WHAT'S UP WITH AMERICANS AND NUDITY? | Feli from Germany

do Germans really go into a mix sauna naked are Americans too uptight about nudity and as Michelangelo's David statue porn let's talk about it [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello Seattles and welcome back to my YouTube channel my name is Philly I'm originally from Munich Germany but after living here in Cincinnati Ohio on and off since 2016. maybe you guys heard about it about two months ago a story that had to do with Michelangelo's David's statue and a school in Florida made huge headlines all over the world and it all goes back to the fact that David isn't wearing pants instead he is in fact fully naked and just a couple weeks ago there was yet another controversy about the Statue this time in Glasgow where an Italian restaurant wanted to put up an ad that featured a picture of David holding a slice of pizza this was the poster they wanted to hang up in the subway but the company that runs the ad spaces had quote modesty concerns so the restaurant ended up adjusting the ad so that now only David's upper body is showing he's still naked of course but I guess the big concern here was his genitals and for me this kind of made me think about this whole topic of nudity again and how nudity is perceived in different cultures when we look at the US in comparison to Western Europe for example I know that many Americans think of The Stereotype of the rampant Europeans who are running around naked all the time and are super liberal about anything sex related while Americans kind of have this image of being rather prude and uptight in this regard but how much of these stereotypes is actually true how is nudity handled in everyday life in Germany versus the US and where do these differences come from let's take a closer look at that story about the David Statue now since this is kind of a controversial topic with lots of different media Outlets reporting about it I personally like to look up the story on ground news so that I can get the full picture here for this particular story ground news has evaluated over 150 different sources and gives me a really good overview of how the story has been covered across the political Spectrum in this case the majority of Articles come from news outlets in the center of the political spectrum and the lowest coverage is coming from the political right if you click through the different categories you can see some differences in the headlines here and you can also check out how the topic was covered internationally it also shows me how factually accurate these news outlets usually are and it gives me full transparency by showing me who they're owned by now ground news is the world's first news comparison platform it was founded just a few years ago in 2018 by former NASA engineer harleen core and I feel like this is exactly what we need in today's world where it's so easy to get trapped in our own filter bubble or Echo chamber or whatever you want to call it where we only hear stories from one point of view and only get exposed to perspectives that already line up with their own opinions this happens a lot through social media but also when people strictly rely on just one newspaper or one TV channel to combat that ground news has this really cool feature called blind spot that shows you which stories you may have missed because they were disproportionately covered on one side of the political Spectrum by the way ground news has different editions depending on where you're located in the world you can use it as an app on your phone or in your browser and when you install install the browser extension it even provides you with information when you read news articles on other websites or on Facebook Twitter or Reddit the overall mission of ground news is to make the media landscape more transparent so that Cooperative civil debate can become the norm in our society which I think is an amazing goal I've personally become a huge fan of the platform so if you're looking for a better way to stay informed about current events around the world I can only recommend that you check it out yourself you can try it for free or subscribe to get full access to all features and if you use my Link at Ground dot News slash Philly you'll even get a 30 discount on the Vantage plan which is the one I have so just use my link to retrieve that 30 discount for ground news and I'll also put the link in the info box below so what exactly happened in Florida from what we know sixth grade students at the Tallahassee classical school were shown pictures of Michelangelo's David statue in arts class who as we know is depicted naked the class also included references to Michelangelo creation of atom painting as well as Botticelli's Birth of Venus which both also shows some nudity the school is still relatively young it was founded in 2020 has about 400 students and it's a Christian Charter School meaning that it's publicly funded and tuition free but it's run independently so unlike regular public schools in the US they don't follow the curriculum and rules of the local school district which means that they're more flexible in how they run the school and they can accommodate their students needs more individually they actually had a partnership with Hillsdale College in Michigan which is a private Christian liberal arts college that provided the school with a curriculum and that curriculum includes instruction about Renaissance Art in sixth grade so far so good now the school says they have a protocol