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5 American sex norms that Europeans will never understand
And with good reason. When it comes to physical intimacy, the U.S. is the land of the free, home of the crazed
Europeans tend to see a lot of American ideals and behaviors as bizarre. In particular, they aren’t wild about our politics and our food (though they love our television and our movies). And when it comes to sex? Well, Europeans tend to view us as the land of the free, home of the batshit crazy. Below are some of the biggest sexual WTFs Europeans have about America.
According to reports, the average American child will see 200,000 violent acts and witness 16,000 murders on TV by the time she is 18. Not only that, but the violence is getting more brutal and sadistic, and it often goes unpunished. In video games like Grand Theft Auto, players can run over sex workers, and the violence in Call of Duty has been linked to teen suicides. While this is considered fine and normal, showing the naked or partially naked human body on TV is considered extremely taboo. When Justin Timberlake accidentally ripped off a piece of Janet Jackson’s costume during the Super Bowl halftime show, revealing her nipple for a fraction of a second, this not only caused a moral outrage that lasted for days, but the FCC tried to fine television network CBS $550,000 for broadcasting “indecency.” The FCC ultimately failed, but not first without going all the way to the Supreme Court. The nip slip incident became the most-searched-for thing on the Internet in 2004, and CBS actually forced Jackson to apologize to Americans. “I am really sorry if I offended anyone, that was truly not my intention,” Jackson said.
A Dutch friend who now lives in London also remarked on this disconnect between violence and nudity: “The movie Frida with Salma Hayek is rated R in the U.S. because of nudity, but in Holland it was 6 (for children 6 and older). But many violent movies are 16 in Holland and PG/PG-13 in the U.S. Why are boobs worse than death? How do boobs affect people negatively? Are they scary? Do they make people do bad things? I wanna know!”
2. Our puritan prudery.
Sex is everywhere. We can’t even sell a cheeseburger in the U.S. without overtly bonerrific images that are, frankly, confusing. Are we supposed to eat our food or have sex with it, Carl’s Jr.? And yet, we’re also so prudish that Attorney General John Ashcroft once spent $8,000 of taxpayer cash to cover up a statue’s breasts. We have spent billions on abstinence-only education programs that spread misinformation and shame teenagers into thinking sex is dirty and will ruin their lives forever. And instead of curbing the number of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, the opposite happens. Compared to European countries, most of which boast comprehensive sex ed, easy access to birth control and universal healthcare, the U.S. has alarming teen pregnancy rates—41.5 per 1,000 people, as reported by the United Nations in 2009. By contrast, the Netherlands had a teen birth rate of 5.3 per 1,000, Switzerland is 4.3 per 1,000, and Germany is 9.8 per 1,000. Europeans also have have lower STI rates, and far lower rates of HIV/AIDS.
Ever!
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