From: s1006420@titan.ucc.umass.edu (If you want peace work for justice)
Subject: Re: Female breast (bosom) experience wanted!
Keywords: femal breast bosom
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 03:56:55 GMT

In article <Bvtpxo.Mo@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>In article <mrs.718489790@athena.research.ptt.nl> mrs@athena.research.ptt.nl  (Marieke Schuijt) writes:
>>s1006420@titan.ucc.umass.edu (If you want peace work for justice) writes:
>>
>>>In article <annius.718390197@freyr> annius@sif.research.ptt.nl (Annius Groenink) writes:
>>>>wuytswin@athena.research.ptt.nl (Wuijtswinkel R. van) writes:
>>>>OK girls. Put your breasts on the scanner and FAX them to PTT Research. Will you
>>>>bring me a copy, Ronald?
>>
>>>I see a lot of sexism on USENET, such as the post above. I am not
>>>in favor of sexism, racism, etc. and I also do not the like the
>>>condescending (when not demeaning) way which sexist men refer to women,
>>>an exact paralel of the way racist whites address people of color.
>>>I think this needs to improve.
>>
>>I totally agree with this and I still think that Ronald and Annius
>>should be hanged from a tree by the balls for 48 hours!
>
>
>  Actually there might be material of anthropological interest
>  in this topic yet . . . 
>
>  I was in Amsterdam for a week last October and I was surprised
>  at the sexual frankness to be found all over the city (i.e.,
>  not just in their famous "red light" district).  America will
>  not even show bare breasts in public, say on posters or advertising.
>  I've seen the occasional bare breasts or bottoms in ads on subway
>  trains or city streets in France, Germany, and Japan, but . . . 
>
>  In Amsterdam I saw posters featuring photographs of fully naked
>  men and women shown from the front.  In one (an ad for a play
>  going on at the time and plastered up all over the city) there
>  was an erect penis with a woman making a face at it.  EVERY
>  major postcard and gift and souvenir shop my wife and I went
>  into seemed to feature, among the usual postcards of tulips,
>  canals, and windmills, a popular postcard of an "eye" -- only
>  a second glance revealed this to be a photograph of a woman's
>  vulva with a glass eyeball inserted in the vagina, and the
>  whole photo tilted on its side.  
>
>  I've been to almost every major city in the world and Amsterdam
>  is actually one of the most charming cities I've been to; the 
>  people are friendly; they have done an extraordinary job of
>  preventing the steel-and-glass architectural disease that has
>  destroyed many other cities; the city is very "international"
>  and very walkable, and has a good public transit system, and
>  is full of history and I hope to return there someday (and any-
>  one who knows me knows how rare it is for me to express a
>  desire to go to ANY city!)   But after returning home, an
>  American friend of mine with two children in grade school 
>  asked me if I thought she and her family would like to visit
>  Amsterdam.  I had to tell her, "yes, but there's a few things
>  you should be prepared for . . .".
>
>  In light of all this I'm surprised at the topic here.  I
>  would have guessed (wrongly) from what I saw in Amsterdam 
>  that with sexually explicit images apparently being old-hat
>  among the Dutch that the fascination or preoccupation with
>  bare breasts displayed by the original poster would be daily
>  satisfied and so wouldn't exist.  On the other hand I'm 
>  surprised at the reaction as well, since it suggests a
>  prudishness that is also belied by the reality of Amsterdam.
>
>  Is this another one of those "cultural contradictions" on
>  sexuality that seems so common in major cultures?  For instance
>  the way communal bathing was accepted for centuries in Japan 
>  but pubic hair isn't allowed in skin magazines?  Or the way
>  nudity and toplessness is banned in most public places in the
>  US but sex is used to sell every product there is here?
>  
>
>---peter
>
>
To confound or distort sexuality with sexism is really inappropriate, to say
the least, but I think some people would rather do that than deal with
sexism. 

Vera B.

Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,soc.culture.netherlands