get you laid by hot chicks with big tits. I didn't see many of the conservative heartland types who were so infuriated by Jackson's breast complaining about the Coors ads that are such a prominent part of NFL gameday advertising.Perhaps the people who get upset over the Coors ads didn't watch the game in the first place, so as to miss all of it. Personally, I quit watching all of it a long time ago, and don't buy products that use exploitation and commercialization of sex. And I object to all the pointless violence around, too (for all you out there who are about to accuse me of hating sex but approving fully of violence). This means that I rarely go to the movies and watch not a whole lot of TV.

Most of the commentary I read about the Jackson thing was pretty down on the entire show and the ads too, btw.

[asterion]

Most of the commentary I read about the Jackson thing was pretty down on the entire show and the ads too, btw.

Yeah, but at least the game was good. I never watch halftime shows because they routinely suck.