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Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

What's interesting to me is how Americans don't bat an eye on all the violence exposed in movies, music and games, but then become prudish when it comes to sex. And these are the traits of the exported American culture.

In my European country it is perfectly normal to have pictures of your children naked. It's also OK for them to see a nude body now and then, like at the beach (and yes I am aware that I'm not talking about all of Europe, some countries ban nudity in public). But do that in the US and you risk being labeled as a pedophile.

I love how freedom of speech is protected by the US constitution, certainly a model to follow for the rest of us, however banning adult content while allowing violence, white nationalism and xenophobia is a huge double standard that gets exported to the rest of the world too.

So as a citizen of an EU country that's not prudish about sex, why do I have to suffer from the censorship of US companies?

And honestly, do you like it when you see actors like Tom Cruise not kissing the girl in his movies, possibly because it needs to be played in China?

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Another thing I saw in US is that they can't make the distinction between hardcore porn, soft porn, erotica, nudity and showing some cleavage.

I used to work at a European game company that made erotic games for PocketPC. Our biggest market was US, and most negativity also came from US. Video striptease is labeled as "porn".

What they preach is very different from how they act. You cannot say fuck or shit on tv or internet, but in real life everyone does it.

When Janet Jackson show a nipple on TV, it's a huge fuzz. But having a colleagues gathering in a striptease bar is normal.

I'm pretty sure the prudish public behavior enforces the excessive private behavior.

Video striptease sounds to me like porn and I am not American. What else would it be, seriously?

Is it really normal to colleagues gathering in a striptease bar? Cause I did not encountered it, through I heard people complain about some teams and companies doing that. But that is it - complains+anger not acceptance as norm.

In Europe we label portraying sexy nude women as erotica. Playboy is not porn to us, it's erotica. Porno is something completely different, and explicitly shows having intercouse. Having only 1 general name for everything probably doesn't make it easier to make a distinction.

I know US colleagues who regulary go to striptease bars. It seems more normal in US than in EU.

Is a striptease bar a strip club? If so, I don’t think it’s that uncommon. Me and my coworkers would sometimes go to strip-clubs after work. Including female colleagues.

Not as often as regular clubs or bars, but not a rare event.

> You cannot say fuck or shit on tv

What TV shows are you talking about? Kids shows? American television in general is full of profanity. Some shows have way higher profanity content than what’s observed in real life, they always makes me wonder if certain demographics really fucking talk like that all the time.

Beeping away words is something you will never see/hear in European productions. "What the beep are you talking about you son of a beep". Jerry Springer comes to mind.

European movies also have no trouble showing fully nude males, something you will never see in Hollywood.

The sensoring in texts like f*ck is also seen a lot online.

You’re right, some cable networks do the beep thing, others don’t. Guess I’ve been self-selected to be biased towards the latter category; I haven’t heard a beep for quite a while.

All over the air networks don't have profanity (ABC, NBC, CBS, CW--you know, the big ones) because of FCC rules. Cable is not covered by FCC laws and their shows can freely swear (though I was surprised by the most recent seasons of Happy and Mr. Robot not bleeping their F-words on cable as it used to be verboten just a couple years ago).

>American television, in general, is full of profanity.

(FTFY) Are you confusing "private airwaves" (e.g.: subscriptions) with "public airwaves"? If so, see the FCC's position here[0].

[0] - https://www.fcc.gov/general/obscenity-indecency-and-profanit...

Yes. It can be pretty common. It’s been a while since I was in the oil business but there were plenty of people who had trouble getting a few sentences out without a fuck or a shit.

I do know a few tech people who cuss quite a bit but it’s certainly not super-common abd, increasingly, there’s also a greater sensitivity to language etc. that someone will take offense to even if in your mind it’s perfectly ok.

Born in Europe but domesticated in USA, where I live for last 17 years. Its funny how your mindset change because of all the signals we constantly receive through media and just living around.

A story from last summer. I went to Italy to visit some friends. We pulled over at the gas station. Regular spot with regular stuff that any station sells. And with huge newspaper stand. I took first colorful magazine, turn second page and there I see an old man dressed in all jeans, with big beard smiling, holding what could be maximum 2-months old baby... all naked wearing only shoes. Baby's penis is sticking out and the way the man holds him or her is that his hand is under it, basically holding newborn's ballsack. All in color, bright and proud, second page, a newspaper about clothes that you can buy in every single newspaper store across Italy. It was commercial for supposedly oldest shoe company in Italy and the idea is that after you are born, first thing your parents put on your are shoes. I did not know whether to be shocked or what. I showed it to my Italian friends and they looked at me "what?". And then I was dumb enough to take a photo of it. I don't know... I guess wanted to show folks in USA how ads in Europe look like. Of course totally forgot about it later on.

