Certain culture's views on naturism and sexuality

[Doug H]

American culture's obsession/revulsion complex has seemingly led to many a misunderstanding in other forums. I've seen more posted than I wanted to see, too, but....

Other culture's, Germany, France, and the Netherlands come quickly to mind, have much more relaxed and open attitudes toward sexuality. Their view is that it's part of being human, so they don't hide from it. That doesn't mean that they condone harmful or offensive behavior, however. They don't hide their children from it either, and that has lead to more responsible sexual behavior, in general, amongst the younger folks in these societies. For example, lower teen pregnancy, just to name one. Yes, they have have some sleazy parts of town in most cities, but those areas are well known and, therefore, avoidable for those not interested. Those cultures view such questionable activities as activities that, amongst adults, can be regulated and space made for.

Those same cultures have also adopted the same view toward making areas available for other, more acceptable, activities for those that choose to be nude. I believe that it is significant that in these cultures, naturism is flourishing. Could it be that these cultures have chosen to let morals be an individual's issue and, when presented with a harmless activity that many express a wish to engage in, that they find a place for it?

Doug H.

[Doug H]

American culture's obsession/revulsion complex has seemingly led to many a misunderstanding in other forums. I've seen more posted than I wanted to see, too, but....

Other culture's, Germany, France, and the Netherlands come quickly to mind, have much more relaxed and open attitudes toward sexuality. Their view is that it's part of being human, so they don't hide from it. That doesn't mean that they condone harmful or offensive behavior, however. They don't hide their children from it either, and that has lead to more responsible sexual behavior, in general, amongst the younger folks in these societies. For example, lower teen pregnancy, just to name one. Yes, they have have some sleazy parts of town in most cities, but those areas are well known and, therefore, avoidable for those not interested. Those cultures view such questionable activities as activities that, amongst adults, can be regulated and space made for.

Those same cultures have also adopted the same view toward making areas available for other, more acceptable, activities for those that choose to be nude. I believe that it is significant that in these cultures, naturism is flourishing. Could it be that these cultures have chosen to let morals be an individual's issue and, when presented with a harmless activity that many express a wish to engage in, that they find a place for it?

Doug H.

[Prometheus]

I agree that we US-ians could stand to learn a lot from European culture (and probably Australian culture too, though they generally get less press here). It seems we are still clinging to some of the Puritanism of the 18th century and the Victorianism of the 19th. Not to mention the handful of very vocal groups, usually religious conservatives, that eagerly go out of their way to find things to be offended about. So we continue with policies that, at best, cause a nuisance to many of us on this board, and at worst, promote the very behavior or outcome they are trying to avoid.

[turkishnudes]

If I am still allowed to write on this board I would like to add the following:

Being an English man in Turkey ( a non-muslim in a muslim country) I find here that nudity is virtually frowned upon full-stop.

The pressures of society (there are no religious "rules" that quote this) from the past clothe the women from head to foot in material, and the hair on the head should not be looked upon by another man other than the legal husband.

There is of course a "modern" society here too with a very European look - and there are those who are "famous" for being naked!

A very strange mix - and when it comes to sexuality I would be a millionaire if I got a pound ( sterling) for all the boys and young men I counted who have bisexual/homosexual tendencies. Infact sleeping with gay men is a way of survival for thousands of males.

[nacktman]

Something to clarify your ideas about "American" and "European"(including Austrailia and New Zeland) cultures is that they are one in the same...namely Western European Culture.

The vast differences evidenced in the attitudes toward nudity is a direct result of the "perverts' of Europe being expelled from all of the mainland to England then off that isle to where else but what is today the good ol USA. These were several different groups but all had the commonality of intolerance of any not of their creed. the most well known group of these "perverts" were the Puritans also known to us as the Pilgrims.
We today suffer from the heritage they left, though it is changing with the world "Getting Smaller" as it were.
As my work in the field of Archeaology sent me about the golbe i found the intolerance of nudity the most pervasive in the USA and the Middle East, most other areas of the world just did not care about whether a person was nude or not and in places clothing is actually laughed at by the local population.

[Raised_by_She-Wolf]

[b]
Aussieland tolerant of nudity? How is that? I thought they'd be just like USA and UK in their attitudes.

I think it's extremely ironic that Puritans called themselves that, given that they had the most impure motives of any "Christian" sect I've heard of; mainly, their motives were to make themselves look good. (This hits rather close to home for me, since my dad is a self-proclaimed Puritan who's under the impression that he and only he has the truth)

[luvnaturism]

Lots of places for me to join in this thread, so here are a series of comments:

Doug H's original statement is correct, and he could easily have added the Scandinavian countries and Finland as well (think "saunas"). All of these countries have much more open attitudes about the body and sexuality (in Denmark almost every beach in the country is clothing optional). They also have dramatically lower rates of teen pregnancy.

