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Nudity and sexual imagery

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Leoba
Post subject: Nudity and sexual imagery
Posted: Wed 26 Jan , 2005 8:39 pm
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A sequel to 'Europeans only want to talk about sex'

... from a spontaneous discussion which erupted in the Books forum. About a Nemi cartoon strip of all things. :shock:

Eruname wrote:
Leoba wrote:
:Q

I didn't even notice it was anything out of the ordinary. :oops:
That's because there wasn't anything out of the ordinary for you. See, when Americans hear, read, or see things like penis, it sure does stand out because we're not accustomed to seeing it mentioned in everyday things. For instance, Iavas and I were watching Graham Norton one night (really pausing on it whilst flicking through the channels) and they were playing a game to see which man was not wearing anything under their kilt. If they got chosen, they had to stand over an air vent or something that shot air up from underneath him. Well the last guy wasn't wearing anything under his kilt and all was shown quite clearly. It shocked me only because that would never happen on American public TV. It would have been blurred out so I couldn't help but naturally expect that to happen.

So we just come from different perspectives, that's all. Not getting into what's right and wrong of course. Better to leave that in the symposium. ;)
Leoba wrote:
I know that Eruname. I was rather remarking on my own unshockability.

Not that I read the Sun or the Star - but it's not unusual for the guy reading the morning paper opposite you to fold the page and flash plenty of bare breast at the rest of the train carriage.

I recall when Rho was over here the other summer (and she will probably hiss at me for this ;) ) and we (that it: she, I, Bardy and Eari) settled down to watch Sean Bean in Lady Chatterly. And I recall both her and Bardy commenting on how you just wouldn't get that level of full frontal on prime time TV in the US.

I'm not sure if one is better or worse.... but I know I had enough hassles getting over my own fear of the naked body in my late teens, so lord only knows what I'd have been like if it was seen as more shameful and hush-hush than it is.

Maybe we should take it to the Symposium after all. :oops: :LMAO:
Eruname wrote:
I guess I was trying to say that there's no reason to be shocked for you...that there's nothing wrong with the fact that you didn't notice it. I bet the same thing happens with many European folks. In otherwords, you're normal! :mrgreen:
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but I know I had enough hassles getting over my own fear of the naked body in my late teens, so lord only knows what I'd have been like if it was seen as more shameful and hush-hush than it is.
Tell me about it. :roll: I'm so modest, it's annoying!
Guruthostirn wrote:
Sure, bring it over...that way I can really get going on a rant on how suppressed American culture is, in sexual terms...

The only reason I've found Not to pull off stuff like wearing a kilt and flashing everyone is because it's not only entirely expected, but not only do people not want to see it, it "offends their sensibilities"...


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Berhael
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Posted: Wed 26 Jan , 2005 9:49 pm
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Oh, good one. I saw the start of this in Books but missed the rest.

Absolutely, without pretending to state what's good and what's wrong, I'm always surprised at the differences in the way sex and nudity are handled on different sides of the Atlantic. To me, a naked body isn't sexually attractive per se, but that's probably not because of me being European, but because of my artistic training.

For 3 years we had nearly 9h a week of drawing from the life, which started out as plaster casts of statues but soon were replaced by models - male and female. I started University being still 17, and my friends, half-jokingly, wouldn't let me go in the room with the male model until December, when I turned 18. :mrgreen: That was the first naked man I'd seen (I don't have brothers or male cousins, and my dad moved out when I was 7), and oh my god, he was beautiful. :smile: I was still a bit embarrassed by naked bodies, but soon learnt to see them only as shapes, lines and volumes. I'm still fascinated by the body as an artistic subject and love drawing people (clothed ;)) in the bus, when I'm sitting at a cafe, etc.

I don't think that sex is dirty or disgusting, but it took me time and practice to get used to it. The first time I slept with my boyfriend, I was 19 and it took us months to get to that stage. I remember having to get used to each other - just seeing each other naked! - just because I was so self-conscious. Nowadays I take it as something natural, but it did embarrass me at the beginning. So I can understand how people that aren't exposed to sex and nudity can find it embarrassing; I just don't, anymore. :)

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Axordil
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Posted: Wed 26 Jan , 2005 9:57 pm
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In the MMORPG World of Warcraft, there are female characters that make money by dancing in their underwear in some of the taverns, and folks who get their noses bent out of joint over it. They don't seem to have a problem with the fact that some of the foods you eat to regain strength in the game contain body parts from sentient beings, but the sight of a thong gets them into a real tizzy. Something about demeaning women, although both my wife and my best friend's wife think it's actually kind of cool, and they would do it for fun, if not in-game funds.