Until a cold sweat showered me when all of sudden, when a Board Patrol agent asked me a random question: any suspicious photography you took on your European trip that I should know about ... on your laptop or your phone? No idea where he got it from... perhaps he was a mind reader or something. I barely could say "nope", but God only knows how much trouble I would have been had I told him the truth...

Sometimes you have to be super careful when you travel across the big pond... Not all laws rules and regulations are all the same everywhere, boys and girls :)

An eye-opening moment for me was when the game 'Bulletstorm' released in 2011. It was heavily criticized when it launched (and even before) but for vastly different reasons.

Germany had a HUGE problem with the violence (even the 18+ version has blood and dismemberment removed), US criticized the sexuality (two achievements were called 'topless' and 'gang bang'), and in Japan it was about the promotion of drugs (you could get drunk to perform extra skill shots) and to a lesser extent about the violence.

So every cultural region has its own ideas of what their children need to be shielded from (and what to blame social misconduct on). But they all fail to realize that the children of the others, who get exposed to the 'bad stuff', still turn out fine by some miracle.

Fail to be convinced, rather?

The United States is quite a violent place and it is reflected in its media. With multiple wars on going and a huge weapons industry people have become to accept it as normal. Prison rape is accepted as something that just happens and police across the nation are armed like military.

>The United States is quite a violent place...

This does not address the OP's question in any way.

The US is also quite a sexy place, with a lot of sex happening. Last time I heard, everyone's parents had sex at least once, and most people had it multiple times over the course of their lives!

Why then we censor this, by every definition, commonplace activity?

All of these things (violence guns, police, censorship, etc) are about controlling people and restricting freedom. "Land of the free" is an advertising slogan; America is one of the least free countries there is.

It reminds me of the story about the TV show Hannibal. There was an episode where a couple was murdered and flayed but because they were naked and their butt cracks were visible, the network wanted to censor the scene. The solution? Fill it with blood. The network's happy and they get to keep their TV-14 rating.

> So as a citizen of an EU country that's not prudish about sex, why do I have to suffer from the censorship of US companies?

Conversely, I found out after travelling a lot in Europe, making foreigner friends and moving to another state it's not about being prudish about sex but about nudity.

From my (admittedly limited) experience Americans are much less prudish about sex than Europeans (especially Western EU countries) but leagues more prudish about nudity.

I actually find it more reasonable coming from Poland. We should keep nudity private and at the same time be able to let ourself go and be free when interacting intimately with another human.

Again, from my experience, Germany (my new country of residence) is extremely open about nudity while at the same time being similarly repressed about sexuality. This actually made me understand why Slavic people consider Germanic people to be "cold" or "passionless" (no offence intended).

> Again, from my experience, Germany (my new country of residence) is extremely open about nudity while at the same time being similarly repressed about sexuality.

It's notable that younger people have a way more repressed sexuality than folks which are in the 35..40 to 60ish age bracket currently.

Ok that's actually very interesting. I noticed a similar pattern but didn't want to put too much to it.

A large contributing factor is probably that younger people have a lot less sex and start to have sex much later than e.g. their parents.

What causes that?

> So as a citizen of an EU country [...] why do I have to suffer from the censorship of US companies?

Technically, because you volunteer to. If the internet companies on your continent are not relieving your suffering, it's either the fault of them or an extremely unfortunate side effect of applying the lowest common denominator of laws on a global medium. Considering the latter, one might similarly question why other countries have to suffer the internet censorship laws of EU countries/companies.

Speaking of double standards, I do find it amusing that depending upon the article one might either despise or cheer country-specific rules affecting the global internet. We should be mindful that others may not share our morals when we impose our will on a global medium. Instead we should apply our morals to ourselves and try to encourage what we want instead of punitively trying to get our way.

Blocking "controversial" things is cheaper for social media companies than keeping them up (most of the times); they're not in the business of making a fair and enjoyable platform. They're in the business of selling you: useless subscriptions, paid propaganda, items you once searched but have no interest in or have already bought recently, questionable financial/legal services and of course everything else that would make them even slightly more money.

