Decent Exposure

Poor Americans, do they know how much the rest of the world laughed at their reaction to the ‘wardrobe malfunction’? What a hoot. That kept us going for weeks. No doubt the US lawyers were laughing just as much. What is the problem? Don’t they have more important things to worry about? Most of the rest of the world considers a few square inches of skin as neither here nor there.

In summer, most of Europe spends their free time semi-clothed. The Scandinavian families are all brought up naked in the sauna together. The tropics obviate the need for clothing at all. Being without clothes is just another state of being for most of the planet, nothing worth commenting on. But in the USA it is a state of mind.

And what a state! To have statues in the US senate covered because one person didn’t like the look of the human body. To have students say ‘Oh, gross’ to the naked human body, but to accept guns, war and violence as perfectly acceptable. To have breast-feeding in public banned just in case it offends someone. These seem to signify a disease of society that is getting out of hand. How much of American Society was afraid of watching the Athens Olympics, in case the programming happened to show some of the great Greek art and statuary, displaying the naked body without hang-ups.

This puritanism is limiting the development and tolerance of Americans generally. Parents perpetuate the myth that the human body is indecent by indoctrinating their children to look the other way whenever they go to art galleries. Or even avoiding the galleries altogether. Parents say it is for the children’s protection, whereas the children are far saner than their parents. If it is not interesting, they will get bored and look away very quickly. And if it is deserving of ridicule, children are the first to laugh. Parents very admonitions send a message to children that there is something hidden in the topic that perhaps they hadn’t at first perceived. And that maybe a second look is worthwhile. This wanting a second look is exactly what the parents are trying to prevent. The best way to achieve that is to let the children have the first look without prejudicing it. Then the children accept it as normal or boring, and don’t let it bother them again.

Children spend far more of their time without clothing, and consider it normal. If children can ignore the issue, then parents really need to let the children develop standards they are comfortable living with rather than brainwashing them with an outmoded prejudice developed in pre-Victorian England.

Tags: clothing, Indecent exposure, naked, prejudices, puritanism, wardrobe malfunction