Prometheus , right on about Australians being more open about nudity. It's a wonderful country with a great sense of openness and live-and-let-live. There must have been some advantages to being founded by criminals. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]


Turkishnudes when I was in Istanbul I was surprised at how the extreme modesty carries over into what are basically same-sex locker room situations. At the Turkish Bath I visited there were signs admonishing clients to please keep covered with your towel. Since the signs were in English, I assumed they were for the benefit of visitors from other countries like myself.

I talked with a young man from Germany who was totally bewildered by the need to keep covered in an all male situation.


Nacktman , with respect to your training as an archeologist I disagree that one can now lump Europeans, North Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders into a single culture. Obviously they had common roots in Western Europe, but they've had several hundred years to develop distinct differences.

My sense of the Australians is that they have a culture that has ties to England, but yet is distinct in many ways. Partly they've been shaped by having a small population in a vast and dangerous land.

Something happened in the US during colonial days that developed body modesty to a degree that is hard to imagine today (we've loosened up a lot since then), and it wasn't all due to the Puritans. This extreme fear of the body, at least the body of the opposite sex, was found in other colonies as well.

I also think that "perverts" is the wrong word to apply to the Puritans and others, and they weren't expelled because they were intolerant. They lived in a society that didn't tolerate any difference in religion, and so were persecuted horribly in their own countries.

It's true of course that the Pilgrims didn't come to this country for religious freedom. They came looking for a place where they could make the rules. Once they found it they were as intolerant of differences as the people they fled in Europe.


Raised.... , I wouldn't agree that the Puritans' motive was merely to make themselves look good. Like so many others in religious history, they started out with good intent and carried it to an awful extreme.

The Church of England was incredibly perverse and worldly. The Puritan movement arose as an attempt to "purify" it, and bring it back to a simpler practice that would be more in keeping with the teachings of Jesus.

It was a time when every religious body believed that it alone possessed the truth, and all others were heretics. If you alone possess the truth, then certainly you were entitled to regulate society to express that truth wherever you had the power to do so. Once the Pilgrims had their own Colony in the New World, they ruled it with an iron fist. However, that was no more than they had themselves received in Europe.

The first people in America to truly believe in religous freedom as we understand it today were the Baptists, and the first place in the world of the time where anyone was free to worship as they pleased?or not worship at all?was Rhode Island Colony and Providence Plantations. But that's another whole topic.

[Jochanaan]

A brief note about early American settlers: Not all of them were as intolerant as the Puritans. Rhode Island's early colonial governor, Roger Williams, deliberately made his land a sanctuary for those who were persecuted elsewhere. My own church, the Seventh Day Baptists, took root there in those days and was allowed to flourish despite their distinct beliefs regarding baptism, the Sabbath day, and other matters.

[nacktman]

luvnaturism you are correct that my lumping of the different areas is alittle old school, but they are not as different as you might assume it took far longer to changes more that the visible surface of a cluture than the 500 yrs or so they have been seperate, throughout history (it is changing much more rapidly today, but they are the same as they were 500 yrs ago at there core beliefs and mores.)
The use of the term "Pervets" is also an old school term refering to the very actions you pointed out and yes they were driven out for their intolerances of others. Granted the dominant culture groups were not as open as they could be, most however did allow some freedom of thought--that's one of the reasons the era is called the "Renaissance". These small groups of intolerant creeds just were not willing to acsect any different ideas and learning/ Many still clung to the belief the world was flat and the center of the universe even though any sailor from time immemoral could have proven otherwise and the ideas of modern astronomy where being published by Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and others around the same time these groups began to form.
And to the Fear of the Body symdrome: it was in all the colonies true but if you check into the records you see it started among these groups and really did not become the pervasive dogma that it is today until the late 19th and early 20th century. when the living got easier and these groups started howling to the mass communication of the day, prior to this time people simply had no real problem with nudity, it wasn't the thing to do but then again it was nothing the be concerned about...just surviving the day was in the fore of any person with wits. With this upping of the oratory these groups hijacked our culture and it took each World War and Vietnam to bring some open ness however shortlived to oue society. The modern forms of these groups are what we term as fundalmentalists of any religion. And they are just as intolerant today as the Puritans of old, even some call themselves purtians, but they are still the perverse groups they have always been hence the term Pervert is applied to them.

[luvnaturism]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jochanaan:
[qb]Rhode Island's early colonial governor, Roger Williams, deliberately made his land a sanctuary for those who were persecuted elsewhere. My own church, the Seventh Day Baptists, took root there in those days. . . . [/qb]

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Roger Williams was one of the Baptists that I had in mind. He was driven out of Massachusetts Bay Colony in mid-winter because of his outrageous beliefs (such as that the land belonged to the Indians, and if the settlers wanted it they should pay for it). He was only briefly a Baptist?it was sort of a phase that he passed through?but it was during that time that he and others founded an island of religious freedom in a sea of persecution.

It's not an accident that one of the two oldest Jewish congregations in the US is at Newport, RI. It was one of the few rare places where they could practice their religion without interferance.