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Breogán
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Posted: Wed 26 Jan , 2005 11:18 pm
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I've was brought up to see the nudity and sex as the most natural thing in the world. True that Spain, despite being a so-called Catholic country, has always shown quite a laid back attitude towards these matters, something I see only as positive. Seeing my parents getting dressed or walking into the bathroom while any of them was taking a bath or a shower was just natural.
I began sunbathing topless years ago, together with my cousins and friends, because it was, and still is, permitted at most beaches in Spain. It's so normal nobody even comments on it anymore, but when I first moved to Ireland, first time I went surfing in Kerry (it was scorching :cool: ), just the mere joke about this made my ex-boyfriend and the rest of our friends stare at me with eyes open-wide, as if I had lost my marbles. Funny, especially in a country where one-night stands are the "the only way to fly"... :roll:
So I firmly believe people's attitude towards sex and nudity has a lot to do with their education... and with hipocresy.

P.S- And here is my sigpic to illustrate this thread's topic... we Europeans only think of and want to talk about sex ;)

I wonder if male nipples contravene TORC's TOS? :twisted:

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Impenitent
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 12:44 am
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Interesting.

I grew up in a household of women - my father died when I was 7 and then it was just my mother, my sister and I, and as my mother never permanently re-partnered (there were two men in her life after my father died, but they were never really brought into our lives) there were no men about the house - and certainly not any undressed men about the house.

My mother, bless her, was and is a bundle of contradictions in terms of her attitudes to sexuality and nudity. She could, on the one hand, tell me that sex was a natural and important part of life (married life, of course. Despite any pretentions to liberalism mum never really kicked her Greek Orthodox paradigm) anything outside the married state was considered not so much sinful but dirty, shameful and sluttish.

I suspect that the contradictions at home vs my own insatiable curiosity and a very sexual nature worked together. I had a most dreadful itch to scratch throughout my teens but I was so fearful of consequences that whenever I indulged (which was frequent) I felt wracked with guilt and self-recrimination for days afterwards. I confused alot of boyfriends I think but then, I was so confused myself, it seems only fair. :P

This pervasive undercurrent lasted into the early years of my marriage. There was a sudden moment of clarity one day during the period when we were trying to conceive for the first time - I realised that I was making love with my husband, hoping to create a child together, to make a family - and yet I still felt this little undercurrent that I was doing something 'naughty'. It struck me with such force, that this most natural and healthy aspect of life should have an unhealthy resonance in me!

We discussed (later ;) ) and worked together to nut it out - and I'm so glad that I've left that behind, for I now have two kids growing up and I certainly want them to have an unconflicted and healthy attitude to their own bodies and sexuality - for otherwise, how can one have a healthy attitude towards others?

Our household now is very relaxed; we wander around the house, go to the bathroom, wander to the laundry hamper and get on with things irrespective of our state of undress; if one of our kids comes to us in the middle of the night (they still do, the precious ones), we don't hurriedly put on night clothes. They can cuddle skin to skin, just as they did when they were babies.

Oz generally is more liberal rather than conservative when it comes to social mores but it is stratified. Topless (or nude, but less frequently) bathing at the beach is not unusual, though there are some beaches where tut tutting would be heard. The urban populations tend to be less hung up about the body than the rural populations (especially in those towns with a large male population - mining and engineering towns). And we are so multi-cultural that there are many cultural sensibilities to be taken into account. Still, nudity is not considered salacious in and of itself.

From what I understand, in the US the body - particularly the female body - is seen always in a sexual way. The marketing media has colluded in this, IMO, to such a degree that it is almost NOT possible to see and/or judge a female body in a non-sexual way. Does this come from the Puritan foundations, where things of a sexual nature were so repressed that they broke through via less healthy modes of expression?