It's not like Facebook actively wants to choose the things that should be banned, they really do not care. It's just that their analysis shows that they could make more money blocking a few nipples because advertisers will pay more on average, and given the choice a company will chose profit over the wellbeing of their product.

I actually like the EU clamping down on internet companies (although it's far from perfect, to say the least). Companies shouldn't have so much power over society they should be controlled by society or they will just spiral towards money like a paperclip factory AI spiralling towards paperclips.

Why should it be fair that a newspaper is responsible for the public letters and ads they publish, but Facebook should not be responsible for the public's messages and ads they publish just because they don't print on paper but use the internet? If a company makes money off public content, the company should be liable for it. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Finally, it's not about people "volunteering" to abide by rules of a social media company. If it would be about the user, they would just make a setting and let the users choose for themselves what they do and do not want to see. It is in fact about advertisers dictating rules and internet companies seeing nothing in their way from screwing over their users in order to make more money.

We've seen this before, companies screwing people over to make money when there are no/weak regulations. The internet should be free, but companies generating revenue from it should be regulated.

America's attitude towards sex is more nuianced than just being prudish. On some fronts it's also hyper sexual: Music videos, advetisments, going-out fashion, tons of the world's porn is made in the US, etc.

My theory is that these two attitudes, the surface level prudishness and the hyper sexuality are actually a reaction to each other, pushing them both to become more extreme as time goes by.

This. What is wrong with nudity? What is wrong if a child sees a dick or a titty? Why are ashamed? Why is nudity such an awful thing?

It’s a religion thing primarily.

People use this explanation as a copout, have you considered why a religion would have such an attitude?

It's superstitious nonsense. Presumably it's historical and a means to control people.

Lets assume so, why specifically would these these rules be useful in controlling people?

I don't know if you're trying some Socratic method thing here. Mind just telling me what your favoured hypothesis is, if that's the case?

It's obvious that religious beliefs have poor epistemological backing and (to me) idiotic to hold. But I'm curious if you've got some novel hypothesis for their existence.

I'm religious, but speaking within the materialist framework I'd say that the uncovering of oneself is part of a mating ritual, and that by giving such a signal one without the need one is in some way being dishonest, abusive (i.e: to harass or take advantage of) or even enroaching on the relationship of another. If a person were to be exposed in front of a child it would point towards that person having certain desires for that child.

As for why uncovering oneself is a reasonable mating ritual, I believe it is similar to how in the same way that if you have a gun and are going to shoot someone you would indicate as such to ward them off by pulling your gun out of its holster.

I see. Thank you for sharing your ideas with me.

No worries, good discussion.

Could you expand?

It is not. China, India, and most of Asia have similar or more restrictive attitudes toward nudity as the US and there is no God decreeing that you can’t have sex or be sexual.

The lack of real analysis demonstrated in this topic, the western centric thinking (US vs. Europe), and broad generalizations are just disappointing for a forum full of supposedly smart people.

Thanks for the implication that I’m not smart - I’m sorry to have disappointed you.

More nuanced version of my post - cultural memory is frequently anti sex in many situations almost anywhere you go. Confucianism has tons of taboos around sex. Hindis have fewer but Indian society still has a lot of leftover laws from when the Protestant UK was determining social policy.

The places you see sex positivity and a lack of taboos over nudity are much more secular on measure.

I honestly don't understand why people compare the two.

We process fake violence and sexual content very differently. When we see someone get their head blown off in a movie it's over the top and ridiculous. Often times it's used to tell us that something major has happened while being very different from reality.

I've seen videos on liveleak that are absolutely horrific. And yet I've seen much more gruesome scenes in movies that don't make me bat an eye.

Whereas with sexual content there's no difference between naked bodies. I am sure that scenes from shows on hbo will illicit the same reaction as pornographic material.

Also, violence is easy to explain, sexuality and complex hormonal feelings are not. That's why you can have outlandish violence because a kid knows what getting hit is like and what real life physics are like whereas stuff related to sexuality opens up such a large can of worms - what's too sexually liberal, what kind of a message it sends about self worth, social norms with something kids aren't familiar with, etc.

And before someone nitpicks my response, yes the culture and systems around ratings when it comes to nudity aren't always logical or consistent, but my main point is that I don't see why these two things are compared when they're completely different things.

You’re showing the exact cultural bias that the GP is talking about.

It's actually even weirder. If Janet Jackson shows a bit of a tit on US television, it's a national scandal for a week (same in the UK). In France or in Italy, you regularly have full frontal nudity of both sex in movies or even in some commercials!

