Take your clothes off, we need to talk
Take your clothes off, we need to talk
Comrades of the European Internet Forum,
enough is enough!
For decades, we have placed ourselves in the cultural shadows - well-behaved, conformist, as if we were the ill-educated child of the great American moral uncle, who must not be too loud, not too naked and certainly not too independent. While half-naked shoulders are censored at high school graduation ceremonies in the USA, heads are thrown around like bowling balls in TV series. All normal, all ‘entertainment’. But woe betide you if you see a nipple - then the censorship hammer screeches louder than a Trump on Truth Social.
I ask you: What has become of Europe?
We, the continent-born of the Enlightenment, the revolutions, the renaissance of nudity on canvas, in stone and on film - we have allowed a country that bottles cheese in cans, of all things, to tell us what is ‘moral’!
It's not moral, it's demurely stupid.
Why are depictions of violence in mass media allowed to flow freely like American fracking oil, but natural, aesthetic, tasteful nudity - which has been part of European art and culture for centuries - is algorithmically filtered out, demonetised and labelled with warnings as if it were uranium?
No more prudish double standards!
We need a cultural return to what we have to offer:
- Enlightenment instead of transfiguration.
- Pleasure instead of violence.
- Nudity as an expression of naturalness - not as a moral offence.
I call on you: Banish pixelated prudery! Let's tear apart the corset of American moral dictatorship like a badly programmed DRM protection! Save the freedom of the breast - for Europe!
Stop aligning your films, games and series with a market that beeps ‘fuck’ five times but completely waves ‘shoot him in the face’ through.
We are not Hollywood's post office box. We are Europe. We are culture. We are naked! - So, metaphorically. And sometimes literally. And that's okay.
Thank you for your attention!
Nice 😏
Hell yeah! But actually, what?
I have no idea what I just read, but it sounded like something I should agree with
he wants to look at boobs
Ironically this comment implies there's something morally wrong or depraved about that, or that wanting to look at boobs is an inherently sexual thing (to which only an immoral degenerate would succumb), which is exactly the kind of Puritan-derivative "sex bad" mindset that the post is rallying against.
I took my clothes off I don't know what else is going on but I'm having a good time thanks for inviting me I really appreciate it
Username checks out?
I can see your nutsack!
thanks
so... Why are we naked?
Because it's artistic and natural.
I don’t know, but there’s very chilly weather here and my pee pee is shrinking. Maybe we could try again in the summer?
hmm, that's unfortunate, have you considered putting clothes on? I hear that helps.
Because there is nothing wrong with it.
fair enough i suppose.
It's a funny post, but a serious point. The Europe of my childhood was different countries all very different from the US. But over time American media and algorithmic dominance are eroding things toward being America with accents. And what will you get for throwing away that cultural identity? Americans will still sneer at Europe.
I think a trickier question is: if Europe ought to retain its own identity, then shouldn't each European country retain its own identity instead of banding together as "Europe".
My view is that it's not necessary to pit regional identity vs European identity. I think it's possible to have them side by side. I appreciate many things in my region that make up our identity, but at the same time as a European I can also appreciate many cultural aspects of other regions
I find identity tends to be like an onion, in that it has layers.
Also in that picking it apart is an unpleasant experience that frequently ends in tears.
I agree. I like the post and its message, but in general everyone needs to focus less on identity and more on community. People have really lost the plot these days. What are we doing all of this for? So our families will have a good life, right? Everyone the world over is mostly just looking for that.
Why stop there? Go back to the breakdown in feudal times! Which duke do you owe fealty to?
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your rears!
We are all ich bin ein wieners now.
I didn't take my dick out for Harambe, but I'll do it for Europe
“A reliable way to incapacitate Americans” @GenosseFlosse
I mean, yeah, we have become more prudish.
I will say that beyond American religious zealotry and aversion to human bodies there's a bit of a practical reason, too. In a user-generated media landscape if you allow NSFW without tags you end up becoming a porn site.
But hey, at least around here there's some NSFW friendliness (and those bits have become a straight up porn site, as expected).
We could definitely bear to be less US-style prudish about nudity in broadcast media again, though. Although I will say that if you think the old school 20th century approach to sex was all enlightened and not full of grubby dudes doing outright #metoo garbage you have some rose tinted glasses going on. Still, we can NOT do that and still not build our tolerance for human bodies on US evangelical nonsense.
Counter argument:
The more places ban nudity the more chance the one site that allows it becomes a porn site.
Currently if you want to post artistic nude you pretty much need to do it on a porn site.
The opposite may also be true, if more places accepted it then the amount of nsfw content spreads out, there might be more porn sites overall but with more incentives to specialize and innovate rather then allowing almost all of it and knowing users will come regardless.
HELL YEAH!
light nsfw meme
It's not gay if the balls don't touch. So they tell me. :)
They also are probably wearing socks.
it's not gay. Been there, can confirm
The nudity taboo is a conspiracy by the textile industry to sell more clothes.
I've been to a bunch of nudist events in Australia, naked bike ride, nude beach, life drawing events, confest hippie festival and some gallery openings. I've also studied anatomy. People need to get their head right about what it means to be naked. Everyone has a body, and should be more comfortable with it.
Edit: Chatting with yanks on deaddit, they largely seem so afraid of nudity that they'll be calling the police if there's an adult naked around a child where in many other parts of the world it's completely normal, eg modest family bathing scenes in anime.
Genosse spittin' some real facts here
Ftw Europe
Are we the hippies now? ;)
Peace and love, my friends.
Trust me, no one wants to see me take my clothes off.
We are Europe. We are culture. We are naked! - So, metaphorically. And sometimes literally. And that’s okay.
