This sign should probably be posted at the departure gates of all International flights leaving the U.S. and heading towards Europe…
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/07/13/european.nudes/index.html?hpt=C2
The article (link above) is written by Rick Steves – a quirky, slightly nerdy traveller extraordinaire whose videos and books helped Adam and I plan our recent trip. To give a quick synopsis of the article (because I know how hard clicking a link can be…) Rick discusses American concepts of the human body, our collective aversion to nudity in public, and how things are “different” in Europe.
A quick caveat: NO I have never been to the South of France, NO I have never been to an actual “nude” beach (apart from South Beach which is technically only topless), but this article really struck a chord as I thought back to our experience in Italy.
Specifically it was our day trip from Lucca to Viareggio – you know, the beach where you have to pay to ‘rent’ the sand. It was an unspoken rule that if you didn’t want to wear anything, you didn’t have to. There were not that many adults partaking (and not just Americans) and most of what was exposed was the result of poorly fitting bathing suits – probably not by choice of the wearer (again, not just Americans). But one thing that we saw that struck us as a little odd were the amount of children running around naked as can be. At first we thought, okay, yes it is probably easier to let your toddler run around nude than worry about getting sand in the diaper etc. etc. But then we saw several 8-10 year olds just as naked as their younger counterparts.
As we were relaxing on the beach we could not help but say to ourselves “there’s something you would not see at an American beach”. Then, the other side of us – maybe the more relaxed, Italian part of ourselves – started to wonder what the heck is the big deal anyway? Look at how much fun they are having, look at how comfortable they are. I bet they won’t ever look at their bodies and think “this is BAD” as they get older.
Like Rick says at the end of his article – NO we do not think (Adam, I’m speaking for you here too) that everyone should run around nude. But there was another part of us that did recognize that somewhere, in some cases why shouldn’t it be okay?
3 Comments
I agree totally…having grown up in Miami with lots of Cuban women ( after the early 60’s anyway) of all ages, sizes and shapes, it has always been interesting to me how different they were with their bodies, what they showed and how comfy they were with it..(yes, lots of jokes could be tnered here as in “ouch, why did I look at that,etc…but that just feeds the base instincts to make fun of,etc…and thus, reduce the high-toned nature of this discussion, right?)..and we let our boys run around nekkid until they were, well, certainly not as old as the Italiano kids ( after all, we are Ameruhcans)
hmmm…perhaps over cocktails one evening, I shall tell our handsome nephew and his beautiful wife about Aunty Cheryl and Uncle Bruce in Cannes and St. Tropez. 🙂
Love reading your blog Mandy! This post in particular, I agree with so much of what you said 🙂 Oooh, Italia!