[Note: in my
last blog post, I embarked on a long and meandering examination of America’s
Mainstream Morals – as exemplified by the media in general, and by the Motion
Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) film rating system in particular. Alas, I spent so much time ruminating on the
subjects of swearing and violence that I left no time and space for nudity and
sex. I’m sure you’ll be glad to know
that I am ready to remedy that now.
Warning: at this juncture, certain individuals may wish to make a quick
escape, lest I never, ever get invited to family gatherings ever again. Here, try this: http://emergency-kittens.tumblr.com/]
“Hey, wait
for me!”
But even
after ten miles of hiking, there was no curbing the self-potentiated
critical-mass-energy of six children. I
was still standing on the damp planking around the wooden hot tub, struggling
to undo the laces on my muddy hiking boots, by the time all half-dozen kids had
morphed into a squeaking, giggling, toe-dipping, splashing tangle of buck-naked
happiness.
“Hesitation”
and “modesty” did not appear to have registered on anyone’s radar.
Before our
four-family trip to remote Tolovana Hot Springs this fall, I – the fearless
Trip Organizer -- sent out a few logistical emails. In them, I offered thoughts on the difficulty
of the terrain, the unpredictability of the weather, and the delicious
unhealthfulness of the food that Jay, the twins, and I would be sharing. I also broached the topic of nudity.
I was in
favor of it.
Right. So, when I sent that email, I was a bit
anxious about coming across as the Hippie Parent with Wanton Moral Values. Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that,
in fact, I am the Hippie Parent – with, well, shall we say “non-standard” moral
values? However, I don’t like making people
uncomfortable. I came out in favor of
nudity at Tolovana for purely practical reasons: getting out of a hot tub in
below-freezing conditions and walking several hundred yards back to a cabin is
horrible, if one is wearing a sopping wet bathing suit. Moreover, putting that wet suit back on a
couple of hours later for a subsequent soak would be pure torture. Really, regardless of which friends and
family one is sharing Tolovana with – and how much clothing one might normally
wear in the company of this particular assortment of adults and kids -- the
only comfortable attire under these conditions is a birthday suit and a shrug.
The MPAA –
and most of Mainstream America, it seems -- would not agree.
Where does
America stand on nudity? Well, as far as
I can tell, the answer is “cowering behind the shower door, with a bathrobe on.”
Even single-sex bareness in pool locker rooms appears to stress out my
countrywomen. Everyone clings to towels,
and dresses in a hurry. Strangers do not
chat, smile, or even make eye contact.
At all our local pools, kids are – by strictly posted Borough-wide
policy-- not allowed into the locker room with their opposite-gender parents if
they are over the age of four. Okay, Fairbanks,
we have carefully followed your rules – but anyone who has witnessed the
results of a lone five-year-old attempting to successfully juggle the
intricacies of lockers, towels, dirty clothes, wet floors, clean clothes,
peeing, showering, shampoo, goggles, and little plastic swim tokens can see
that there may be a few kinks in the system.
Last time Jay took his daughters swimming, they did pretty well -- but
Lizzy emerged poolside with her bathing suit on backwards. Luckily, no one fainted at the resulting glimpse
of near-invisible little-girl nipples.
In contrast,
in Iceland, where last summer we visited lots of hot tubs – and thus lots of
locker rooms – towels seemed to be used for drying rather than for hiding. In one such small-town venue, the kids and I
had a lengthy unclothed discussion with a total stranger about her
horse-breeding business. The children were way too interested in the chit-chat
to focus on donning any sort of apparel.
Icelandic ponies!
Indeed, in
most of Europe, things are a bit more… laissez faire. I remember going to France when I was 13 and
my sister was 16. We were startled to
find that there were topless women not only on all the beaches, but also hiking
around in the Alps, blithely asking directions of gobsmacked American teenagers
who spoke laughable French. (“Pardonnez-moi, mais vous me montrez vos seins.”)
Even the
Brits, whom we Americans like to portray as stuffy as all get-out, are more
relaxed in this regard. My (English) mother
has described an incident that occurred shortly after she first moved to the
U.S. in 1970, with her American husband and child and her shiny new green card. The weather was hot, so she let my sister
play in a kiddie pool on the lawn. Almost
immediately, a neighbor appeared – scandalized. Heavens, this would never do! Little Sarah should be put into a bathing
suit immediately!