of informing parents before teaching quote potentially controversial curriculum in case they wanted their child to skip that lesson but this year there was some kind of miscommunication apparently and that notice ultimately was not and out as a result two of the parents complained about not being informed about this and one parent even called the lesson pornographic which is a statement that made it into a lot of the headlines then at the end of March the principal of the school hope karaskia who had been the Principal for less than a year was given an ultimatum by the school board to either resign or get fired so she resigned but according to her she wasn't told what the reason for this was but just assumed that it had to do with the whole David situation the school later published a statement in which they said that there were two additional incidents that played a role here now all of this happened in the midst of a nationwide debate about laws that regulate school curriculums and let parents chime in on what they do and don't want their kids to learn one example being in the Florida parental rights and education Bill also often referred to as the don't say gay bill as it also bans classroom discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity up to grade 12 in Florida schools the story got a lot of traction both within the U.S and internationally but in other countries it's mostly been met with incomprehension Dario Nadella the mayor of Florence which is where the David Statue is located tweeted mistaking art for pornography is just ridiculous and he invited the principal to come to Florence the director of The Galleria Del Academia followed his lead and invited karaskia the school board parents and the student body to view the purity of the statue she also said in an interview with Associated Press to think that David could be pornographic means truly not understanding the contents of the Bible not understanding Western culture and not understanding Renaissance art the daily Italian newspaper Korea De La Sierra even reported about this on the front page and they featured a cartoon of David with his genitals covered by an image of Uncle Sam and the word shame at least that's what Associated Press reported unfortunately I couldn't find that cartoon but I'm assuming it has to do with copyright issues now in the aftermath of all of this Hillsdale College ended up cutting ties with Tallahassee classical school and karaskia actually ended up following all of those invitations and to travel to Florence to visit the David statue in person she also said in an interview with NPR I made the assumption that the letter went out and I didn't follow up on it it is my responsibility to make sure these things happen but honestly we did not have to send out a letter regarding Renaissance art which I would argue is a statement that a lot of people in Italy Germany and other European countries would agree with and something that many people have been wondering about in the first place why do you even need to inform anyone about a harmless statue I mean speaking from my personal experience a lot of Europeans have seen many of those statues in real life at a way younger age and if anything we'd kind of laugh and giggle about them as kids but this is where the cultural differences come in nudity simply plays a different role in different cultures now of course I can only speak from a German perspective but let's take a look at a few everyday situations and how this topic is handled in Germany compared to the US number one going to the sauna I feel like this one is pretty well known and people who moved to Germany from abroad talk about it all the time but yes it is in fact normal even more so required to be fully naked when you go to a public sauna in Germany and yes those are usually mixed saunas co-ed As Americans say however most saunas do allow you to wrap your towel around you so you don't actually have to sit there fully exposed if you don't want to but don't be surprised if some of the other visitors do now I'm not actually a big fan of going to the sauna myself elf would probably be the better expert here but from what I know this goes back to Finnish sauna culture supposedly it's healthier and more sanitary to go to the sauna naked but at the end of the day it's up to whoever runs the sauna to make the rules and there are some places in Germany that do allow visitors to wear a bathing suit as well in the US on the other hand bathing suits are usually mandatory new saunas are super rare and even with everyone wearing their bathing suit they're still usually separated by gender number two ties right in with the previous topic because it's about the popularity of fkaka in Germany in English usually referred to as nudism or naturism if Kaka stands for freika pakurtua so literally free body culture and even though many people always assume that among all of the crazy Europeans Germans would be the more conservative ones Germany is actually the hot spot for fkaka culture together with France and Scandinavia in the late 19th century the first fkaka Association was founded in Essen Germany then in 1920 the German island of zurt opened the first official nude beach and a little bit later the noodles culture was booming in the gdr so in East Germany now of course it's not like you'll just see naked people running all over German cities just like in the US it's not usually permitted to be naked in public but there are designated fkaka areas at Lakes River speeches at public pools and in