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Ethel
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 2:55 am
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I lost my virginity at the age of 9 to my older brother. I hope it's not necessary to say that this was non-consentual. (Was my brother a monster? No, he wasn't. Ours was an abusive household, and abuse rolls downhill. Boundaries were not respected, persons were not respected, and my brother suffered a great deal at the hands of our father.) Probably I have never been quite right in the head when it comes to sexual matters. I totally get that it's natural and beautiful and all that. Much later - it took some therapy - I was able to have mutually satisfactory sexual relationships.

But for many years, it was something I couldn't even think about, let alone talk about. I post this because I think it's important to realize that 'uptightness' about sexual matters isn't necessarily a conspiracy of the religious right or of American yahoos. Sexuality is natural and human... and it's also a very complicated realm of human experience which sometimes isn't very nice.

It's not a simple dichotomy: sexuality good, repression bad. Sexuality is one of the most potent of human instincts, and it leaves evil as well as good in its wake.

I'm probably 'unshockable' too. I'm only too ready to believe the worst.

And I'm being a bummer, aren't I? I'm not trying to be. Only to say that it's not necessarily a simple and straightforward matter. If only it were.

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Impenitent
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 3:44 am
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Well, I was shocked and saddened by your post - and not because you posted it (which was very brave), but because you had to suffer such a thing. I am so sorry that happened to you. It is amazing to me that people can recover from such experiences to live balanced lives - from where I'm standing, you seem a remarkably well-adjusted, sensible and successful woman.

My story was not to illustrate that suppression of natural impulses (sexual being only one of them) necessarily leads to evil - or that it is the only path that leads to evil (for it is evil that you had to suffer that experience and I say that without judging your brother as the man he is today, for I don't know him).

But openness and willingness to discuss natural impulses - whether to anger, to violence, to depression, as well as the sexual, the loving, the nurturing - this, I think, is probably healthier than labelling something as a wicked impulse and attempting to shut down its expression

There are other ingredients necessary to the mix beyond openness and a willingness to acknowledge our less palatable impulses (and sexual urges are considered unpalatable by some - necessary for recreation but otherwise self-gratifying and not in a good way) - amongst them respect and a capacity to differentiate one's needs and desires from those of others.

If you can't talk about or express or act upon a natural impulse in ways that are healthy, oftentimes it will find a means of expression that is not quite so healthy - it breaks out.


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Ethel
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 4:17 am
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Impenitent... I know that was an unpleasantly dramatic thing to announce. I apologize if it made you uncomfortable. I speak of it, though, because I'm sick to death of secrecy, and because I could not be less interested in being a 'victim'.

I agree that 'suppression of natural instincts' can be a dangerous thing. I suspect that what happened to me was more about anger and violence, ultimately, than sexuality per se.

I just - it's hard to express this - I believe that of all our primal instincts, sexuality is the one most prone to abuse. I have read that there are more human slaves alive in the world now than ever before in history. Most of them are young girls held in sexual slavery, in brothels in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa.

I love to look at human bodies. I think sexuality is a good thing. I do.

Was just trying to point at that anything so powerful isn't simple.

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Impenitent
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 4:51 am
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Agreed! without reservation.

In this kind of drive-by posting that I've been doing today I'm no good at incorporating any level of complexity - and my tendency to the purple when running at the mouth doesn't help. :P

(I was uncomfortable; but I still applaud your willingness to post it. And you are demonstrably NOT in a state of victimhood!)


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Nin
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 9:17 am
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I read all the posts with great interest, but especially after Ethel’s felt strongly compiled. Maybe I don’t have much to say on the subject. I had exceedingly little sexual partners in my life, as I met my husband when I was only 19, and was, when I still lived in the house of my parents very shy. Too shy to take a boyfriend home – if ever I would have had one….

In my parents house sexuality was a non-subject. Nudity – like walking naked out of a bathroom, was no problem, but sex not. My parent’s marriage was a disaster and this long years before their divorce. My father always liked a lot erotic art and my mother treated it as it was disgusting. My parents “had to get married” when my mother was pregnant and nineteen, and this connection between sex and undesired pregnancy always remained crucial. I have also heard very young and very often, that I was born “because my mother was too stupid to count” – maybe not the best possible context to get a positive attitude towards sexuality.

