My eleven year-old nephew from the US is dying to come visit me in Spain. But it’s not because he misses his uncle. Or has a passion for paella. Or feels a burning desire to view of works of Velazquez before becoming a teenager. No…he wants to come to Spain for one thing and one thing only: Nudity!
Spain is a waking, walking, wet dream for an American kid on the cusp (or in the depths!) of puberty. If you don’t believe me, then go to any street-corner newspaper stand and see for yourself. Today’s issue of El Pais will likely be flanked by a bevy of DVD’s displaying supple young maidens wearing nothing but eye-liner.
Need more proof? Watch any commercial for shampoo or baby-products on Spanish television, and you’ll be assured a gratuitous breast…or two.
Then there are the beaches. Q: What’s the difference between a Spanish beach and a nude beach? A: Three square centimeters of Lycra®.
Now…you might not have noticed Spain’s delicious smorgasbord of flesh-on-display if you moved here from another European country. The British, I assume, have been desensitized after a lifetime of exposure to page 3 of The Sun and adverts from leather-corseted entrepreneurs plastered onto those charming red phone booths. And for reasons that I need not mention, my Dutch readers are even more likely to be wondering what the fuss is about.
But remember that both my nephew and I come from this US—and to an American, Spain’s liberal (and, dare I say, healthy) attitude toward the human body amounts to culture shock of the highest order. Our homeland is, after all, a place where the television broadcast of sumo wrestling is apt to trigger an avalanche of letters demanding that future bashos implement a “mandatory Bermuda shorts” policy.
And boy-oh-boy…don’t *even* get me started on Janet Jackson’s 2004 Superbowl controversy. Socially-conservative US politicians and commentators wailed that this two-nanosecond flash of a thirty-five year-old woman’s partially-obscured nipple would traumatize America’s youth for at least four generations. Indeed, it was deemed an event more psychologically damaging than that of a young Bruce Wayne watching his parents gunned-down by The Joker.
But I’ve often imagined how this event (or non-event, depending on your point-of-view) might have been discussed between a Spanish mother and her eight year-old son. It would probably go as follows:
Spanish son: Mamá! Why are those American people yelling and holding big
signs?
Spanish Mother: They’re upset, cariño, because Janet Jackson showed her booby on TV.
Son: But why are they upset? We see lots of boobies on TV here? In fact, I saw yours in Benidorm last August.Mother: I know, hijo…I know. But they’re also angry because that naughty Justin Timberlake touched it.
Son: But, Mamá…Justin Timberlake is only one man. There were five men touching a woman’s booby on that DVD for sale at the newspaper shop. You know…the one next to the Mars Bars®.
Indeed! It’s all much ado about nothing, and I’m hoping that my eleven year-old nephew realizes the same when he finally comes to visit. But if he ultimately fails to adopt Spain’s ho-hum attitude toward the human body, then at least he’ll have a lot interesting digital photos to show his friends back home.
Man! Is HE going to be a popular kid on the school playground.
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