If you’ve ever been to Germany, Holland, or France, you may have noted the very liberal attitude towards sex, fetishes, and the like. A sex shop there will cater to most if not all the fetishes. In America, it’s the complete opposite. Nothing is tolerated other than “mainstream” sexual practices, if at all, and a significant number of the population are pushing for the elimination of sexual education in the schools. I lived in Germany for 3 years.
Does anyone know if this difference in attitudes has resulted in better or worst statistics in terms of numbers of rapes, teen pregnancies, prevalence of STD’s, prostitution, or even divorces?
I was just wondering, which system worked the best.
Dean.
The main difference I’ve noted in Europe, and even Canada, is that the sex shops are not restricted to a “red light district”. You’ll be walking down the street, and on the same street they’ll be a church, then a bookstore, a nice restaurant, and a sex shop.
In the United States it seems that sex shops are zoned into the worst neighborhoods, with nothing around them but other sex shops and bars and flophouses.
In St. Paul, we’ve got two Fantasy Gifts sex shops that are located next to non-seedy businesses in average neighborhoods. They are pretty mild, though - mostly dildos, vibrators, and porn.
There’s a sex shop a mile from my house, right between the excellent, family run pizzeria and the ho-hum Chinese take out place. It’s not like the shops I remember in Germany, though.
I don’t think zoning has anything to do with it in the states. If you’re zone for retail, then you’re zoned for retail and that’s it. I’d have to guess that the vast majority of the Euro-style sex shops (like in HBO’s “Real Sex” series) are self-selective in where they locate. Astute owners know that they’re not going to have much success due to community resistance if they set up between the Disney Store and the WB store in the local mall. Also, if you’re in the sex district, you’re more likely to attract the customer you want because (1) it’s the sex district and (2) John Smith doesn’t have to be paranoid that Pastor Bob will see him enter the store on his way out of Chick Fillet.
So, yeah, it’s American culture, but it’s not some type of government interference.
Let’s also recall that “America” is a very big place with very different attitudes in some areas vs. others.
I HAVE been to parts of the US where sex shops are forced into seedy redlight districts while simultaneously being unable to sell anything naughtier than crotchless panties.
And in other parts of the country they can sell anything they want from any location zoned for retail.
So please folks, let’s not get into a quibble over sweeping generalizations about what is it isn’t allowed in the whole USA.
I’d like to get back to the OP. It really is a fascinating question. Unfortunately , I have no answers for it.
Obviously that site has a political agenda but at least they give cites for their numbers and their results look very similar to those that I have seen elsewhere. Unfortunately the overview is based on data up to 2001.
As Kellner’s link shows, the US is pretty much at the bottom when it comes to issues like you describe, but that doesn’t really answer your question. There are lots of other countries, for instance in Latin America, that are equally prudish, if not more so, than the US and they probably generally have lower rape, murder, underage pregnancies, etc. than most of Europe (just guessing.)
Crime and poor life planning in the US are way higher than, I think, any other nation on the planet. But that’s due to a mixture of the issues caused by being a melting pot, having a generally honest court system, and the aftereffects of slavery in creating a large group in our society who has a hard time convincing themselves that they can actually succeed and make a better life for themselves (though of course, up to twenty or thirty years ago, they actually couldn’t, overwhelmingly.) It would be very hard to determine what effect sexual prudity has on all this, using the US as a case point.
We should also note that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Even if it were statistically shown that a country with more relaxed attitudes toward sex had either more or fewer cases of rape, for example, the former cannot automatically be assumed to be the cause of the latter. Perhaps both are due to the same underlying cause. Or not. After all, it CAN be statistically proven that almost every convicted criminal has eaten pickles. And virtually every alcoholic started with milk.
I’m glad **Kellner ** posted that link since I did the research for this for a thread a couple of years ago, and basically arrived at the same result. It saved me time in digging up my old post (if it’s even there) or doing the research all over again.
Opinion mode:
If the age of consent is set at 18, and sex ed is banned from schools, because, you know, since the legal age is 18, we don’t have to teach stuff in school, and if parents are like perents tend to be, i.e. somwhat uncomfortable teaching their own kids about this stuff (no matter how free spirited they are), you’re gonna end up having a lot of horny ignorant teens.
Some/a few/many/most (delete that which desn’t apply in your opinion) teens will have sex before 18, at least if they can find someone to have sex with. By pretending they wont and not educating them, you have a good recipie for teen pregnanicies, STDs, teen abortions.
I’m actually curious about this too, having lived in both Europe and America for a number of years. The sex shops you get on Belmont Ave. here in Chicago are not much different at all than the ones in Budapest, Hamburg, or Amsterdam, from what I’ve noticed. I would certainly say sexual attitudes are much, much more lax out on continental Europe, but I am curious as to what fetishes are not catered to by sex shops in the US. Also, Belmont & Clark (Lakeview) in Chicago is a pretty liberal and alternative-lifestyle friendly part of town, so perhaps it’s a consequence of which sex shops in America I’ve been to.
I am also curious as to which fetishes are not addressed in US stores as opposed to European stores. And in which way are they catered to? Movies? Equipment? Clothing? Accessories? Here in New Orleans, I’d say we go a bit beyond “vanilla.”
I’ve never been to sex shops in Europe, but all down the west coast of the US and Canada they are about the same. If there is a fetish in some way not represented in these shops then I’ve not heard of the fetish.
That said, not all shops sell gear for every kink. It might be hard to pick up Ponyplay gear from downtown Seattle. I’ve never seen a Clown section in shops (even though it is a valid kink). A shop in the suburbs normally won’t have a large gay leather section. Shops will sell what they KNOW will sell. Why waste a corner of the shop for something only a few people in area are into?
Africa has a pretty insane rape rate from what I heard, admittedly. But, I’m not sure it’s really viable to compare uprest and instability (like Afghanistan) to general crime. I can’t comment on Rio De Janeiro, other than to note that it’s a city, not a country.
