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Sunday, October 20, 2019

THE NAKED TRUTH

THE NAKED TRUTH


There are lots of differences between older and younger generations.  The reasons behind some of these differences are obvious.  Many in my generation do not like computers and gadgets.  We get frustrated with things that are just second nature to the younger generation.  We see no reason to learn new ways to do things when the old ways have always served us well.  We tend to believe all the changes brought about by technology are causing us to lose important skills.

“Kids today, with all their keyboards, don’t know how to write in cursive (script or longhand in my day) anymore.  Soon it will be a lost art!"

Really, who cares? Why do we need to write in script when we have keyboards?  In my day the lost skill old people were afraid we would lose was Latin.  Everyone had to learn Latin. 

“Most of our words have Latin as their origin.”


“You can’t be a doctor or an engineer without learning Latin.”


“Latin may be a dead language, but it is important to learn.”

And so we learned Latin.

“Omnia Gaul es devisit en tres partes.”

“Veni, vidi, vici.”

Guess what, it was not important to learn Latin.  It was stupid to learn Latin.  Learning Latin was a waste of time.

Where am I going with this?  I’m not sure; I’m just noticing that the evolution of ideas in this day and age is moving at lightning speed and us old people are getting overwhelmed by it.

What prompted me to reflect on generational differences was my observation on nudity.

When I was a youth, there was no nudity in magazines, movies or TV.  If you got your hands on illicit naked pictures it was very exciting.  Today there is nudity in movies, TV, and magazines.  People walk on the beach practically naked where in the early nineteen hundreds (before my time) swim suits covered the whole body almost burka-like.  Nudity today is no big deal.

AND YET

Young men today will not undress in gym locker rooms.  They do not shower together with other young men.  If they do shower at the gym, there are separate showers.  
Old dudes do not have this hang up.  We grew up forced to shower after gym or sports practices.  The showers were open rooms with multiple shower-heads.  There was group singing, and plenty of horseplay in these showers.  I know; gay right?   Except unless you were gay, we did not even know gay existed, so showering together was harmless.

In college, and no one wants to believe me on this, at our all men’s school, we had swimming as a PE course; everyone swam naked and thought nothing of it.  Swimsuits were not allowed!  I don’t recall anyone being embarrassed. I don’t recall any bullying, although we did all became quite proficient at making a “rat’s tail” out of a towel and inflecting welts on each other’s rear ends.

I find it ironic that in my younger days, when homosexuals were forced to hide their lifestyle, when most of us did not even know such a lifestyle existed, we participated innocently in what today would be considered gay activities and today when homosexuality is becoming an acceptable lifestyle (I know, we still have a ways to go) it is unacceptable for men to be naked in each other’s company.

A generation of men intolerant of homosexuals was comfortable in their nakedness with other men.  A younger generation that is more acceptant of the gay lifestyle finds it unacceptable to be naked around other men.

If you are waiting for my point, I’m not sure I have one.  Maybe it is just that generations are different, sometimes the reasons for the differences do not make any sense, and sometimes when you pass sixty your mind tends to wander a lot.

Tempus fugit!  

Re-run from October 2012 

15 comments:

  1. Latin may have been a waste of time, certainly I don't remember any of it now, but I loved it at school. I despised French, which I probably should have paid more attention to.
    I'm not a fan of nudity, whether alone or in company. I prefer being clothed. I don't like it on TV and in magazines either. A little mystery is better than acres of skin.

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  2. I am in that age group that dislikes nudity but I realise that I am old hat and my opinion doesn't count.

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  3. I flunked first-year Latin twice, so this delighted me. Thank you.

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  4. I think I'm somewhere in-between these 2 groups! I haven't been in a locker room since high school in the 1970s, but I remember that shower room (and getting snapped with a towel enough). But it was also a time of huge gay paranoia, guys asking & accusing other guys of being "faggots" every--single--day. I got accused of it for being a lefty when playing ball!

    To be honest, I'm surprised sometimes how far we HAVE come--a couple years ago, my niece (who was a senior in high school) posted her prom pics on Facebook. My sister told me they weren't dating, just friends. I still thought "who is this fella" and looked him up on there. On his profile page he listed his fears as "ghosts & frogs, in that order". Under Relationship status, he put "Seeing no one, but into men". A high school kid, unafraid to share that! It's a different world than the one I grew up in!

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  5. " ... ... ... it is unacceptable for men to be naked in each other’s company."

    Not always so. In nudist camps men AND women have no problem with airing their differences. And they don't need to speak Latin to do it. Although they have to look out for mosquitoes and yellow jackets.

    God bless, JoeH.

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  6. Oh, the irony! It doesn't make much sense. I do think that younger generations have more hang ups with their bodies than previous generations had, and it could be due to unrealistic images of perfect (nude or partially nude) bodies that we've become used to seeing for the past 40 years in the media.

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  7. I remember the showers too. Same in the girls locker room. Never thought much of it either. You showered, dressed and went to the next class.

    Have a fabulous day and week, Joe. 😎

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  8. I'll have to ask my son about this. Not that he goes to a gym or is athletic in any way, but just as a general curiosity. Interesting topic though.

    betty

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  9. Me too. Two years of Latin and “Veni, vidi, vici” was all I retained. Didn't know that about young men being shy about nakedness. Hum?

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  10. Eh, nobody could read all that cursive when it was a thing anyhow, you just kinda judged the squiggles and made up what you thought it SHOULD say ...... except for first-borns, seems parents spent hours, days, weeks trying to get their first-born writing to be a thing of beauty. Big Brother went through torture whereas I just had to make it squiggly enough to make 'em happy, intelligibility optional.

    And on the nudity thing? We've seen the movies and the mags and them jerks ruined it for all of us by parading out only the sexiest sans clothes making too many of the young-uns ashamed of it all. We seldom if ever see reality nudes so it freaks out average ordinarys. Then again, back in the day we was a LOT less sensitive towards those with sensitivities. I got over it REAL quick when I realized the shyer you was the more likely your clothes would disappear whilst you showered. And nowadays showering after athletics is optional Sensitivity), then it was compulsory (rude reality).

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  11. I just did not know this about naked men, young or old. Now I am reflecting on the state state of my knowledge of naked men.

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  12. The cartoon is hilarious. I didn't know being naked was such a big deal with guys. I don't think girls ever had that hang up or maybe it was just me. My mom said every time she dressed me I'd have my clothes off in 5 minutes. It's true. I could totally live in a nudist colony. Then or now. Guys are weird.

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  13. i think you shared what came in your mind dear Joe and i found it worth reading with slight touch of amusing humor and lots of sensibility

    in world of today we cannot judge anyone or any group with his single action though for me it is bit difficult to point out my thoughts about the topic and it is because that where i belong nudity is BIG DEAL

    inspite of so much hypocrisy it is but in my personal opinion it is absolutely unacceptable because i feel uncomfortable to even look at such stuff on t.v and skip it away
    in simple words i find it totally UNNATURAL behavior

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  14. I mean if it is natural why people wear clothes anyway in normal circumstances

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