But go to a gym. In the US or the UK, people will happily wander around naked and shower together without thinking anything about it. In France and Italy, there are cabins everywhere to enforce the most strict prudery.

I think the sex is just so powerful for people that they need others to be regulated so that they themselves may be regulated. I find it striking when people campaign vigorously against sex education or contraception -- instruments of sexual liberty.

I agree, but your last paragraph highlights the problem. Whose moral standards do we have to follow? It seems like everyones (or at least a subset of nations with enough spending power).

Everything ends up lowest common denominator. Probably why I don't watch Tom Cruise films anymore.

> What's interesting to me is how Americans don't bat an eye on all the violence exposed in movies, music and games, but then become prudish when it comes to sex.

I think one reason is that violence is much easier to fake than sex.

> I think one reason is that violence is much easier to fake than sex.

If this was Reddit this line would spawn a comment thread longer than MAX_INT.

Is it? European movies have more sex in them and often have smaller budgets.

What you say about those baby pictures is quite true. My American in-laws thought it was strange my family took those of me when I was a baby.

One of the first times I traveled to the USA, I was watching TV in my hotel room and caught some sort of documentary about art. They were showing a painting by Gustav Klimt and the nipples were blurred out. I couldn't believe it! I knew about American prudishness over nudity and sex, but I didn't know it went that deep. It made me want to learn more about the phenomenon.

Some common explanations:

- The USA is just way more religious overall;

- Pilgrims were the most radical protestant Christians, they were kicked out of Europe and then spread their social norms in the USA, in a very early moment of the development of American culture. Also, according to Max Weber, and to simplify things a lot :), Protestantism = Capitalism;

- Colonization is risky business, enormous territories were available and increasing the population was urgent. This could explain both acceptance of guns/violence and the need to regulate sexual behavior.

I think there is at least some truth to all of the above, but I always feel unsatisfied. There are so many confounding factors. For example, in Europe the catholic south is more sexually repressive than the protestant north, perhaps with the exception of the UK. But the north is also more atheistic overall. Anglo culture overall seems to me to have some specific flavor of sexual repression that I don't feel from other European cultures. Maybe I'm just more used to the catholic flavor.

I have this cynical suspicion that, for a large scale society such as a country to be possible, and for people to accept collaborating with the project somehow, some tabu must be created. At least one dimension of personal fulfillment must be out of the control of the individual. This is very simplistic but, in modern USA the tabu is sex, in modern Europe it is money. I think it is common for revolutions to destroy one tabu and create another. For example, left-wing revolutions tend to point at sexual tabus as "bourgeois values". But communists can also be super socially conservative.

Yet another detail: the differences in attitude towards sex and nudity in USA vs Europe also apply to alcohol. I feel that alcohol is both way more regulated and seen as more "naughty" in the USA than in Europe.

Perhaps someone here can point me in other interesting directions. Sorry for all the rambling :)

> The USA is just way more religious overall; - Pilgrims were the most radical protestant Christians, they were kicked out of Europe and then spread their social norms in the USA, in a very early moment of the development of American culture.

Exactly, and most Americans are quite unaware of the brutal history and behaviors of the Pilgrims. They celebrate Pilgrims at Thanksgiving and teach kids only about the ships they sailed on (the Mayflower, an iconic name), not about how Pilgrims burned each other alive if they did not satisfy the religious standards of the culture. America was built on this mentality, yet it is never taught and it seeps through the culture.

The salem witch-hunts are taught but agree on the back burner.

Not only on the back burner, but as some kind of weird, separate thing. No one is connecting the dots to the puritans.

History is taught like the news is reported, disconnected incidents. I am reminded of the children in Mad Max reciting how they crashed on their airplane.

>Not only on the back burner, but as some kind of weird, separate thing. No one is connecting the dots to the puritans.

True. It's why they repeated the very same prosecution complex trap during McCarthyism. Same finger-pointing scenario, it was just a different boogeyman to be afraid of - so it wasn't "the same".

Hate to break it to you, but witch hunts were a European thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt#Early_Modern_Europe

The Salem affair is notable as "that one time we did the thing"; also, we hung our witches, we didn't burn them.

Sure these folks were Europeans, perhaps selected for nastiness.

Aren't these Victorian era leftovers? It would explain UK and USA to some extent. Also I'm not sure, but isn't Spain also more relaxed in case of nudity?

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