My sister
was one year old at the time. Or maybe
she had just turned two? In either case,
she was a baby. Splashing innocently in
the water. But… naked.
I won’t even
go into the awkwardness I managed to create amongst my fellow Americans, seven
years ago, by nursing twins in public. I
tried not to let it all hang out, but there were two of them. Do you know how hard it is to juggle a pair
of squirming, hungry, crying, babies while making your shirt and/or an
assortment of stifling, awkward blankets into a Magical Chamber of
Concealment? Ok, let’s up the ante: now you have to do this on an airplane. Yeah. I’m so sorry, America. I have breasts.
If Americans
are uptight about milk-greedy infants and bare-butted babies, they are even
more anxious about the mere idea of naked adults, particularly in the presence
of kids. This is super-duper-taboo in
real life, on TV, anywhere. Reflecting
these mores, the MPAA isn’t taking any risks with naughty bits.
As I pointed
out in my previous post (Swearing!
Violence!), I feel that MPAA ratings – and social rules in general –
would make the most sense to me if there were a clear correlation between what
we protect kids from, and things that might actually frighten, corrupt, or
psychologically scar them. Does banning
all nudity fit the bill?
Open-water
sky. Hot, bubbly, wonderfully
unchlorinated water. Splash, splash,
splash. Little feet kicking me. Little bottoms turning pink. Giggle.
Giggle. Splash. One small person decided my lap was a comfy
place to sit down, lean back, relax, and enjoy the Tolovana experience. She wasn’t my own child, but, whatever.
I don’t know
about your children, but my kids are pretty seriously untraumatized by
nakedness. I’m not talking about anything sexual here. I’m talking
about a bunch of grownups chatting in a remote hot springs, or me wandering
around the house trying to figure out where I put my clean clothes, or Jay
slipping into his bike shorts in the living room. I can’t really begin to
describe to what degree the kids Do Not Care.
Unless, of course, Daddy is wearing his Spiderman boxers, because –
AWESOME SPIDERMAN UNDIES!
The MPAA,
however, isn’t too into debating the finer points. Full frontal nudity--
regardless of whether it’s in the context of an orgy with the entire Norwegian Olympic
ping pong team or a bath with a rubber ducky -- guarantees an R. For
example, A Room with a View, the 1985 adaptation of E.M. Forster’s classic
Edwardian-era drama, won three academy awards. It also (horrors) includes
a scene in which men are swimming in the nude – which, of course, is entirely
historically accurate. Holy testicles, Batman! No one under 17 admitted
without a grownup!
Oh, good
lord, America. My kids are seven. They are okay with human
bodies. They may get all shy about their own – and those of everyone else
on the planet – when they go through puberty, but I’m hoping that they don’t start
hating human bodies at that stage – theirs, or anyone else’s. I’m hoping that if they never learn that
grownup bodies are intensely awful and shameful, the transition to actually
having one might be slightly easier.
In the meantime,
is the mere existence of genitalia and breasts likely to haunt their psyches?
They already know that boys have penises. They also have a handle on
words like “urethra” and “labia” and “vas deferens” – but I’ll admit that might
be just a side effect of having me, inveterate biologist, as a parent.
Still, don’t panic, America. My parents took me to see A Room with a
View. I was 13. I survived.
I could be
wrong, but the subtext of American fears about nudity seems to be that nudity
is always about sex – and, as an assumed-to-be-self-evident corollary, sex is bad. Bad, bad, bad! Movies can get slammed with restrictive
ratings for “sexual content” at the drop of a hat.I’ll grant that sex is private,
and sex is adult, but it’s not bad. Or,
okay, it can be bad, but let’s not be pessimists, shall we?
What,
exactly, constitutes inappropriate sexual content for young children? For bigger kids? For teenagers? Once again, I’m pretty sure I’m the hippie
outlier. Once again, I worry that I’m
likely to radically offend someone, or get banned from the PTA, or, estrange
all my hiking buddies, or, I dunno, something.
