Posted by Ryan on September 6, 2005, 9:24 am, in reply to "Part 11: East meets West?" I walked on, figuring I should go back to the center now. I walked a few blocks, passing by a peasant person or two here, another there. Along came another peasant man, and I couldn’t help but see, as, in one movement he turned to the wall while reaching his hand down to his crotch, then flipped his penis out right in plain view, its uncircumcised tip making it look like an inch-thick dark earthworm wiggling between his thumb and index finger as he flopped it out, while turning to the wall. I turned around and looked behind me. There was a mother walking along, holding her two little girls by the hands, one of them maybe nine or ten, the other about seven or eight, walking along facing his direction. I looked back at the man. Now a stream of urine was squirting against the wall. I looked at the woman and her two little girls again. He was facing them, they were facing him—how could he not have been in their field of vision when he flipped the thing out? How could they not have seen him—and it? And with nonchalant looks on their faces, they just walked on as if nothing were happening. Another day I was out walking again and passed by a trash-cluttered vacant lot on a corner with nothing but a wire fence around it, some of the sections of the fence broken down. There was a man in filthy, grimy clothes standing in it. He had his pants down to his ankles, and he was taking a rag and bending over, wiping his legs off. In the other direction there was a girl, about 12 or 13, walking along the street that went by where he was, carrying a basket on her head. I thought, ‘Now is that girl going to... SEE him like that?’ As I continued on, I took a look from what was going to be her view. His bare bottom was facing her while he was bending over, and with his pants down to his ankles, between his legs, his anus and the underside of his scrotum and penis were showing (a very repugnant sight, I thought, actually). I watched the girl’s face as she got closer to him. She was looking his way, and I noticed her mouth was open a little. Yes, she was seeing him. This baffled me. Didn’t he even care? And was this just permitted? But the thing that was really baffling, and seemed to contradict it all, was that this wasn’t a culture that was just totally relaxed about the whole idea of nudity—you did NOT just go naked somewhere in front of everyone. If it were, say, Sweden, then the answer would be simple as to how such things went on: no one cares. But it wasn’t a culture like that. People did care. So how could it be...? Now these men who took out their penises in the streets obviously didn’t have any thoughts in their minds of the idea of exhibitionism. They were from cultures that were completely different from ours. They were innocent, really. When they did, in their minds the only thing that was going on was that they had to go to the bathroom, and obviously, in their environment that was an acceptable way of doing it. For whatever reason, they weren’t thinking of it as intentional indecent exposure for the purpose of sexual gratification, as the definition goes in the developed countries. Understand that the capital city in this country is a giant crossroads between different cultures, and always has been ever since the days when Europeans took over. There are not many countries in this world that were never colonized by European powers; the handful that weren’t are the exceptions, not the rule. This country, like nearly all others in the world, had been, and spending time being colonized by a European power had created a blending between the two cultures and their different manners, customs and ways of thinking. Not only was there the difference between European society and the local culture, but there were also different local cultures, and for that matter, there were different European cultures. Number one, it wasnÂ’t only the country that took over, whose people had participated in developing and establishing all their methods for imposing European customs on the locals, but different regions of the same European countries had had some very different subcultures too. So in this place there was quite a confluence of cultures, and there always had been since the days of European occupation. In order to survive as one country, they had had to learn to accept that others around them had different customs (or perhaps, the local cultures had naturally had that more-tolerant mindset, from the beginning, of other people’s ways). I had understood that even the local tribes there tended to be more or less monogamous, except that there were so many different ones who had lived separately from all the others for so many centuries, that they had developed different subcultures amongst themselves, as well as different languages that had sprouted out many centuries ago from the basic ones. There were some languages, each of which would trace back to a completely different language phylum, and others that would be different dialects derived from the same ones, which had changed so much over the centuries that they had become unintelligible from the others. Likewise with the tribes’ cultures, and the differences between them that had developed over the centuries. Some of the tribes had a vague concept of bodily shame. They wore clothing because they had to cover themselves, but even so, the need and the concept wasn’t so clearly defined as it is in most of the modern civilizations in our part of the world. If I’m understanding their feelings correctly, I’d describe it as being to them more like it would be to us in our culture if, say, there was a man who didn’t have his shirt on, and then he suddenly found himself among a whole group of his friends, male and female, and they were all dressed in highly formal clothing for some formal occasion. Never mind the fact that our culture’s mores have it clearly defined that it’s acceptable for a man’s bare chest to be seen in public, and that it’s only certain other parts that are clearly marked off as no-no’s—in that situation, he still might find himself feeling a little uncomfortable or self-conscious, and he might find himself strongly desiring to get a shirt on anyway—and then after he does, any feelings of shame he had just had might suddenly vanish as soon as he had it on, in spite of the fact that only a moment ago everyone was seeing him shirtless and he was feeling so uncomfortable about it. That’s the kind of thing I mean when I say a vague concept of bodily shame, when it’s a situation where the exact parameters aren’t very clearly marked out in people’s minds, but they just naturally feel something in the way of shame. Likewise, I was starting to perceive that among some of the native tribes in this country, it appeared that even their more-private parts caused them no more than a vague concept of bodily shame similar to that. That is, they might feel, to some degree, uncomfortable about having these parts uncovered and having people seeing them, and they might wish to get them covered up immediately, but to them, apparently, it isn’t as serious a thing as it has traditionally been in our societies. Once they’re covered up, then they forget that a moment ago they were feeling self-conscious about it, as quickly as a man in our culture might forget about his shirtlessness the moment before, in the situation I just described. Bodily shame was something they had, but with some of them it just wasn’t so serious. All right, so there will always be variations in how individuals feel. Maybe some American men wouldn’t care anyway, at all, period, if they were shirtless among a mixed crowd while everyone else there was all dressed up in formal attire. I would; never mind that I’m an exhibitionist—and an exhibitionist means dealing with the genitals—I tell you if I ever found myself in that situation, I would really feel uncomfortable—I would really, strongly desire to get a shirt on immediately—or just to get the heck out of there. (And any less dressed than that? Don’t even think of it!) Likewise, in their culture, there are variations about how individuals feel. Some of them, after getting enough of a dose of the traditional European culture that is to be found in their country, may have their body-modesty concepts as clearly marked out as we do. And don’t forget that European culture is changing too, with many of the countries there letting their standards go back to the way they used to be many centuries ago—try France, Italy or the Scandinavian countries today, for some examples.
Link: Post a response
Board Administrator
(Originally posted November 7, 2003, 6:57 pm) 
