One of the things that shocked me most when I first came to Europe was the different attitude toward nudity. I’ve noticed it especially in France, where there is nudity on billboards, in movie previews, and on television. Honestly, I think it’s great (no, not just the fact that it’s nudity, but that’s it seems more accepted or appreciated).
It seems to me that a lot of Americans would think that having nudity everywhere would lead men to be more sexually excited all the time, and thusly lead them to treat women more violently.
Am I wrong?
If this assumption is correct, do European countries have a worse sexually motivated crimes than the US?
Is this a stupid question?
I think about this a lot in terms of alcohol as well. One can walk on the street with a bottle of wine and no one cares here. The laws are so much more lenient than in the States, but are there more problems (alcoholism, drunk driving, etc.) here or in the States?
I’ve been to nudist places, where clothes were definitely optional.
After the first ten minutes of shock, you get used to it.
You also realise that 99% of people do NOT look like models. I suspect that this is the real subconscious reason for the Us nudity taboo: it keeps the fasion indystry from having its props knocked out from under it.
In my experience, nudity led to less sexual arousal. There was less mystery.
Of course, there were a number of women who did interest me, but since there was no way to hide that interest, there was more embarassment and apology, more inconveniece to other interactions with them, so even that worked against sexual excitement.
Really, concealment, the art of temptation and the lure of the forbidden, is what breeds excitement.
An argument could be made that the opposite would occur: if nudity were commonplace, the “mystery” of what’s under the clothes would disappear, and men might become less aroused.
The fashion industry learned a long time ago that teasing men (by not fully revealing what’s under the clothes) is often more effective than baring all.
I cannot give you cites at the moment as I am at work and don’t want to search for anything with the words “sex” or “nudity” but I can offer an opinion and a WAG.
Your question is not stupid at all. I think that this very question is at the heart of varying degrees of tolerance and acceptance of nudity and sexuality throughout all cultures. (We’ll leave religion and righteous indignation out of it for now. )
It seems to me that the issue of nudity acceptance and a relation to sex crimes do not neatly correalate. If a culture has laws and an overall social environment that has a very low tolerance for sex crimes then I don’t think a high tolerance for overt sexuality and nudity will contribute to higher rates in sex crimes. I personally think that restricting sexual expression and creating an atmosphere where sexuality and nudity are tought to be “dirty” or “wrong” creates a breeding ground for sexual depravity.
Hopefully someone will come along with a more coherent and factual response to your question, however, I would imagine that there is no pat answer to this.
Sexual acceptance or lack thereof, sexually motivated crime (which are more about power than sex anyway), abuse and what not is a many splintered thing.
Mainland European nudity comes as a little bit of a jolt to us northwestern Europeans too, even though we can see bare female breasts in our daily newspapers. But you get used to it.
A lax attitude towards clothing can, however, lead to problems abroad: there is a story in today’s (London) Daily Telegraph of a Finnish woman who took a skinny-dip in a sacred lake at Pushkar in Rajastan and then walked naked back to her hotel (doesn’t say how far that was). She’s facing 3 months’ gaol for it.
Well, that’s not so much a problem with nudity as with ignoring the local religious sites and cultural mores, eh? There’s be the same kind of problem if she insisted in eating steak tartare at an vegetarian retreat.
It’s unlikely to affect everything in the same manner, direction or magnitude; wider tolerance of nudity makes a lot of things different; some for better, others for worse.
On balance, though, I think it solves more problems than it causes; Living in England (which is still quite conservative, small c, compared to other European nations), the naked human form is just ordinary; it can be appreciated sexually, or aesthetically, or it can just be overlooked, at the option of the beholder.
The whole Janet Jackson incident, for example, just appears utterly absurd to me.
I’ve got a question and it is intended to be a part of the OP’s question, not a hijack.
I too was dumbfounded by the reaction to the JJ incident. I can agree with those who think the whole thing was inappropriate or in poor taste. However, we are subjected to public displays of inappropriatness and bad taste continually. Most of it hides in the TV and pops out when you turn on the power button. Much of the rest is in places like fast food restaurants and music stores.
To those who were morally offended by the JJ incident I ask:
What is it that you are afraid will happen to people, including children, who are exposed to the image of a female nipple? Specifically, what damage will occur? What are the horrible consequences that result from such exposure? I don’t want a bunch of mish-mash about it being a “sign” of moral decay. I want to know what the specific fear is that will raise that kind of a reaction.
Also, the first time I lived in France, I arrived just BEFORE the JJ incident. It was my first realization of the difference between the two perspectives. The French got a kick out it. It was such a foreign idea to them. For instance, outside the door of the cafe where I had the conversation about the incident, there was a life size billboard magazine ad showing Heidi Klum completely nude, breasts exposed…soooo I guess that was my FIRST realization, then I had the conversation, which solidified it.
I am interested in the question too about what exactly people are scared of. Being from the South, I know a lot of people are worried about causing local men to “stumble.”
Is the European nudify of which you speak one that includes people of all different ages, sexes, and body types? Or is it mostly nubile females?
(just curious)
As for the OP, I don’t think unclothed women are more sexually provocative or arousing than women with their clothes on. You can’t get any sexier than a pair of reasonably tight jeans.
In cultures that enshroud women so you can’t see anything but ankles and eyeballs, men will find a glimpse of cheek or a wisp of hair or an inch of calf to be thoroughly erotic. And even the ankles and eyeballs will be sexy. Wrapping it up ain’t gonna make it go away. Reciprocally, in a clothes-optional environment, nudity ceases to be a sexual-synapse provoking mechanism.