When I finally lived alone in Switzerland, my first relationship with a guy turned quickly pretty very bad. I don’t want to enter the details, but after six week of common life I was moved out by ambulance with two broken rips – and certainly a few more broken dreams. However and I wand to underline this, I do not consider myself as a victim. The circumstances were particular and led this man to needing someone. It was obvious from the first week on, that things would turn badly and nevertheless I decided to stay. It was a conscious choice. But you do not get out of an experience like this undamaged.

When I met my later husband, everything went very quickly and in the first months the physical passion was so great, that we did not even manage to go to the cinema. He is however a lot more reserved than I am especially concerning nudity . Or just showing skin – topless would be impossible with him, and just as much as changing on a beach – even behind a towel, he does not like me to do it. He – yes, the kids obviously, but not me. The same goes sometimes for the way I dress. On Christmas eve he wanted me to get changed, because he found that dress too sexy (there is a pic in the orphans… it’s nothing special) – and only his parents were coming. Sometimes I find it heavy. I don’t think like that, and often forget about it, start to undress with open curtains (we have nobody who can look in our house) and it ends in an argument.

It is not easy… and sometimes I wish things were different, because it would help me to have a more positive attitude towards my own body – which I have not always. But can the look of someone else change this? I doubt it anyway.

Maybe I’ll regret to have posted this… it’s very personnal, after all.

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Impenitent
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 10:13 am
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:hug: Do not regret it, my dear! You know here you will be treated with the respect you deserve.


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Leoba
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 10:34 am
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Ethel, thank you for sharing that - I think. It's terrible that anyone would treat someone else like that. It's also very valid that background and experience has perhaps more bearing on how we turn out, than the detached images the media throws at us.

Like Berhael, I am surprised at the differences in cultural attitudes to the human body. The example that leaps immediately to mind is the Janet Jackson nipple baring thingamy, which I thought was poor taste and funny in a sniggery school kid way, but certainly IMO didn’t merit the outrage and scorn that seemed to pour forth. I don’t bat an eyelid at a friend stripping off in communal showers or doing so myself; I walk around the flat naked; I can handle going for smear tests etc.

Yet as a teenager and young adult I was ashamed of my own body. Just wearing a swimsuit, even now, is hard enough going and I think it’ll take me a good few more years before I can muster the courage to go topless on the beach.

And yet I was brought up in a household where as kids sharing a bath with my parents was normal enough. My dad would wander around naked (still does) or my mum would change in front of us. They didn’t get ridiculously prudish. Although on the other hand, they never talked about sex. Sex Ed consisted of the Usbourne ‘Growing Up Guide’ being left on my bed and it was not something I could talk about with either parent. When I was nearly 15 my mother was even too embarrassed to watch 'Lady Chatterley' with me on TV - she changed her mind after a preview in the paper mentioned full frontal male nudity. Nakedness in a sexual context was somehow wrong.

When it came to actually having to get intimate with or undress in front of a boyfriend though, I was terrified. One of those – only in the dark kind of people. It’s taken years to handle being touched in anything more than a cursory way or to strip off without having to hide parts of my anatomy. I still couldn’t go out in a short skirt or crop top. It’s a far cry from the pre-teen me who used to laugh at all the other girls getting embarrassed in the swimming changing rooms.

I do resent the sexualised pictures of women – the sort who are all bust and no hips (i.e. complete opposite to me). In some ways I find them threatening. So many guys I know make a big deal of lusting after big tits or a pert bum, you can’t help but feel inadequate.

I think it’s myself in a sexual sense I have, or have had, the issues with, rather than other people being naked. And I resent feeling like that!



I'm not sure this in any way addresses the way the conversation started out, or is at all relevant, or is maybe just a rant.


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Rodia
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 12:34 pm
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And just yesterday I watched a comedy on tv that deals with sex and was wondering what someone from outside of Poland would think of it. The last frame, over which the credits roll, is a still close up on a newborn baby's penis...

You know what I find most puzzling? That I can't clearly remember exactly at what age I found out about sex. It seems like a shocking thing to learn what goes in where but I can't remember a shock.

