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In case you didn’t know, France and other parts of Europe are pretty open with what you do and do not have to wear on their beaches. It is common to have people parading topless– and we’re not talking just the men.
So, it came as quite a shock that the Paris city hall issued a decree banning the baring of buttocks and breasts on the capital’s artificial beaches along the river Seine. This would make these beaches the only ones in the country with such a ban. The fine– if you get caught– is 38 euro (or $48).
Why the sudden desire for morality just in the city? This is the city that doesn’t bat an eye at nude billboards, and is the captial of a country known for lust (although they call it love).
How will they enforce it? Are they going to have male officers walking up to female topless beach-goers handing out citations? You can imagine the things these men will be called and the lawsuits that will be filed because a male officer ticketed a topless woman.
It is said of one college that charges fines for different wrong behaviors, that a dean was saying that it would be a $25 fine for the first time a man was caught in the woman’s dorm, $50 for the second, and $100 for a third. A man in the back raised his hand and asked, “How much for a year-long pass?”
The same thing here– are people really going to stop this activity just because they might be fined $50 if they are caught? This law seems to be all show and no teeth (or baby teeth at that).
And you know how I feel about what people are wearing on beaches!
I’d love to see the reasoning behind this. I’ll have to look up more on this and find out.
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.
Adam and Eve had a natural reaction to nudity after the fall– they covered themselves. That was before any kind of sexually charged culture was defined.
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.
I wasnt really referring to the fact that people can have moral hangups about seeing it as its very obvious that people do.
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.
I will admit that we seem to have the vices that we think are wrong and ones that are tolerable. We aren’t very consistant and to a degree we are hypocritical. On that point I think we can agree.
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.
Let’s all become Amish!
😉
I’m intrigued by you guys and your comments…
If we ran into topless people, or constantly saw them on tv, then to what extent past that would Americans have to go to get the shock buzz?
Here’s a scary one…my friend told me about a movie (I think she said it was called “Hostile” but I googled it and couldn’t find any reviews) in which this teen in Europe was steered into a party to be abducted so that Europeans could pay big money (like $30,000) to torture him alive. Cutting body parts off etc. Yes, extremely gory. But is that what our video game/violent culture is leading us to? People can’t get their violence fix from watching Fear Factor so they find a human victim to carry out their macabre fantasies on?
Maybe this really goes on in other countries? Just imagine how thrilled some extremists would be to get their hands on an American.
I think you make a valid point, Mary. Sin has a way of having to always find something bigger and better to do next. Just like it takes more and more violence to appease those desensitized to violence, the clothing issue would tend to lead (and I bet if we did the research it would bear out) that it would lead to more and more debauchery.
Thanks for the input!
The reaction from Australia would be that this is a revenue raising idea by the local council in Paris to fill up the coffers with more money considering how Europeans are about this issue.
The Wowser mentality of Americans about Topless Women comes from the Ultra Religious Right who can only see Dollar signs ($) rather than Jesus or who ever they believe in.