Cachez ce sein que je ne saurais voir... by Thomas

For the ones of you not familiar with "la comédie française", this sentence is from a play by Molière, called "Tartuffe" and talking about religious hypocrisis. I was supposed to write about what is French joie de vivre but after reading some comments, I just decided to talk about a different subject... Sex, nudity, sex and/or nudity, however you want to call it.

I keep having that discussion over and over with Americans and it appears that other more puritan countries than France also have a big problem with nudity, and see it as a sexual symbol. And I feel like rolling my eyes, everytime they bring the argument: "and how about kids watching???". I would like to stop here, and start by saying that nudity and sex are two different things and associate both is a terrible mistake. Why some people are shocked when they see a nude chest on tv, if not because they think wrong about it.

You see, I was born and raised in France, and I was lucky enough to live very close to the Ocean, so from a very young age, I was spending most of my holidays on beaches. As everybody knows (this time I am sure people are more aware of this than Tartuffe), topless women is a common thing in France, and I am very sure that I have seen plenty of pair of boobs being a kid... But guess what, I remember having fun in the waves, I remember building sand castles, I don't recall seeing one single topless woman.(if it wasnt for pictures , I wouldnt even remember I was naked till age 6)..Why? because it wasn't a big deal, I didn't care. My parents or other people never made it something abnormal and so I just didn't give a damn about something that was considered normal. Do you get shocked when a woman is breastfeeding in public? I am not. It is still a boob.

We have to stop pretending that we want to protect our kids about things that are shocking us as adults, we think differently, THEY think differently... (My cousin was taking bath with my brother and she was pulling on his weewee for fun - it is something shocking between adults, it is nothing bad for kids, that didn't traumatize them). You are shocked when you see a naked chest because YOU put an erotic response to the image. So unless you don't put that concept in his head at a very young age, I doubt he will have a sexual response till his teenage, which he will have anyway, naked chest or no. I am not really aware of female poition on this, but if they can find half naked male bodies on a beach arousing, should guys also start wearing bras just to protect little girls.

Should we start putting bras of the Venus of Milo, put a leaf on David's penis... How about covering the Sabines showing their boobs. We would probably have to mutilate most of the Renaissance pieces of art. Should we ban all signs of nudity to protect the corrupted consciences? (The same consciences who consider, by the way, violence as something natural - ok this is a direct attack on American puritanism here).

Now, don't get me wrong... I do find shocking all these HipHop videos displaying naked girls. But not because they are naked, but cause of the message sent, which is nothing but sexual (and nasty in a way).

One last point here, I remember myself when I was 12, and I am listening to 12yo americans talking together, they talk MUCH more about sex than we were, eventhough we are more exposed to sex (American pie is unrated in France. Rated R in USA).