Not that I
don’t have boundaries about this. I
definitely don’t want my children to watch an explicit rape scene – or a
non-explicit one, for that matter. I
don’t want them to see women depicted as objects to be used in a degrading or
coercive manner. To be fair, I don’t
want them to see men depicted as sexual objects to be summarily used, either,
although the idea is slightly more amusing.
(Did I say that? Ignore that
comment.) But, given that they are going
to be introduced to ideas about sex at some point, I’d rather plant a few
benign or positive ideas than leave the whole mysterious subject up to random
chance, playground snickering, and internet wanderings.
And, really,
sexual references are everywhere.
Everywhere! For example, the
other day, the kids came home from school singing a new holiday song they’d
learned in music class. “Silent night,
holy night…” I listened, both pleased by
the fact that they could (sort of) manage to hit the correct notes of this
lovely melody, and unnerved that a deeply religious song was being taught in
the public school system. Where I grew
up, a good twenty percent of the kids celebrated Hanukkah, and definitely
didn’t sing songs about holy infants. “Round
yon virgin mother and child…” At this
point, one or both kids lost either the thread of the tune, or the meaning of
the words, or both. They stopped. “What’s a virgin?” asked Molly.
“It’s
someone who has never had sex,” I told her.
Both kids
stared at me for a moment. Then they
laughed. “That’s a weird song,” said
Molly.
My seven-year-olds
know what “having sex” means. They know
because I answer all the questions they ask me, as clearly and carefully as I
can, using non-scary words that I think they’ll understand. If they keep asking intelligent questions, I
keep answering. They’ve asked whether
people have to be married to have babies, and how (precisely) the sperm and egg
get together, and whether there will be any more babies in our family -- and
why not? Why not, Mommy? Why not?
(I love you sweetie. I love
answering your eight thousand questions.
But we are most definitely not having any more babies…)
The kids
wanted to know how the children of our same-sex-couple friends were created
(sorry, you guys, for making you Educational Examples). Given the apparent complexity and weirdness
of the baby-making process, they also asked how men and women can possibly have
children by mistake – something they’d already overheard as a possibility. Once
they had absorbed the mind-boggling fact that adult couples take part in this
utterly odd behavior not just to procreate, but for entertainment, they wanted
to know how these strange sex-having grownups can prevent themselves from
having unwanted babies. They also wanted to know why our dogs and cats
won’t have any puppies and kittens. This
led to what is probably my favorite-ever kid-question to date: “Mommy, what
part of Daddy did they cut off so that you won’t have any more babies?”
And now,
quite reasonably, my second-graders wanted to know why they were singing a song
about a virgin mother. I tried to (sensitively, carefully) explain a bit about
Christian beliefs, and how they relate to the Christmas story and the birth of
Jesus (with whom the kids are acquainted as a respected historical figure and
peacemaker, rather than as a deity). I’m
not a Christian, but I did my best. I
threw in some extra words about diversity of beliefs and mutual respect, just
in case. Gosh, I love parenting! Is this why so much eggnog is sold in
December?
Honestly,
I’m not sure how other parents manage to make such a Great Big Secret out of
sex, without either outright lying (Storks!
So damned many storks!) or turning sex into a subject so taboo that it
takes on a larger-than-life fascination.
For any kid with one whit of curiosity, there are a thousand questions
to ask, and all kinds of information (and, alas, blatant misinformation) to
pick up here and there. Other animals
have sex. Often loudly and visibly. Heck,
even plants do, in their various wind-and-insect assisted ways. I recall the day when I picked up the kids,
then five, from preschool. They
excitedly informed me that they and their friend Josie had witnessed two
ladybugs on top of one another. SO COOL! “We told all the little kids [that is, the
less worldly 3-and 4-year-olds] what they were doing,” the three darling
cherubs informed me proudly. Um, good
job, girls.
I might not
be so defensive about America’s desire to protect kids from “sexual content” if
our country didn’t seem to be so wildly hypocritical on the subject. Weirdly, although nudity is anathema to the
MPAA and everyone else, our culture seems pretty gung-ho about scanty attire,
particularly if it emphasizes precisely those body-parts that we’re supposedly so
concerned about covering. The message
here seems to be that the human body is nasty, naughty, secret, and highly
dangerous to children, but at the same time an alluring commodity that girls
have, and boys want.
