comments = Thank you for a very well thought out and written article. I live in the midwestern united states, a very conservitive area. I remember when my oldest son was about six or seven, he started exploring with the neighbors daughter who was about the same age. The mother was pretty understanding when she told us about it happening. My wife and I tried getting him library books that would help his curiosity and he hopefully would not need to continue to explore. The reason I am responding is that it did not stop his exploring and I did not handle it so well after about the third time it happened. Now I really meant to do well, but what I see now, and you did not mention is how really the driving force in my reaction after the third time is how the other parents would view us as parents. I hate that. I can have the best intentions but once I start thinking that they must think we are "perverts" because of how our son is acting I loose all objectiveness. It is very strange how we are so proud when our children are naturally curious about things like where does rain come from, why is there a sun, what is that animal, then they ask about sex and we go "oh you are too young to understand about that." I cannot think of any other subject that he ever asked about, that I have ever felt the need to try to avoid answering. Maybe on a slightly different note, this son grew up pretty well adjusted and as a senior in high school,wrote a very intelligent paper about the idea that playing violent video games leads to violence, which he came to the conclusion that there is no conection. I am of the opinion that intelligent discussion of any subject is a great thing. It cannot harm us unless we are afraid our position is faulty. So again thank you for a well written piece.
B.A.
I'm Canadian myself. For a while, shared a room with a couple of Swedish girls and an American guy. The best comparison of European and North American attitudes toward sex and nudity I can think of comes from the typical morning routine.
When the American guy or I would get up, we'd take our gear and the new day's clothes to the bathroom, have a shower, and change there. Big awkward heap of stuff carried both ways.
When the Swedes got up, they'd strip off their nighties, grab a towel and bath kit, take a shower, come back, and put some clothes on. Much more sensible.
The best part, though, is that for the first month or so we lived together, if the American or I were still in bed, but woken up, we pretended to stay asleep, to save *their* modesty. The girls pissed themselves laughing the day they found out about that!
And that's the stupid thing. Our taboo begins at nudity. Worries about inappropriate sexual behaviour (i.e. rape, pedophelia, etc.) have ballooned to make not only normal sexuality taboo, but even non-sexual nudity as well.
One of the girls even put it this way: "You think because you see my tits first thing in the morning, I want to have sex with you? Crazy." Now both of us were pretty liberal and open-minded for North Americans and not thinking that as such, but it occurred to us that an important and influential part of the society that brought us up did think exactly that, and it was twisting our behaviour.
As an epilogue to this, we proceeded to just chill the fuck out, and get up whenever. In the beginning, it wasn't exactly easy. The girls did have seriously hot bodies, and it's hard to ignore that, and have rational conversations, but we persevered. Eventually, it just became run-of-the-mill we became better, more mature people.
Ironically, the less we thought about nudity as being linked to sex (we lived in a pretty wild place, and the occasional nudie night was not unheard of), the more we got laid. Eventually, in the American's case, with one of the Swedes!
Copyright Rod O'Steele © 2006, 2007