Welcome to Gaia! ::

Really, I think Western culture (America especially) is way too prudish. I mean people go crazy if a woman breastfeeds in public. There's no way they would show genitalia in an instructional video (unless it's in a sex education video, which people protest). But although Western culture is pretty prudish, America is by far the worst. I mean in Europe, there are nude beaches. Is there any nude beaches in America? Probably not. A person has to go out in the middle of nowhere in a nudist colony in order to not wear anything out in public. And for what? Because people are afraid of sex and anything to do with sex. Where did this fear of sex come from? Pretty much from our Puritan ancestors.
Think about it, we have abstinence-only education in most states, because a sex education that includes information about condoms and birth control would encourage little Jimmy and Erica to have sex before marriage (plus it's just wrong to talk about anything of the sexual body parts to middle and high schoolers). We had Howard Stern move from public to private radio because he reminded his audience (which might include children) that sex and s**t are natural parts of life that can and should be made fun of and enjoyed (I personally didn't find Howard Stern funny, but then again, I'm was smart enough to change the radio station if I didn't want to listen to him).
Last but not least we had a controversy about whether we should have mandatory innoculation of a vaccine for a virus that is a cause of cervical cancer. Why didn't people want mandatory innoculation of this vaccine? Because the virus was an STI and they believed that if women automically got this vaccine the women would feel they got a pass for free, unprotected sex. If you're against preventing a type of cancer because you're afraid people will have sex, then you are not only prudish, you're in ******** La La Land.
Sorry, my rant for the day.

I'm sorry that you're offended by the breastfeeding statement, but if you're going to include an anecdote, let me include one of my own. At my old job, before it closed down, I once saw a woman breastfeeding in the back of the store. She was out of the way, and no one else seemed to really notice her there (certainly none of my coworkers). I was a little surprised, but I didn't say anything to her. Eventually I joked about it with my manager. My pregnant manager freaked out and told me I had to tell her to leave. To say the least I was more surprised about my manager's reaction than about the woman breastfeeding in the store. When I went looking for her in the spot I saw her last, she was no longer there (apparently she knew that people freak out when you breastfead in public). Yes, I admire that you and your church did not freak out when the woman was not breastfeeding, but I'm not exactly thrilled that she had to face a wall to do it. Anyway it does not disprove the fact that women can't breastfeed in most public areas, except maybe in a bathroom stall (which I'm sure most people eat out of anyway).
As for the nude beach statement, I was wrong and I'm sorry. Thank you for pointing out my mistake.
When it comes to the Puritan thing, you're probably right, the Puritans are not the sole reason for American prudishness. But Puritanical beliefs and aspects were pretty influential in America, for both good (work ethic, public education) and bad (prudishness). But I was making an overstatement about Puritans, so thank you for pointing that out.
As for the HPV thing well ...

This quote is provided by www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/hpv.pdf.
Yes, the best way to prevent transmission of HPV is either abstinance or having a monogamous relationship with someone who doesn't have the infection (even says so on the document). But how many people wait for sex until they're married? Sex, no matter how some very prudish people don't want to admit it, happens very often, many times not within a marriage. Yes, there are plenty of good reasons to wait until marriage, but the fact that people commonly have sex outside of marriage doesn't change. So how many people can be sure that they are not going to contract HPV? HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease. Even if the types of HPV that cause cancer are not the most common types of HPV, and even if the HPV vaccine doesn't cover all the HPV forms, shouldn't there be mandetory innoculation for this vaccine? It prevents cancer for goodness sakes!
I'm not saying people shouldn't wait until marriage. If people want to do that, then that's fine by me. However, the choice for a person to have sex within or without a marriage is up to each individual person. I am against people being so prudish that it harms people, as abstinence-only programs and preventing mandetory innoculation for the HPV vaccine does. Letting people be harmed because of not admitting that the physical body and all of it's bodily functions is natural is wrong to me.

No, my manager made it clear that the reason the woman had to go was not because I was offended by her being there, but because she was not allowed to breastfeed in the store. I think what she said was something like, "Oh my god, she's not allowed to do that here." It was pretty ridiculous. She was very much out of the way. Also, if a customer had seen the woman breastfeed and had been bothered by it, they would have complained about it. Customers have a tendency to do that.

Ahoy there.

In response, I don't think it's necessarily true that we "hate" to see nudity. In public, we're expected to be shocked at the mere mention of any taboos that society and the media has planned for us this particular week. When things like breasts are so actively and systematically hidden from sight, what follows is a natural, instinctive curiosity as to what the hell's going on.

That's when we retreat into our private lives and find just what it is that's got everyone's undies in a twist. And we like it, even though we know (or have been conditioned to believe) that it's wrong. All because we, by our very nature, want to see what's going on behind the black box.

So, in reality, we don't hate to see these things, but in mixed company, we are forced to pretend as if we do. Just goes to show that the state of being "human" in today's society is in direct conflict with human nature itself.

On a side note, did you try chasing the kids into a corner with a fork and barbecue sauce? That seems to quell their little rebellious tendencies for the time being.

It's basically all so we can be holier-than-thou then? We get to say, "Hey, don't go around breastfeeding in public! That's wrong!" so that we can turn to other people and say, "My God, can you believe what that woman was doing? And in public no less!" We say, sex before marriage/sex without love is bad, but we can say, "Well, at least I'm not like [insert character name] on [insert show]! What I did may be bad, but at least I'm not as bad as that slutty girl [name] at my school!"

Thanks, Dru. *bookmarks* I now have vacation plans after North Carolina.

And the first, and really only, question I have, is how can we truly overcome our cultural bias with this? We'll always have it, because it's part of who we are.