We are human beings all living in the same planet. If your concern is nudity and the bigotry around it, i don't think you are going to find much freedom behind the walls of authoritarian countries and "europe"
I'm surprised to see your little tricks got upvotes this time. Your pro-russia content is usually too obvious to stand a chance. This comment did not fool me however
Don't get fooled buddy we are clearly not all human beings living in the same planet...
I'm not your comrade, friend.
We are all comrades in these trying times.
europe's mojo has always been there
in fact i think we're leading at the moment
A billion porn sites and rule 34 are still not enough? Do mean really require titillation in all media to survive?
This attitude is exactly the problem.
OP wrote:
- Nudity as an expression of naturalness - not as a moral offence.
Porn and rule 34 is the opposite of this.
The most fitting example I found is the argument of a certain Protestant Pastor Schweigger who visited Istanbul in the 16^th century about the moral superiority of Germans over Turks: while Turks had gender seperate baths and used towels to hide their nudity even from their own gender to avoid sexual arousal. In Germany, men and women would sit naked side by side in the bath just naturally without getting aroused.
Nudity ≠ sex
Men have been yelling at me about my boobs for 35 years. Im fucking sick of hearing it. There are boobs galore on the internet so go look but leave the rest of us alone, they don't need to be everywhere. As for your appeal to nature: wearing clothing is human nature and i don't accept the distinction between human and nature.
Germans still believe they’re morally superior by insisting that someone swinging their sweaty junk 30cm away from your face is somehow a cultural experience.
I’ve been to a German sauna once, never again. It was full of groaning fat dudes rubbing their sweat all over their bodies and some fit dudes doing stretching exercises in the sauna, all naked. I didn’t come there to be a creep, but it should be noted that even though it was a mixed gender sauna it was like 80-90% dudes because most of the women went to the female sauna instead apparently.
You can tell me all about nudity and sex not being the same, but if there’s some smoking hot woman next to me in the sauna completely naked I will think about sex. Hell, I will probably think about sex if she wears a bikini. To me this is actually natural, not forcing people to strip naked and then also stripping them of their instincts. To be perfectly clear, you absolutely should not make anyone feel uncomfortable or be creepy in any way just because you have thoughts, there’s no justification for that.
In that sense, I prefer my country’s sauna rules with towels and gender separation and I can actually just focus on sweating instead of pretending that I’m not a sexual being.
That's not their point in the slightest
Yes, I'd actually say toning both down would be better 90% of the time.
How arrogant to think your previous centuries don't offer a culture of violence.
I think the point was more about the double standardz on violence in censorship than it was about whether each region actually is or had been violent. As a famous US show, South Park pointed out almost 30 years ago in 1998...
"horrific deplorable violence is ok as long as nobody says any naughty words"
I'm well aware of the US attitude towards censorship. My point is about the double standard towards violence and a history of it existing in cultures. It's hardly exclusive to the Americans, and quite European if anything. You can't boldly declare yourself to be "culture" itself and expect to be taken seriously without actually examining those cultures.
"Horrible deplorable violence is only wrong when boors and barbarians do it, not us enlightened beings who seek only peace and nudity".
Oh how shameful of me to question a European. You are Europe. You are culture.
This is unironically great copywriting. Either that or chatGPT.
I wonder what OP does for a living.
I assume that you haven’t watched any American TV shows for the past couple of decades. Nudity and gratuitous sex scenes are a staple of the American entertainment industry.
Funny, I was under the opposite impression: nudity has almost disappeared from US shows.
But note that that's about nudity and sex being the same, and the sex is pornographic (that is, the intent in showing it is to arouse the viewer). The OP is about non-sexual nudity. In fact, OP doesn't mention sex at all, but I feel like it's reasonable to extend the argument to non-pornographic depictions of sex.
Eh. Violence is still way more prominent. If feels like the whole point of the first 5 minutes of every cable show is presenting in vivid on-screen detail a new and unheard of way a person can be horribly hurt. Nudity is unusual and worth remembering, though.
The west world is already fucked up. Forget it. I'm not from east so I can't speak for it. But west societies are screwed at a level that you can't even imagine. Extreme capitalism corporations, oligarcs and religious entities has the full power and the control they always desired. They control every corner of the human existence. This is not just an US issue. Being conscious is not even enough at this point, We will need to rise against everything... even governments, which are long rotten to the roots. At a point that political orientations are empty and no longer apply to what's happening. Even political side like socialism or leftist are acting against the population and are at the service of these rulers.
I think it is an interesting subject.
I can't answer for all of us, but I can ask another question.
Before USA became a superpower and took over the world, we were many countries and we were at war most of the time.
Now, EU started in the '90s. It delivered some good points, yet our countries still defend their own interests. (see Denmark, fighter jets and spying for instance. No specific hate to my danish friends) German people défend their industry before anything else, Luxembourg fucks up with taxes, etc.
Then, will our future really be built on a very centralized EU ? Have we really a common identity and interest ? All I can see is every country backstabbing another.
So, should we go on ideolazing US culture ? Of course not. But I don't see a European culture in front of that. I 'd prefer we cherish our particularities but I don' t think european countries count for '' 1 '' voice.
The closest we can find if an european common culture is that we share a mass of land and our ancestors have been lusting after eachother since... well, just pick a date.
The EU can be strong by finding common ground where we can agree and respecting we will never agree on others. And that is fine. If we find the strenght to emulate what is made well in other countries and slowly push towards a better, negotiated, future.
Bruh what's your problem with depictions of violence on TV?
They rarely serve a plot purpose, and getting pulled into a woodchipper is in fact worse and less normal than having sex.
