What's the deal with Americans and nudity? [WORK-SAFE AGANE HURRAH]

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read my link people! also in modern america we have no interest in representations of the human body that don't make you want to buy something.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

It was a good link, Teeny.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Besides, by definition, a parent is old and fat and who wants to see that?

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think it's particularly uncommon in America for children to see the parent of the same sex naked and vice versa.

What about the other parent? Or friends?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

The US gives Israel five billion dollars a year in aid.

Hollywood box office takings totalled 8 billion dollars in 2002.

Adult videos took 20 billion dollars in 2003.

Americans like Israel and Hollywood, but they like nudity more.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

in the upheaval of the civil war there were certainly "pro-nudity" xtians, just as there were "free-love" xtians etc etc (brethren of the free spirit etc, ranters, early quakers maybe, antinomians generally)

the english puritans who seized power (ie not the above, who carried on being persecuted) were certainly anti PUBLIC nudity - and theatre and license and carnival generally, partly i suspect bcz (in the uk) - these were catholic-sanctioned social mechanisms for letting off steam, seemingly anti-authority but actually ultimately buttressing rather than challenging it (you approve of the boss who allows you holidays etc)

anti-private nudity though? this seems impractical and unlikely except for the fairly well-off (being clothed in bed; having separate beds etc etc)

the puritans who founded america were pretty much social radicals (in both directions) (ie radically anti-worldly/church authority and pro God'sd authority) even by the standards of commonwealth puritans: and MUCH less pragmatic about carnality than the catholic church had become

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

America needs more saunas!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

not "saunas"!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I think possibly that in America, there is a really wide range of people, and you want to respect their sensibilities. Nudity was/is no big deal in my house, but if I was having a friend sleep over, I would neither make her feel bad for undressing in front of me or undressing in the bathroom. Everybody defaults to the least risky behaviour, which equals not stripping down.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

thus also few nude beaches in USA.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

but here's what i don't get, teeny --> representations of the (fictional) maimed and killed = "the buying mood"??

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd say it's a fairly rare American family where adolescent and older children see both parents naked on other than an accidental basis. Friends? Do you mean friends of the opposite sex? If guys go work out at the gym together, they will probably see each other naked in the locker room. No idea about women's lockerroom, but I think in general, women are more private, according to my ex. You totally don't see your friends of the opposite sex naked, because then you'd immediately be forced to have sex with them. regardless of sexual orientation. It's in the Constitution.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

GOD BLESS THE CONSTITUTION

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

concubinage general

i THINK i know what this means, but i like this phrase anyway, and strive to use it as often as i can today.

i'll use it to order lunch, too.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:18 (twenty-two years ago)

i wonder if it isn't more a "civilised versus barbarian" thing in the US, where the frontier between native american clothing custom and invader custom meant a very sharp and sudden cultural divide? (of course all kinds of sex-pol and religion wd be present in that also)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:18 (twenty-two years ago)

You don't get my point Momus, I know nudity sells in America as well, but why is it dirty?

Adam is right, the Finnish sauna culture is probably one reason I have no problems whatsoever with nudity, and I don't think seeing friends of opposite sex naked has anything to do with sex.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:19 (twenty-two years ago)

That is, Finns may be even more liberal with issues of nudity, because we've all seen each other naked at least in the sauna ("sauna" is a Finnish word, actually).

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:20 (twenty-two years ago)

More liberal than other Europeans, I meant.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I think we understand your question, Tuomas, and it's a good one. What you're experiencing here is a basic loss for words. We don't know why, but we think nudity is always about sex (speaking of the population in general).

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe think is the wrong word. Implicitly feel.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Certainly attitudes toward nudity and where it's appropriate vary widely across Europe.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Helsinki sauna FAP. No shirt, no shoes, no problem.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

What's the deal with threads that start with "What's the deal with..."? I always hear them in Jerry Seinfeld's voice.

― NA (Nick A.), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

For a friend's hen night we were going to Paris and her sister suggested a trip to a hammam (it was women only). The utter horror from some of the girls really shocked me, the idea of being seen naked by other women totally freaked them out and we ended up not going. boo.

― Emma, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

but here's what i don't get, teeny --> representations of the (fictional) maimed and killed = "the buying mood"??

good point; I'd say that gore/scary stuff gets the adrenalin going, makes you more suceptible to advertising messages?

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Skottie, did I mention that saunas in here are often unisex, especially amongst friends? With Ameicans, I suppose that would lead to a gangbang...

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

maybe the more tension people have, the more that people want to relieve that tension, and as our options shrink for "pursuing pleasure and happiness" in America we default to the method that's thrown in our face each day: go buy stuff. nudity on TV wouldn't cause us to go buy stuff to relieve our tension, it would cause us to stay in and have a wank. that's time that could be spent at the mall!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

You can't show boobies on network TV, no matter what time of day or night.

