NUDITY!! OH MY!

The Spanish and the American’s have completely different attitudes towards nudity. This is clearly evident in our media and in our cultural norms. In America the nude body is taboo and dirty even. Nudity is much more accepted here and much more evident in the media. On your daily commute to the bus stop you could pass numerous pictures of nude bodies. This is completely normal in Spain! There is a nude model posing in an advertisement in the window of the pharmacy across the street from my house. While stopping to buy a magazine at the kiosk on the corner I see many magazine covers with nude women and when flipping through some of the fashion magazines I see even more high fashion nude models. I have visited two
Spanish beaches while in Spain and this further exemplified the Spaniards non nonchalant view towards nudity. In both San Sebastian and Ibiza their were of course nude women everywhere. At first I was caught off guard, having never in my life been to a nude beach, but after a while the shock wore off. There were teenagers, moms playing with their children, grandmothers all topless, and what shocked me the most was how commonplace is was to the men and teenage boys. In America if there were topless girls everywhere I would expect men to be gawking, teenage boys would be laughing with their friends, and some guys would be so uncomfortable they would avoid looking all together.I think in the American society nudity is linked primarily to sex, and the topic of sex is of course very taboo in itself. It also goes back to the old theory that women are viewed solely as sex objects. Women exposing their body would “give men ideas” or “distract” men. This very idea lies at the roots of Islamic women having to cover their entire bodies. Although the American society is not that extreme, women are expected to be modest and cover their bodies in daily life and even at the beach, more so because of how men would react. Those women on the beach seemed so liberated and it was refreshing to see how the men interacted with them as if they were fully clothed. It was a very fascinating cultural difference to experience!