I do remember finding it strange,when I moved to Ireland in 1991, that puberty was important. I suddenly had access to magazines for girls, books on growing up that had pictures instead of lectures, a whole little world for little girls who couldn't wait to get their periods.

I didn't know what the fuss was about, but I went along with it, sniggering at nude diagrams, and completely ignoring parts of the info books that I didn't understand. Such as masturbation. The book talked about something being completely natural and okay and not to be embarrassed and I was sure it didn't concern me because I'd never felt embarrassed.:P

Selective, me. :P


(now it feels strange talking about sex to people online. :neutral: This is stuff I might do in my pyjamas drinking a bottle of wine with Estel...online feels weird. :P)

This is not a very coherent post. I'm just spilling out thoughts I have on the subject...

I don't think sex was ever a taboo in my house...not that we talked about it (or if we did, I can't remember) but at least having a pregnant mother means you get to learn some facts. I do remember watching that famous film that showed babies in the womb when I was very small...the doctor who delivered me brought it over on video. :P My parents said 'this is a very good and beautiful and important film'. I was bored. I liked Willy Breinholst's books better.

My next door neighbour and I discussed politics (-Walesa is stupid!-No he's not, you are!) at six through the wire fence that separated our gardens. He would undo his fly and pee on his mum's radish patch without pausing the conversation. I would show him my knew knickers. Because they were pretty knickers.

That was pretty much the only penis I saw until I was 17 (if you don't count flashers...ew.). My mum never hid from us, but dad is just like me- he doesn't like to openly admit that his clothes are removeable. ;)

So I guess I was allowed to discover for myself. But up until very very recently when I met Estel, I never would have imagined even talking about what kind of bra I was wearing. (the Amsterdamn Moot crowd will know how much I've 'evolved'. :P).And it wasn't because I thought it was bad or dirty, other people could talk and it didn't bother me- I just wouldn't talk about myself at all. I was like a cartoon series hero- never changes clothes, never goes to the bathroom. And when she does, she lets the water run.

(sorry about not having a point. They call me a spammer for a reason.:P)

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Griffon64
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 1:27 pm
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Ro - I'm also trying to remember when I found out about the mechanics of sex now I've read your post ... and I can't either! I do remember going "Oh, OK. Weird," when I realized. I also know I read it in a book ( such a geek Griff is ) long before my peers become interested in the topic, and I lowered the book on my lap, looked up reflectively, and went: "Oh, OK. Weird. So THAT is how they do it."
Ro wrote:
This is stuff I might do in my pyjamas drinking a bottle of wine with Estel...online feels weird.
Hmmmm - I would need the bottle of wine to talk about it in person ... I'm a lot braver online than in person :mrgreen:

And I never discuss my underwear ;)

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Lidless
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 1:37 pm
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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It amazes me that *the* most fundamental of natural instincts is shrouded in such secrecy and taboo both for children and mainstream media.

It amazes me that *the* most natural state of the human condition is treated the same.

I'm sorry to hear about what happened to you Ethel, and very proud you felt the ability and confidence to share that with me and everyone else here. But I do still see it as black and white.

For every human compulsion, every instinct, there is a spectrum of excesses and withdrawals from 'the norm' (if there is such a thing). Many do not harm others, such as overeating. But I see what happened to you as the same as someone who injures someone else because they are an adrenelin junkie and has been driving fast. It doesn't make adrenelin bad per se,

The key to life in a society is to hold back from an instinct, a craving, from hurting someone else.

What your brother did to you had nothing to do with sex. It was about the need for dominance - something he craved because his father dominated him. You see it in gorillas. The prime beats up on an underling, the underling tends to go to the weakest and most lowly member of the whoop and beat seven shades of shit out of them to reestablish himself in the order.

Regarding openness of sex and nudity, as I've posted many times on TORC, the Dutch have it right. Full openness to the point that kids walk past sex shops that have opened sex mags in their windows showing *everything*, and yet the average age a woman gets pregnant there for the first time in their life is 29 - the oldest in the world.

No taboo, no 'forbidden fruit', just common sense to something as natural as sleeping, eating, drinking, walking...

And why are women used so much in America as sexual objects in America, particularly in advertising? Because of the scarcity of nakedness in the US mainstream. It becomes a hunger deep down that such images feed on.