many parks where people are allowed to hang out naked and they do and even though these are special designated areas they're not usually hidden away somewhere with a visual barrier so as a kid growing up in Munich it was pretty common that when you went swimming in the summer or just went through the English Garden in Munich you'd walk right past them the parents always said something like and for some reason they always played volleyball but all jokes aside even though the majority of Germans prefer wearing clothes or at least a bathing suit seeing naked people in public is pretty normal to us it's also slowly becoming more socially accepted for women to be topless in areas where men are allowed to be topless there were actually a couple court cases about that recently it's also very common for little kids to run around naked in Germany whether that's in their own yard at the beach or even in a park apparently that was a big thing for me as a kid my parents tell me that I didn't really like wearing a bathing suit at the beach when I was little so we have vacation photos from when I was like four when we were in Spain and my parents and even my baby brother are posing for the camera fully dressed and I'm just standing there completely naked but I look like the happiest kid in the world there's even a popular children's song from the 80s by life zukovsky about this [Music] [Music] now of course nude beaches do also exist in the U.S but they're usually more tucked away from the rest and you don't really have to worry about running into naked people in Central Park in New York for example not usually at least speaking of swimming and going to the pool what's the situation like with communal showers that you might go to after the pool at the gym or if you play sports are they group showers or are there separate stalls do people get fully naked or wear a bathing suit and are they co-ed or separated now in Germany I'd say it's pretty mixed next at public pools they're usually open floor plan showers but separated for men and women and often a family shower as the third option some people get fully naked in those other Stones typically it's the older people who are more likely to be naked but they're not the only ones I've also been to water parks though where they had single stalls for everyone now I never played a team sport but I know that for the most part if you play a club sport in Germany it's pretty common for the whole team to shower afterwards my brother said that for him playing soccer growing up when they were like 13 they'd still keep on their underwear or swim trunks in the shower but the older they got the more common it was for everyone to shower naked now from what I've heard and read on the internet it seems like in the US depending on where you live and what type of school you went to open communal showers can either be very common or not at all I've read both extremes some people had communal showers in their college dorms so they had to shower in those some said they've never had to shower with other people in their life let me know in the comments is what your experience is with this one story that I can share is that whenever I went to a music festival in Germany like the ones where you camped for a few days there was always one big shower tint separated by gender but then inside the tent there were no curtains or stalls or anything so some people wear their bathing suits some were naked but it really didn't matter either way the two times I've been to a music festival in the US there were always single shower stalls so my guess would be that the open plan communal showers are probably a little less common in the US number four the doctor's office when you go to the gynecologist in the US they usually give you a paper gown for you to wear and then leave the room so that you can get changed in private and I'm pretty sure it's similar at other doctors where you have to get undressed like at the urologist or dermatologist well not in Germany I remember when I was a teenager they would always tell us to wear a dress or a long shirt if we felt nervous or uncomfortable about our first gynecologist appointment because you're not gonna get anything else to wear the doctor usually has a little changing stall in their office like a curtain with a stool or something where you can get undressed and put your clothes but they'll typically stay in the room as you do so and if they're like my gynecologist they'll even keep talking to you the whole time and at most other doctors if it comes to a situation where you have to get undressed they don't even have a changing room for the most part every time I've done a full body skin exam at the dermatologist in Germany I would kind of just get undressed right in front of them a German friend of mine also told me that when she went to the dermatologist in the U.S she almost felt like she was wasting her time because she said they weren't even looking everywhere number five breastfeeding one of the most natural things in the world now this one is actually very interesting because it seems like breastfeeding in public is actually more socially accepted in the US than it is in Germany according to the study from 2015 only 44 of German women founded Perfectly Natural to nurse babies in public compared to 57 percent in the US at the same time I've seen YouTube videos where Americans will say something like this another thing that was kind of shocking that would have totally been like a front page story in America was one time when I was