The Wowser mentality of Americans about Topless Women comes from the Ultra Religious Right who can only see Dollar signs ($) rather than Jesus or who ever they believe in.

Some observations on the new Parisian laws restricting topless women at the “beaches” along the River Seine…….

Thanks for the input!

Perhaps people can rationalize that violence is like the “real world” whereas the nudity is not? I’m more likely to hear about a tragic shooting on the radio daily than I am to hear about someone parading around topless. Maybe that has contributed to the excusing of violence.

With your example of middle eastern countries, I see your point but its not as if the two aren’t linked. Their moral obligations with covering themselves does overstep into other societal and cultural issues beyond simple morality.

My point in saying that it wasnt a moral issue is because I don’t think we as Americans can claim that we are any better. The the opinion that Europeans are less sound morally because of the nude beaches and people walking around topless just doesnt hold for me. To them it has little to no shock factor because of its prevelance. On the same tokens Europeans don’t see the amount of violence that Americans are subjected to on a regular basis and they probably think the same things about us in that regard while we have developed a blase attitude towards it.

My real problem with this is that I think violence is much more of a problem than nudity is if you want to talk personal morality. I’d much rather see nude figures on tv than people getting shot in the head and I think our priorities are backwards. At least its just the human body and not death and suffering.

Coming to the present– I agree with you that we live in a sexually charged culture. That practically the way that everything is presented to us now– in terms of sex.

However, I have to disagree with you on whether or not there is a moral component to it. I would argue that one very good reason is this over-sexualization. How society views a thing does have an impact on whether or not something is right or wrong.

Another good reason is that certain parts of our bodies were meant to have more covering and protection than others because of their function and privacy. If you look at Mid-Eastern cultures, despite their unbearable temperatures, you’ll find that these people cover up much more than we because they believe it’s a moral imperative– not because they have a sexualized culture.

I think that your statement about violence has much to say here. Both violence and nudity are things that a people have become desensitized to through constant view– though neither of these things are right, and both should be shocking.

Europe doesn’t have the same nakedness stigma as we have become obsessed with in America. Some people see this as a good thing and that the Europeans are all nutty and breeding a sexually charged culture. I honestly don’t see the big deal about it. Its not like the human body is vulgar in and of itself. I think when you go the other way so far as we are in America with banning nudity that it becomes this big issue that gets talked up and becomes far more of a big deal than it really is.

And it really has absolutely nothing to do with morals. For many reasons in this country we have taken the European attitude on nudity as we do with violence. Violence is on tv and in movies and videogames constantly. We are completely surrounded by it and have become heavily desensitized to it yet I don’t exactly see our murder rates at all time highs because of it.

Everyone wants what they can’t have, especially children. Our country’s obsession with seeing nude figures I think has been way overblown and just doesn’t hold up with the other levels of similarly “vulgar” things (though I don’t know how just a plain old naked body can be considered vulgar… it is the body that God gave us after all!) that we see all the time. I don’t think our huge stigma with nudity has helped staved the free love movement of the sixties or helped to steer us clear of our newest sexually charged culture of the new millenium.