Yes, you can! I have seen naked breasts on ER recently.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

susceptible! bah!

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

and much more eloquently put, tracer.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Tuomas, what's the deal with you not finding furtive glimpses of nakedness to be explosively erotic?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I've noticed, Tuomas, that in America--even in same sex situations, like the sauna or steam room at a gym or health club--a lot of guys, probably most guys, keep towels tightly wrapped around themselves in the sauna, even though there are only other men present. There are a lot of body hang ups in the States, it's true. At my gym in Berlin, you're not allowed to have a towel in the steam room, and it's coed.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Tuomas, what's the deal with you not finding furtive glimpses of nakedness to be explosively erotic?

It's all in the context. For example, seeing a friend naked isn't be erotic, even if I think she's attractive. A nude scene in an non-erotic film doesn't do the trick, whereas in an erotic film a similar scene might be very titillating.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Then there's the homophobic aspect of it. "Is that guy checking me out? That guy is checking me out."

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Adam makes a good point: saunas in the US tend to be "saunas" (nudge nudge wink wink grope grope) as if there were no other reason to be naked and sweaty. Curiously enough, going to saunas over here has made me less weird about equating nudity with sex, but I still have that innate horror of seeing one of my parents naked that my wife thinks is ridiculous.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

puritan settlement establishment in us = immediately in contact w.BIG danger of "going native" (ie not wearing clothes) = need to OVERDETERMINE value of clothedness beyond actual practical (previously normal) position

similar response in victorian england arises from sudden close contact with all kinds of routine nakedness among imperial conquered peoples?

AN ENGLISHMAN'S HOME IS HIS CASTLE = for some families it is perfectly unexceptionable to see one another w/nothing on, for others freaky beyond measure (non-communal privacy and seclusion is already pursued by victorians as a middleclass cultural norm in britain above and beyond in france, say - cf hyppolite tain's "note's on england", 1860s - but that's NON-naked seclusion and may be a response to earlier cheek-by-jowl urbanisation etc)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

A nude scene in an non-erotic film doesn't do the trick
Thou dost protest too much. Nude scenes in "non-erotic" films are generally meant to be erotic.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

What distinguishes when you see a friend naked and it's erotic and when you see a friend naked and it's not (assuming it's the same friend)?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

ICE CREAM!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

for some families it is perfectly unexceptionable to see one another w/nothing on, for others freaky beyond measure

I'm reminded of William Blake and his wife vs. that one Ripping Yarns Michael Palin did where the wife knits full body coverings for her husband.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

protocol in turkish baths in london seems to be have a towel or bathing trunks or nothing at all, whatever d00d

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

blake and wife came from radical antinomian backgrounds (muggletonians possibly)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Colin, every health club and gym built in the last 20 years has a sauna or a steamroom. Those aren't "saunas". But, I agree, if you're driving down the highway and see an ad for a sauna, it's totally a "sauna." The semiotics here is getting tortured.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Thou dost protest too much. Nude scenes in "non-erotic" films are generally meant to be erotic.

In America, yes.

What distinguishes when you see a friend naked and it's erotic and when you see a friend naked and it's not (assuming it's the same friend)?

I don't think seeing a friend is generally erotic, unless I happen to be attracted to that friend, which I rarely am.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, there's your problem! Your friends are all Finnish and hott! Go out and start appreciating them.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Sauna?
"Sauna"?
Sauna "Sauna"?
"Sauna" Sauna?
Finnish sauna?

I'm totally confused here. Skool me.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

What is the point of a sauna, btw? It's just to make you sweat, right? Is it really that good for you?

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Tuomas, nude scenes in french cinema are all about eroticism. Ditto Italian cinema.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe I've watched too many episodes of Law & Order SVU, I don't know. Tuomas is more enlightened than I am on the sex and nudity front. And I'm okay with that.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Girolamo. The difference between "sauna" and sauna is the presence of quotation marks. Well, that should just about do it.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

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Taboos manifest themselves differently in different societies. The prudishness of Americans has always far exceeded the general norms in Europe.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 27 September 2011 05:50 (fourteen years ago)

Never discount the impact of bullying, kids can be so mean and they condition each other to disrespect your parents. You know, yer mama is fat and ugly and all of that.

― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Don Nots (Mount Cleaners), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 06:05 (fourteen years ago)

what is the deal with airplane food

― yung huma (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 07:14 (2 hours ago) Bookmark

lol

A+ thread from top to bottom (see what I did dere)

― Young Swell (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 07:41 (fourteen years ago)

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