Switch to German TV and you will be bombarded with nudity everywhere. The favorite amongst all TV ads these days is a model advertising LCD televisions and computers for a local chain Saturn (the German equivalent to Best Buy) completely in the nude. You can see part of the young lady here. Late night German TV is dominated on most channels by various gals (and sometimes guys) begging you to call them and make a date. While this is done in the U.S. as well the Germans take it to an entire different level. Each ad is a soft porn all by itself. Wow, is all I can say.
My first experience with this nonchalance toward nudity came about my second day in Germany. Riding the streetcar a young man entered wearing nothing but a pair of thongs, an undershirt and shoes. "Stuff" was hanging out everywhere and my son almost had a heart attack. Then of course it was the full assault of German TV (I've since given up watching late night TV here). Today, as I was working away at my desk I happened to glance out of my window and saw... Egads!... a butt naked man in his sixties riding by on his bicycle! There was not a strip of clothing on the old man. I had no words!
I asked my co-worker if she had seen it too and she didn't; nor did she believe me. Until someone from down the hall in the IT office screamed: "Did you just see that old guy riding by? He was NAKED!!!!" So there you have it, story corroborated. It was the talk of the office all day.
Entire sections of the beaches at the local lakes are sectioned off for FKK folks (Freikoerperkultur - Free Body Culture, or if you want to be lose, or just plain old nudists). There are resorts that cater to these folks and entire planes can be booked to get there - in the nude. I have to say they take their nudity as seriously as their taxes! Nobody is bothered by it and I suppose my prudishness is viewed as typical verklemmt (inhibited) American. I never thought of myself as verklemmt but I have to admit that in the face of German reality maybe I am, just a little.
All that in your face is just making me a little uneasy and I don't really have a ready answer as to why that is. We are born nude. As kids we love to be nude. We have sex in the nude (most of the time). We shower nude. So where is this reaction coming from? Somewhere along the line someone bread it out of us, that's where! We are taught at Sunday bible study that the body is to be respected and all that and being nude just doesn't demand respect.
Since I no longer subscribe to church doctrine I think I will have to get used to respecting all that nudity around me. Not that you'd ever catch ME taking it all off in public!
Labels: germany, naked news, nudity
