[lit-ideas] Re: Kamikaze versus 9/11 Terrorists

  • From: Eric <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 04:13:39 -0500

I'm ashamed of having written about body shame without doing more prep on the subject. It seems rather intuitive to me that some people and cultures are less or more uptight about revealing the body. Though I indicated there were many applications of the term "body shame," such as a psychoanalytic or even a medical use, it was primarily everyday life I was considering anecdotally. I am guilty of not being more precise.

Take my working without a shirt experience. Playing frisbee in college or sunbathing in the Sheep Meadow in Central Park are perfect situations for upper-torso male nudity. Since I have no tattoos or scars, such exposure is anonymous in the city or the campus, and not even worth thinking about. Yet in the rural countryside it became a scandal. Why? I can only assume that my behavior violated the normal expectations of the rural locals.

There's body shame on the golf course. You can't really play shirtless on a decent course without having somebody come down from the club house to enforce the rules; on the other hand, golf courses are also known for encouraging loud and outrageous golfing clothes. Go figure.

As for Robert mentioning the Greeks wearing the same clothing at meetings, that was to enforce equality, not as a sign of body shame. Greek Olympic athletes often competed naked for the same reason, equality: by not wearing colors that associated you with a family or status, you were competing solely on the basis of your athletic merits.

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