Is the European nudify of which you speak one that includes people of all different ages, sexes, and body types? Or is it mostly nubile females?
(just curious)
As for the OP, I don’t think unclothed women are more sexually provocative or arousing than women with their clothes on. You can’t get any sexier than a pair of reasonably tight jeans.
In cultures that enshroud women so you can’t see anything but ankles and eyeballs, men will find a glimpse of cheek or a wisp of hair or an inch of calf to be thoroughly erotic. And even the ankles and eyeballs will be sexy. Wrapping it up ain’t gonna make it go away. Reciprocally, in a clothes-optional environment, nudity ceases to be a sexual-synapse provoking mechanism.
I was offended by the JJ incident, not because of the idea that a youngster might catch a glimpse of bare bosom, but because both the song and the action implied that aggressively tearing off a part of a young woman’s clothing was an O.K. thing to do.
Nudity as such, if voluntary on the part of the nude person and those around him/her, is not offensive to me. Years ago I and my then 16-year-old daughter were on vacation in a locale where topless sunbathing was commonplace. She found it totally repulsive that middle-aged and older women with average or less-than-average physiques would lie around for all to see. I explained that it might be more a matter of personal comfort or preference and probably had nothing to do with whether it was appealing to others or not. After all, we don’t expect those with, say, flabby arms or chubby thighs to wear burkas.
I also agree on the alcohol issue. IMHO, those raised with the idea that giving a sip of wine to a child on Thanksgiving is sinful and lawless behavior are more likely to want to binge away when they finally get access to same, legal or not. Kids raised with the idea that wine, beer and spirits are no big deal in moderation and that overindulgence eventually causes one to become boorish and ridiculous are far less likely to use alcoholic beverages irresponsibly.
However, I have also been told that in certain parts of the former Soviet Union, which tend to have more of the European than the American attitude, alcoholism is a genuine problem.
I wasn’t so much offended as I simply thought it was stupid. An attempt to shock. If the thing really has no consequences or meaning, then why do it at all? For those who say that in Europe, nudity is a normal part of every day life, why not simply go in the nude all the time in countries where that would be more comfortable, due to the climate?
People do things for a reason. There is a societal taboo against nudity in the U.S. I have less of a problem with people simply being nudists naturally and unobtrusively than I do with attempting to project their belief that it is acceptable onto others in an aggressive way. Sort of the same way that I might not think being a Jehova’s Witness harms anyone, but I don’t want them showing up and proselytizing at my football game.
There are many things that we do not do that I can not give you a specific reason for. I don’t scratch my nuts in public either, even though it doesn’t really harm anyone if I do.
Judging by what I’ve seen in the limited clothing-optional (C.O.) world within the U.S., it’s definitely all ages, sizes and sexes. It’s just the same sort of people you see on the street or in the grocery store every day, except their naked.
What bugs the hell out of me about the taboo in the States is that it’s so nearly total. If you want some nudity you can drive for 50 miles to get to C.O. club, or to a C.O. beach. But chances are that the beach is only quasi legal, and the deputies can swoop down at any time. Sometimes they’re patrolled by helicopter; I don’t mind somebody flying over me in an aircraft and seeing that I’m nude just by chance; but I definitely don’t want people flying over me specifically to check if I’m nude.
You’d think that small secluded sections of beaches, Central Park, Griffith Park, etc., could be set aside for officially sanctioned C.O. use, but they aren’t.
We already granted you that it was tasteless and inappropriate, just like scratching your nuts in public or a lot of other things. Yes, they did it to shock but why should anybody be so shocked? I am appalled by grossly overweight woman wearing skin tight pants and exposing rolls of fat on their midriff but I’m not calling for a Congressional investigation which is about what happened with the JJ incident. I am appalled that Ashley Simpson is able to make money in the music business but that doesn’t mean that I should try to shut the record company down or refuse to buy any of their records. Getting an eyeful (or a sour earful) from classless, inconsiderate people may offend but it doesn’t harm as far as I can see. Also, I’m not saying that “anything goes” or that there should not be rules and regulations requiring a certain amount of decorum in public places.
So, I’m back to my original question, what is the potential harm from anyone, young or old, being exposed to a female nipple. The big uproar was that “children” were watching. Factually speaking, just what was it about the stupid incident that had the potential to harm children?
For the record, it seems that the FCC quietly admitted that they recieved only 90 complaints from 23 individuals – and that all but two of these letters were identical. The big Janet Jackson uproar appears to be nothing more than an overblown campaign by a noisy few.
I have my problems with the FCC in this regard, as I voiced here when I was a senior in college (it was only last year, but I’m still getting used to it)…
I thought I already answered that. Whether you think there is harm or not, people generally speaking do not want their children exposed to nudity. To accomodate this societal preference, we generally do not allow nudity on primetime, network television. The incident was effectively Janet Jackson saying, “Fuck you and your values,” to those people. Yes it was tasteless, and it was intentionally done to shock and offend. That is harm in its own right. We have made choices for what we want our children to watch. We are told that those choices will be respected. Janet Jackson interjected her own beliefs and disrespected our choices. That is not very different from my agreeing to let my kid play with your kid on the condition that they don’t spend the time sitting in front of a Playstation, and then coming over to pick up my kid and finding him sitting in front of a Playstation. I don’t give a shit if you don’t think it is harmful, I do, and it’s not your job to make my decision for me as to the subject.
Are you suggesting that there needs to be some form of physical harm in order to have it be a problem? You can come and piss on my lawn every morning. It’s probably not going to cause me much if any “harm,” but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to come after you at some point.
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