in the Beer Garden in negrove Sadi a woman was breastfeeding her child openly and the kid was standing on the bench next to her on his own two feet pausing between gulps to have a conversation presumably and she was just standing there bare breasted for all to see I don't find anything wrong with this but in America this is so controversial that they actually talk about this on the news whether women should be allowed to breastfeed their children in public so which one is it is it accepted or controversial in Germany I'd say that for the most part it's accepted and kind of ties in with her overall tolerance towards nudity but there are always those one or two people that find it inappropriate for whatever reason and there's a pretty controversial public debate about this in German Germany which is kind of odd for a country that has no problem with nudity in other situations fact is Germany doesn't actually have any laws regulating this neither in terms of protecting breastfeeding in public nor restricting it so if you want to breastfeed your baby at a restaurant for example it's up to the restaurant whether they allow that or not here in the US however all 50 states have laws that protect breastfeeding in public and private and more than half even have laws about providing spaces to breastfeed in the workplace at the same time though apparently those laws can overlap with public indecency laws which sometimes leads to women getting in trouble for breastfeeding after all like in this case in Georgia when it comes to personal experience the other day I saw a woman breastfeed while she was standing in line for the checkout at Kroger and nobody seemed offended by it or said anything so this one seems difficult to analyze maybe you can let me know about your experiences in the comments below and last but not least number six nudity in media if you zap through German TV channels even in the middle of the day you'll notice that it's not uncommon to see a naked butt or boobs here and there it's safe to say that German Productions and media regulations are a lot more liberal in that regard compared to the US where even some episodes of Rick Steve's travel show couldn't be aired before 10 pm because you could sometimes see sculptures and paintings containing nudity in them Rick Steves also has his very own story in regards to the David Statue by the way he had the David on one of his book covers but was told that they needed to add a fig Leaf to cover up David's private parts because some bookstores in the US felt uncomfortable displaying it like that and daytime talk shows on American TV have to beep out every single curse word I guess it would be pretty strong yeah or use fake curse words like fudge which of course doesn't have anything to do with nudity per se but it kind of ties in with the whole prudish image here in Germany you'll just see topless women in tabloid newspapers the country's biggest newspaper built even had them on the cover page for the longest time pretty sick Texas if you ask me they should show naked men as well and you'll also see erotic magazines such as Playboy openly displayed at gas stations and supermarkets usually you're right by the checkout in the US magazines like that are usually covered up somehow in addition to that and I've actually mentioned this one a few times last time in the video about sex education with Sarah and Kevin the German youth magazine Bravo that many generations grew up with had and still has a sexual education category where readers can send in their questions about love relationships friendships puberty sex or whatever else they have questions about and a team of experts answers them in the magazine this also included a category that was called that's me where they always had one nude photo of a guy and one of a girl in their teens I believe they moved up the age limit over time together with questions about what they liked and didn't like about their bodies which was basically a way to support body positivity and reassure insecure teenagers that everybody looks different and that that's okay and beautiful and if we look at the digital media world one example that comes to mind here is Instagram run by the American tech company meta that has a super strict band on showing female nipples those have to be censored otherwise the picture gets deleted while male nipples are totally fine of course fun fact or not so fun depends they actually have an artificial intelligence that scans whether a nipple is female or male at the end of the day whether we find these things normal or inappropriate comes down to how we were socialized now of course this is going to be different for every person and for every situation but if we were to summarize it I say that in Germany nudity is just overall considered a rather normal and natural part of life while in the US nudity is often sexualized by default even if the context of the situation isn't sexual at all but where does that come from how come that in two wealthy Democratic Western countries these topics are treated so differently why is nudity such a taboo in the US now that's a very complex question to answer and we won't be able to fully solve that mystery in the remaining five minutes of this video but I did stumble across a few different factors that might possibly play a role here the number one reason that people bring up in this context is the Puritan history of the US that goes all the way back to the 1600s when the first settlers from the Old World arrived here many of them fleeing