Violence is Bad, Nudity is Wonderful

October 21st, 2009 by 801red

I truly do not understand the hang-up about nudity in the United States. For a country that likes to pretend we are very progressive, we have some major psychological issues. I wonder sometimes if people realize that the year is 2009 and that we don’t all have to be Puritans.

If it isn’t obvious, I am very pro-nudity. Magazines, movies, TV, internet, it’s all good as far as I am concerned. I also believe in equal opportunity nudity. My wife is welcome to look at the naked male form as much as her heart desires (she doesn’t but she is welcome to). I don’t want to give off the impression that I spend hours seeking out nudity (shut up I don’t) but what bothers me is that there still seems to be this general backwards mentality when it comes to the human body. I mean there are still laws on the book that say it is indecent exposure for a woman to have her shirt off in public but not men. Why is that? I will never get it.

I am not saying that people don’t have the right to not view nudity. There has to be some common sense but I will never believe that the human body is indecent (all shapes and sizes). We treat nudity like it is some shameful dark secret that should be locked in a closet and yet truthfully from a very young age most people have an overwhelming desire to see it as often as they possibly can.

To make matters even worse (in my mind) is how we view nudity in mass media, in particular TV and movies. I mean seriously Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has a man’s beating heart removed from his chest and gets a PG-13. If it had been a woman and her chest had been bared, automatic R.

The movie world is littered with movies that are basically murder simulators. James Bond kills and blows up half the world in all of his movies and gets a PG-13, but once again I dare them to show a full breast. There have been several instances in the U.S. where a movie got an NC-17 based on sex and nudity and not the violence in the movie (Angel Heart anyone?).

My favorite example of this whole stupid backwards thinking was many years ago going to the movie with my brother. He brought his kids and we went to a movie that I thought was inappropriate for them. I had another brother along and we tried to talk him out of the movie. He didn’t budge. So we saw a movie that was loaded full of death, blood, violence, murder. In the middle of the movie there is a short sex scene where we see the female naked (it’s always the female. Hollywood does not believe in equal opportunity nudity). My brother, who had just let his kids watch an hour of violence, reached out and covered his kids eyes. I nearly screamed right in the theater. Murder is okay, bullets blowing holes in people’s skulls is okay. Nudity and sex is not. Simply crazy.

I understand that people have the right to decide what their children are exposed to. Like I said earlier I am not asking to go bat shit crazy here. You want to rate all the movies R go for it but be consistent with violence and nudity.

I wish we would get it right. Violence is bad, nudity is wonderful.

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