It’s this
double standard that really makes me bug-eyed with righteous wrath. Girls are taught – via TV ads, music,
magazines, movies, available clothing selections and even little-kid plastic
toys -- that they ought to be primping for boys, and selling themselves as sexy
objects. Math is hard; try making your
eyelashes look more lustrous instead!
But the contradictory messages come through loud and clear, too: women
are not supposed to seek out or enjoy sex, because that’s slutty and
unfeminine. If you’re female, your
sexuality is something to be touted, exploited, feared, and controlled. Daddies, lock up your girls, and get out your
guns! Yes, people have made statements
of this ilk to Jay, with regard to his two mud-stained, scabby-kneed,
nose-picking second graders. Luckily, as
far as I know, he has not started stocking up ammo.
Don’t get me
wrong; I do know that there is Bad Stuff out there, from which kids deserve and
warrant protection. Moreover, I don’t
want the twins to jump into the hanky-panky arena five years from now. However, as well as protecting them, I want
to teach them to protect themselves, and stand up for themselves, and make
their own choices, and live life with joy and enthusiasm in all realms. I want them to know what the heck sex is (emotionally
complex, varied in its expression, not without physical hazards, potentially
wonderful, but also potentially heart-breaking), and what it isn’t (tidy,
perfect, sinful, shameful, a commodity to be bartered). If we teach kids that Sex is Bad, they’ll
eventually figure out that we’ve been lying to them – because, duh, sex (at the
right time, with the right person) is… Not Bad.
And then, what will they believe? Based on that logic, I’m trying to
steer clear of the strategy of “keeping kids in the dark for as long as
possible, then awkwardly lecturing when they’ve already been wallowing in
misinformation for years.”
I do worry
about the effects that “sexual content” – from every image and message that
bombards their senses -- will ultimately have on my daughters’ self-images.
But I’m not worrying about the same stuff that the MPAA is worrying about. I’m more worried about sexism than I am about
sex. If the kids watch a movie in which
they see the bare shoulders of two grownups who are happily kissing and
snuggling under the covers, I don’t think they’ll have nightmares. When
we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I was a bit concerned that the
violence would scare them (luckily, it seems they are now old enough to discern
what is farcical); I was not at all worried that the lovely young ladies of
Castle Anthrax would corrupt or terrify them.
As Sir Galahad’s companions saved him from his dire fate amongst all
those lonely, lonely maidens, Molly noted, “You know, I don’t think he really
needed rescuing.”
The lines
are being drawn – but they are being drawn without clear attention to
context. And, in my opinion, with regard to sexual behavior, context is
everything. (Well, almost everything. Use your imaginations,
people.)
Context! Context! As I said in my last blog post,
teaching kids about context is a subtle and complicated business, but luckily,
children are surprisingly subtle and complicated beings. At age seven, I’m pretty sure my kids know
that naked people are normal and innocuous in locker rooms, or at hot springs,
or at home in our cabin -- but the twins would certainly be startled to see a
naked person in the grocery store or the library, and I think a flasher would
creep them out to exactly the degree that a flasher ought to creep them
out.
Splash. Splash.
Giggle.
I was, as I
have said, a bit worried about the sensibilities of others with regard to
Tolovana frolicking. As such, we started
out with strictly single-sex bathing.
Me. Splash. Shriek.
Gurgle. Giggle. “Look, I made a hat out of algae! Do you want an algae hat, Nancy? Here, let me make you one!” Six girls. So. Many. Little. Bodies. But after a while, children being children,
they wanted to explore. “Nancy, can we
go down to the bottom hot tub?”
“Well… sure…
but you know that there are other grownups down there, right? I think Jay’s there, for example.”
“So? We don’t care. Can we go?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.
Go ahead.” Jay loves algae hats.
“Yay!” Splash.
Splash. Giggle.
[Enough
said. If any in-laws are still reading
at this point, I promise, my next blog post will be about my lifelong adoration
of… math.]