Religion has many plus points. But on this one it screwed up royally.

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Rodia
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 2:24 pm
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Sexuality is a much more special thing than walking and drinking though. ;)

Personally...I always thought teenagers were dirtyminded. Now that I'm almost twenty two and hang around people who are mostly my age or older, I realise it gets worse as you get older.

:P

And...I realise it's natural. It used to surprise me how casually people talked about sex in sitcoms- I'd think, no way that's how it is in real life, crass exaggeration.

Then I met people like Steve. :P

I'm still not quite sure where the TMI zone begins and ends, but I literally feel as if I've moved universes.

(Griff, I can't even remember thinking 'That's weird'. :Q )

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Guruthostirn
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 5:36 pm
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Well, let's see...

First off, I'll make a comment about America and nakedness. I can't recall who mentioned it, but Definitely the naked human body is viewed Entirely in a sexual light. And trust me, it's Not healthy (more on that later). To be perfectly honest, I know that because that's the way it is for me...except naked male bodies :P But I'd have to be careful walking around naked around other naked women...might get a reaction which might be embarrassing.

*sigh* Guess no one here will play strip poker with me...fortunately, I think I've gotten to the point where it's the unusualness which makes it so interesting...if I was seeing naked women all the time, I'm sure it would be no big deal.

As for myself...Since my parents were seperated when I was 4, and both of them were good at hiding anything they were doing from us kids, no chance for me to walk in on my parents and learn about sex that way...my mom was extremely prudish, so all I ever saw was my dad naked. And then, add to that, I've got my adorable older sister...talk about a great way to have a sexually repressed upbringing...'course my upbringing was repressed in many more ways...

Because I never saw a woman unclothed until I was 20, there's the aspect of secrecy there. Secret made it "forbidden", and thus had a certain allure. That's not a healthy environment...results in trying to get every look at even partially unclothed women...and that being enough for sexual stimulation.

Hmm, this was quite disjointed...not sure whether I really got my point across...except to say the U.S. is Really screwed up...both genders are repressed sexually, and that extends to nudity because of the association. I think the women suffer the most because they are being told their body is pretty much just what men want for sex, and they can't do anything without clothes on because whatever they do will be viewed in a sexual light.

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That crazy American Jerk...

"No stop signs, speed limits, no body's gonna slow me down..."

"You can run, but you'll die tired." -- What the archer said to the knight.


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Dindraug
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 8:07 pm
Tricksy Elf!
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Location: Tanelorn
 
One thing that always confuses me is that in many parts of the world *cough USA* there is a link between nudity and sexuality. There is a feeling I get from seeing people post here that sex and nakedness are linked and you can't have one without the other.

I really don't get that. I guess it was growing up with two elder sisters, one of whom was a complete show off, but I can't remember a time when I had not seen adults naked.

Not sure when it became a sexual issue, or if it is even now. Sex is not about being naked with somebody, and sex can also happen outside, fully clothed, in lifts or in car parks atop Waterloo station. :Q

Sex is not a dirty word, it is something natural and should be treated as a natural act.

Lets face it, good sex with the right person is one of the most magical experiences you can have
:mrgreen:

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'When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from delusion, it is called Religion'.

~Robert M. Pirsig


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Axordil
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 8:30 pm
Not so deep as a well
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Followed closely by good sex with the wrong person, OK sex with an OK person, and mediocre sex with yourself. :mrgreen:

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Destiny is a rhythm track on which we must improvise.

In some cases, firing the drummer helps.


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Guruthostirn
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Posted: Thu 27 Jan , 2005 8:33 pm
That Weird American
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Location: Pacific Northwest U.S.
 
Maybe that we have this thing that you shouldn't be naked except when cleaning yourself, and when you're about to do it, and the only way you're supposed to do it is man on top, women with her legs together, otherwise known as the Missionary position. The name says it all.

And I'm not kidding...every other way of having sex is considered sodomy here, and it was just the other year that laws against sodomy were declared unconstitutional...

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That crazy American Jerk...

"No stop signs, speed limits, no body's gonna slow me down..."

"You can run, but you'll die tired." -- What the archer said to the knight.


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