Going from closed/oppressive societies to open societies?

Great Debates
1

I’m sure many people are familiar with the young 18-20 year old Americans who come to Europe and go crazy getting wasted because they can. I’ve had several occassions where an American is celebrating his/her 21st birthday as though it meant the same thing in Europe, while all the Europeans in the bar look somewhat bemused by the fact that there is any big deal about being able to drink alcohol.

I know kids who gotten arrested in Amsterdam because they take their openness to mean anything goes.

Well, in the same vein, I got to thinking about the same thing with sex (which I pressume relates easily to the Netherlands again). Here in France, nudity is everywhere, and no one seems to really pay attention, but when I first got here I was shocked. I didn’t care (to the extent of being offended), I just had never thought that in other places it might not be a big deal.

The other day, I saw a woman on the Champs-Elysees completely covered in a black burca, except for her eyes, and behind her was a magazine advertisement with a completely nude supermodel, breasts exposed.

I’m wondering if there are cases where people come from closed societies (like those in the middle east or in Asia even) and just go nuts.

To be clear, I don’t mean go nuts and proclaim jihad against the nudity, rather do people come and think that everyone is allowed to do whatever he/she wants?

I spend a lot of time with Arab and Asian people, so I would like to clarify that I’m not trying to make generalisations. I also, being American, know plenty of other Americans who don’t go on a drinking benge in Europe.

2

Yes, of course. But I’m not aware of any research defining statistical trends.

I think it’s much the same as children in America who go off to college and had parents who were very strict during high school. Some of them internalize the strictness and become straight edged studyholics. Some of them hit the party scene so hard that they melt down and get arrested/fail out/get knocked up/whatever. And of course, there are those in the middle of the spectrum.

3

I have an Iranian friend (male, 30-ish) who visited Tehran a couple of years ago and went to a party organised by his friend via mobile phone.

There was alcohol there, yes, but to his amazement most partygoers were also smoking heroin, and then pairing off with complete strangers to go and fuck each other. His jaw truly dropped when numerous people said to him “So, you must do this kind of thing all the time in the UK, yes?”.

So, the moral of the tale is the people in closed societies go nuts, too.

4

I’ve read a lot about these parties. I think it’s the same sort of obsession with partying that gets kids in my neck of the woods organizing parties in a remote field way outside of town to get drunk and fuck (NOTE: always the former, which often leads to the latter).

The point is, though, those kids in Iran aren’t, I wouldn’t guess, a majority.

There’s a scene in *Syriana *(one of the first scenes) where I think they try and show that aspect of the Iranian/Middle Eastern youth.