A friend of mine, vanillagrrl, posted in her blog about the difference between Americans and their lack of physical closeness versus other cultures where people are much more affectionate with each other. It reminded me of my trip to Europe. There it was quite common to see little girls with their arms about each other, men greeting each other with a kiss and generally a lot more non-sexual but affectionate touching than one sees normally in the U.S. Commercials on television regularly showed the naked female form to sell everything, even yogurt. Of course we Americans noticed this and were uncomfortable at first, but not really able to express WHY.Everything is about sex in the U.S. The Puritanical repression that is so prevalent in our culture here just doesn't exist elsewhere to quite the extreme as it does here. It's why we can have no problem whatsoever with little kids watching violent films, but let them see a naked breast and it's the freaking end of the world. Why are we so uncomfortable with our bodies? It's so strange.
I know I'm not the first person to come to this conclusion. I've even touched on it before in prior blogs.
One of the cultural tips we were given before going to France was to not smile at strangers on the street, as one commonly does (particularly in the South, where my college was located) here in the U.S. In fact it's considered rude not to smile. A girl on the trip with me wrote a lovely essay about this cultural difference that has stuck with me even 10 years later. What she wrote was that in French construction, when they put shutters on a window, they have a function. In American construction, shutters are purely decorative. In the same way the French smile at those they know and love and those smiles mean something. The Americans who smile at everyone, those smiles are purely decorative and makes it so you never know exactly where you stand with Americans. Do they really like you or are they just being polite?
The apartments that we lived in as part of the program were in buildings that were relatively old. They all had traditional "French" windows meaning they opened up into the room, not opened on a sliding sash like traditional Colonial windows. They also had shutters. REAL shutters. You closed them at night to block the light and the noise from the street below or to keep your neighbors across the narrow street from being able to see into your apartment. Neighbors so close you could easily have a normal tone of voice conversation across the street. You have to get used to touching people if you live so close, there's just no way to get through life without being willing to touch other people.
It has been quite a long time since I have been touched with affection by an adult. Here, it's just not done. Personal space is held quite dear in America. This isn't always a bad thing. Once a guy at work touched my shoulders and then on another occasion my hair and it creeped me out so much I had to ask him to not do it again. A guy in my circle of friends was the touchy-feely type and as a group we all were creeped out by it, and we collectively laughed at him behind his back because of it. I'm ashamed of it now. On the other hand, the idea of him touching me right now makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I don't remember the last time I hugged my mom or dad, let alone my brothers. It's just not done in my family among the adults. How sad is that?
It's almost as if we reserve touching to a purely sexual act, when it shouldn't be that way. I want to not be that way, but years and years of NOT being that way, with associating touch with sex make it nearly impossible.
If it wasn't after 1 am, I probably would edit this better and make it more coherent, but I really need to get to bed.
