The town fathers discuss the newcomer to town |
The pastor used the occasion to give us boys a sermon on the
importance of modesty. It’s
perfectly all right, he said, to disrobe in front of other boys, illustrating
the point by splashing his naughty parts with talcum power after we had all
showered together – I had never seen anybody do that before. We didn’t have genitals in our house
growing up.
But one must be extremely careful to show respect for girls
by never letting them see you with your shirt off unless you were swimming or
something like that. He then told
us about his days as a chaplain in occupied Japan right after the war. “We had to teach the Japanese modesty,”
he said, almost as an aside.
“They used to take baths together, men and women, and when they
travelled overnight on the train, they’d strip down in the aisles before climbing into bed. No shame at all!”
I thought that was weird, and I knew instantly it was
terribly wrong. What primitive
people. It must have been
difficult after the war, teaching them about democracy and decency and so much
else. Thank God I live in a
country with such wonderful values.
The Marshall Plan. Lessons
in decency. So much we have to
offer the world.
The Japanese learned their lessons well. Mixed bathing is no more,
although I have heard there are some outposts where it still occurs when nobody
outside the region is around. And
I remember sitting in an onsen in Northern Japan once where the men were bathing
and the women had to pass through to get to the women’s section. The convention was they had to shield
their eyes.
In public restrooms women come in all the time to clean the
urinals without worrying that there are dozens of men doing their
business. The fact that
these are always older women, and never sweet young things, defines the limits.
I remember how surprised I was the first time I went into the history of
homosexuality in Japan to learn how open it once was, given that
when I first went to live there in 1970 homosexuality was even more taboo than
it was here. There was a time,
though, not so long ago, when it was anything but taboo. The ancient samurai had their
boyfriends much as the ancient Greeks did. Now that fact tends to get flushed out of the history books,
homosexuality being a modern-day no-no.
How did it get to be a no-no? The same missionaries teaching the people not to get into
their jammies on the train in front of others, I suspect. Today, Japan has a huge porno industry,
male sexuality being what it is.
But for some bizarre reason, while you can see all sorts of quite
explicit kinky stuff in the manga, the comic book, the salary man is reading on
the subway next to you, if it’s not in manga form, but actual
photos, the genitals must be pixelated.
You can see an erect penis.
But you are required to see it blurred.
Modesty, or lack of it, is a curious thing. In some places women are expected to
hide their ankles. In others their
hair. In Japan, a woman in a
kimono is covered with tons of wrapping, but her collar emphasizes her bare
neck, all the more erotic for being the only flesh you see.
I haven’t thought about this in a while, but all these
thoughts came rushing back this morning when I read that in the town of
Okuizumo, near the Sea of Japan, folks have their you-know-whats in a knot
because one of their local boys made good and decided to gift his home town
with some art. He decided on two of his favorite
statues – the Venus di Milo and Michelangelo’s David. Had a Chinese artist make copies and planted them in the
public square.
Problem is, David isn’t wearing any underpants, and some
parents think it just isn’t appropriate for children to see what makes it Michelangelo’s
David and not Michelangelo’s Mary Lou, although she would probably not get a
free pass, either.
Don’t you love it how people use children as an excuse to
run from their own sexual hang-ups?
Even today, Japanese families sleep with their small children and they
take baths with them as well.
There may actually be a Japanese child of five somewhere who has never
seen the body of a naked adult, but I wouldn’t bet on it. This complaint has got to be
coming from an adult – or a number of adults – who learned his or her lesson
from the American occupation all too well.
Prudes have always been around. In the west, the problem was solved by putting fig leaves
over the naughty parts.
It would appear the good folk of Okuizumo have never heard
of fig leaves. I can hear
the debate in the city council now.
“I suppose we could put fig leaves over the you know…that place.”
“But then the backside would still be showing.”
“Right.”
Underpants it is.
“Dovunque al mondo…” sings Captain Pinkerton, Madame
Butterfly’s American lover.
“Everywhere in the world the American Yankee travels…sinks his anchor at
random….” And takes what he wants. That was Puccini showing a disdain for
American imperialism, spreading American ways for the dubious benefit of the rest
of the world.
Wonder what Puccini would have said had he lived to see
Pinkerton replaced by American missionaries.
Same spreading of American values.
Only this time it’s all about underpants.
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