Why are Americans terrified of nudity?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why are Americans terrified of nudity?

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

AARO posted:

Yet in many European countries they have nude beaches. Germany has nude public parks.

I just moved to Germany and yeah people don't really care as much about nudity here. Like my son (4) goes to a nature kindergarten that exists in a large public park in the city, and after school a couple of the kids were playing in the mud and eventually just took off all their clothes while playing and nobody cared. Basically impossible to imagine this occurring in the states.

edit: also the changing room/shower area at the Google office here in Munich is unisex, although I'm unsure how much of the reason for that is different cultural standards and how much of it is just wanting to be more space-efficient.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Sep 25, 2016

# ¿ Sep 25, 2016 18:29

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 18:01

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

A long time ago yeah.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2016 18:43

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

TheImmigrant posted:

I think suburban lifestyle and especially suburban urban planning have a lot to do with it too. Australia recently passed the US in prevalence of obesity, and Australia is also a largely suburban nation. Most suburbs are designed for cars, not people. I spent a couple of months in a Dallas suburb last year for work - they didn't even have sidewalks there. People would look at you like you're crazy if you were walking anywhere.

Yes, part of the issue is driving everywhere, rather than walking/biking (and using transit usually involves walking too). If we want people to exercise more it's gonna be built-in into the environment, few people have the self-discipline to go to the gym/go running consistently for the long term.

If you look at places with relatively low driving rates/high active transport rates like the Netherlands, obesity rates are relatively low for an affluent developed country.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2016 09:51

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

spacetoaster posted:

A lot of the places in the U.S. are so spread out. If you try and walk to a place you better plan for that to be the only place you go that day.

When I go to eastern europe you can walk everywhere because there always seems to be a market/bus stop/stuff right near by.

Yes, transportation and land use go hand-in-hand. What you said is true, and it's true because we made it that way.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2016 11:04

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Mange Mite posted:

I think there's also a small difference in land mass and geography between America and a random tiny country in Eastern Europe...

Being a physically large country gives us the option of sprawling out. It doesn't force us to do that. For example, as pointed out earlier, US cities that got built out prior to cars becoming common tend to be much more walkable. Really, being a big country has more of an obvious impact on the distance between metros, rather than how dense each metro or principal city is.

We easily could have dense mixed-use development if we felt like it. It's just that most cities now have heavy zoning regulations that prevent it, and we tend to subsidize sprawly, car-oriented development one way or another.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2016 14:50

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

TheImmigrant posted:

There's also the American Dream that requires having a green lawn big enough for a golf course.

Yeah I hate those too. Large front lawns are stupid and vestigial. Nobody actually uses them.

computer parts posted:

These are tied together though.

They are tied together, because, like I said, having lots of space gives you the option to sprawl out. An option we obviously took. There was obviously nothing actually stopping us from building (or rather, continuing to build) denser cities if we wanted to do that instead, though.

quote:

Especially with a significant (and until recently very large) rural community, which encourages the use of cars for transportation.

Obviously rural areas are gonna use cars. And cars are useful things, it's just sad how much we over-rely on them.

quote:

Basically the fact that we aren't just concentrated nexuses of people (even defining something like Houston as a "concentrated nexus") encourages the use of transportation with more flexibility. Those are cars.

Most people do not live in rural areas today. They live cities or suburbs; in both environments it's possible to support walking, biking and transit, but we generally haven't, or at least not well. Luckily that's starting to change for the better as cities are becoming more desirable to the younger generations.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 10:15

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Rush Limbo posted:

Actually asking gay men and straight women what they find attractive is often a good measure of what they are attracted to. By and large it's not the Arnold types.

Quite a lot of women really, really have a thing for Brad Pitt in Fight Club and he's almost the complete opposite to the muscle bound image that's designed to appeal to straight men.

http://foxhoundstudio.com/blog/fitness-lifestyle/the-ideal-male-physique-—-what-girls-want-want-guys-want-to-be/

That link has a pretty good breakdown on what physique appeals to women. It's not the same thing that is advertised to men.

But popular media mostly DOES have dudes who look like Brad in Fight Club; looking at that picture he's lean but still muscular. The "Freaky Frank" picture there looks nothing like the male leads in major video games/movies.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2016 12:22

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 18:01

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I was thinking of games like Uncharted, Overwatch, Infamous, Assassin's Creed, etc. You're right that there are some games with very muscular dudes, but they seem outnumbered by normal-sized (but usually very fit-looking) guys.

http://www.gamesradar.com/new-games-2016/

The games on this list that appear to have a male lead mostly have them normal-sized: Hitman, Zelda, Deus Ex, Ghost Recon, Uncharted, Quantum Break, Dishonored, FFXV, Homefront. The ones where they're super muscular would be Gears, Doom, Crackdown, and possibly Lawbreakers (although it looks like Lawbreakers doesn't really have a 'lead' and there's a mix of body types for men).

# ¿ Oct 17, 2016 14:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why are Americans terrified of nudity?