religious persecution pilgrims who founded the Plymouth Colony were so-called separatists for example who separated from the church of England but there were also groups such as the Puritans who wanted to purify the church they followed pretty strict rules that prohibited things like gambling fancy clothing smoking in public living with Indians missing Sunday Services celebrating Christmas and of course things like sex outside of marriage masturbation homosexuality and adultery so cheating on your spouse that one even had the death penalty now now there's one thing that I read quite a lot about in newspaper articles blog posts forums Etc but I couldn't really find any scholarly sources for this so please let me know if you know more about this but it said that the Puritans also believed that all nudity outside of sex was evil and a few articles even mentioned that they went as far as avoiding bathing as a result of this now whether that last part is true or not I don't know but what's for sure is that religion seems to play a big role here some even mentioned that this goes back to the story of Adam and Eve and how their nudity is connected to sin now after the settlers the religious journey of the US continues through the first and second Awakening the rise of American evangelicalism and eventually brings us to the 20th century where after the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s Purity culture started to gain in popularity in the 1990s Purity culture includes young people promising to stay abstinent until marriage there are period the Rings and even purity balls where daughters make virginity pledges to their fathers and even though Purity culture has been declining religion is still a topic that makes the United States stand out within the developed world because what we usually see is the poor a country the more religious it's people but the US is quite the exception here super wealthy country and according to this survey from 2018 over 50 percent of Americans say that religion is very important in their lives in Germany this number is at only 10 percent in Sweden and Norway it's even lower and I can confirm this from personal experience I don't think I know anyone in Germany who actually goes to church every week while I know quite a few people my age in the US who do and another survey from 2014 about global morality shows that about 30 percent of Americans so almost one in three people believe that premarital sex is unacceptable compared to six percent in Germany and lining up with this abstinence only sex education is is predominant in some parts of the country still over 90 percent of Americans do engage in premarital sex which as a result leads to a high number in teen pregnancies but if you want to learn more about all of that make sure to check out this video and we see this reflected when we look at politics too the whole political Spectrum in the U.S has actually shifted to the right compared to politics in Europe so the country overall is rather conservative in comparison now another factor that might play a role particularly in regards to my point of letting kids run around naked is that Americans seem to be more suspicious of strangers and more worried about crime so for many Americans the first thought that comes to mind when they hear kids being naked at the beach is child pornography kidnapping human trafficking you name it even if this doesn't line up with reality in fact this survey from 2014 shows that even when crime is statistically decreasing like it happened for 20 years at the time of the survey Americans were actually more afraid of crime and believe believed that it had increased now these are probably just a few of many many social factors that play a role in this cultural difference let me know in the comments why you think this is different in Germany and the US what I find interesting is that even though I said at the beginning of the video that many Europeans think of the us as being prude the country also has a reputation for sex being a pretty big part of pop culture [Music] I mean sex sells right and maybe even more so in a country where the human body and sexual desires have been declared the enemy thank you guys so much for watching make sure to leave me a comment with your thoughts and opinions about all of this and of course don't forget to hit the Subscribe button and activate the Bell if you like these type of videos you can also find me on Instagram Facebook and Tick Tock if you can hear me on my podcast and if you want to support me I do appreciate it you can send me a super thanks here on YouTube buy me a coffee or join my patreon community I'm actually doing a patreon live stream this weekend so I'll either see you there or next time here on YouTube cheers [Music] thank you oh and by the way in case I didn't clarify this enough the David Statue is of course not porn I repeat not porn

Channel: Feli from Germany

Views: 912,633

Keywords: USA, America, Cultural Differences, Culture Shock, Kulturelle Unterschiede, Deutschland, München, Amerika, Kulturschock, USA vs. Germany, Comparison, Living abroad, Move to Germany, Life in Germany, Move to Europe, Life in USA, U.S., Deutschland USA Kulturunterschiede, Unterschiede Deutschland Amerika, Feli from Germany, David statue, Florida, Principle resign over David statue, Michelangelo, nudity in the US vs. Germany, Sex Ed USA vs. Germany, nudism, FKK Deutschland, Nacktheit USA

Id: B5_1eiLzXDY

Length: 25min 45sec (1545 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023