Pharisaism of the “Saints” of the INTERNET

1st. step: “Whites” with the permission of the authorities enter a Brazilian Indian Reservation, whose residents still live naked. They say that they respect entirely the Indians, their culture ant their traditions and therefore want to portrait it all on photo and video. No sooner said than done!
2nd. step: One part of the result, women during a dance of fertility, is published in the FACEBOOOK.
3rd. step: The FACEBOOOK bans these photos as supposed pornography. The intimate parts of the women have to be covered first by black bars, to be allowed to return.
Seen in: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustr...l-de-filme-brasileiro-com-tarjas-pretas.shtml
Unfortunately the text is in Portuguese language.

Conclusions:
1st. If White Man cannot respect the so called “primitive people” until today, like he doesn’t since centuries, why doesn’t let them better in peace, staying at home instead of disturbing them with his futile visitations?:banghead:
2nd. If the FACEBOOK is unable to tolerate naked primitive people, why doesn’t it ban immediately all of their anthropologic records? Would be more honest.
3rd. FACEBOOK additionally seriously affirms that nudity of these people is not an essential detail. There would be more important aspects within culture of these people.
I cannot agree at all: while in our world the waiting rooms of psychoanalysts are full of patients who cannot deal neither with their sexuality nor with their physical body, while our police departments are too occupied with white sexual slavery, prostitution of children and crimes of sexual violations, in a village of naked Indians every woman and each child can walk completely naked without any danger of any kind at all and will be respected by everyone.
Nudity without sin is a cultural achievement of these flint stone people, which we better should learn as soon as possible,:iagree: instead of claiming about it and to beef around!
4th . Since time there is a thorn in my flesh, even, if I am already 57 that someone has to be at least 18 years old to be allowed to open in the INTERNET (not only Facebook) sites with photos or videos about naked flint stone people. The children of theirs are as naked as their parents and this fact does not cause any harm at all to the children, their psyche, their ethics. :angel:

To hell with all the “perpetuals of yesterday” in the INTERNET (if hell really were hot, wouldn’t it be wiser to stay even there :devil: completely naked…?)!

Kind regards from the stone age: Toivo

 

Take a few deep breaths, Toivo. Calm yourself--we older folks mustn't let ourselves get angry too often, even in these days of effective cardiology.

The issue with Facebook is that they face a situation where the world's demand for pornography is insatiable, they have millions of pictures being posted daily, and they want to avoid any controversial content, so that everyone will let their kids use the service, and they want to do it without spending much money. The way they handle this is to hire extremely low-paid people to evaluate posted images, people who live in poor countries where they're willing to work for tiny amounts of money (some of them in Brazil, maybe). All these workers are capable of doing is enforcing some very simple rules, so what Facebook says is "No nudity", which really means the conventionally accepted erogenous zones are forbidden. They don't say "No pornography" because that leads to arguments about what is or isn't porn, and their workers aren't able to make those judgments. Having a clear definition of nudity is a lot easier. Hence your problems with Facebook. You shouldn't try to use that service.

But there's another issue there which you haven't touched on, and that is whether the pictures you're talking about would exploit the Indians. Certainly it's normal for them to go around naked and they aren't shy about it, but among white people those pictures would be passed around and used to ridicule the Indians--in some cases, used as pornography. There's a constant joke in America about how teenaged boys used to use images of native women in National Geographic magazine in just this way, and arguments were made that it was not only exploitive but racist, because white women would never be shown in that way, in any magazine that wanted to seem respectable. I don't think that National Geographic prints that kind of picture any more (at least not in the copies I've seen in the dentist's waiting room lately--a place older folks spend too much time in).

And one final point. You said "In a village of naked Indians every woman and each child can walk completely naked without any danger of any kind". I can recall reading about a man who spent some time living among South American Indians, and he reported that in the place where he lived, the custom was that any adult woman had to be married. If she wasn't, any man she encountered was permitted to rape her. Of course the tribes will have many different customs, but it's a mistake to assume that life is idyllic there just because they don't wear clothes. It would be so nice to think that people can live naked in harmony with nature and each other, but religious people say that we were kicked out of Eden because we couldn't live without sinning--and Cain was in the first generation after that.

p.s. I love that word Pharisaism!

 

Very good response, Amontillado. I agree completely with what you say. There are indeed Native groups in Amazonia where rape and sexual assault are commonplace, as well as other types of physical abuse of women and children. Life is a living hell for women in these tribes.

I question this statement, too ... while in our world the waiting rooms of psychoanalysts are full of patients who cannot deal neither with their sexuality nor with their physical body.

Are you sure of that? Do you have valid statistical confirmation?

 

Some of the wild areas left on earth should be declared --Living Parks and the inhabitants should be left strictly alone. Otherwise they become exposed to the general greed of humankind and soon find their simple life --gone.

 

Granny--if there are rapes and sexual incidents taking place with stone age peoples, I would hazard a guess that those things would happen when exposed to "civilized" People.

 

I didn't mean to give the wrong impression ... there are many stone age people who have a wonderful attitude about nudity and sex. More than the other kind, actually.

 

Dear Friend Amontillado:

1st.) If a naked human body were shown in public, what about it?
Decades have passed since sexual libertation. Didn't we learn anything?
Some people think delicios to see the photo of a completed naked human, whereas they themselves never would have the courage to stay so in public. They have pychological problems to identify themselves with their own physical body. We should better lament them. They need help.
Censorship is no solution.

2nd.) What would you call exploitation? If I would go naked in a nudistic area and would be filmed by anyone from outside, let him do so!
He's just envious. That means he's just one step apart to learn from me.
If someone sees delicios the photographies of naked native women, what can he do? Try to copy them! This is already happening. Why body painting has become fashion? Other kinds of tribal ornamentas are followimg/will follow!
There is no explotation at all, but only White envy. Envy on the other hand is able to change our society.
White envy only causes 2 attitudes against natives: 1st. to destroy them, 2nd. to copy them. I prefer the 2nd. option.

3rd.) Different cultures have different ethics. If any tribe considers crime a woman not to marry then there must be punishment.
For us this is exotic and its punishment barbarous. But consider that the Hebrew in our Holy Bible punished nearly everything with death by stoning!
Native people do not have jails nor monetary penalties, so each punsihment has to be physical. We better shouldn't judge them according to our ideas of wrong and right in our White arrongance.

P.S.: I love Soth American natives. I married one of them. In order not to go to a brazilian jail, I do not go completely naked in public, only at home, in the village and wherever you can do so. But I go always without shirt, barefoot and with native ornaments. I go so banking, to my work in the factory, shopping, in church and at court they force me at least to use a shirt.
Most hate me for that, but let them die foolish like they are!

Yours truly: Toivo
Stone Age is different but quite delicious!:sunny:

 

Natives learn from the white and whites from the natives, even if the "perpetuals of yesterday" call that immoral or diabolic.

When natives learn from us, we shoulkd assist them, saying them which things in our society is wrong and where we fail.
You cannot put stone age people eternally into corked glass bottles.:bomb:

Yours truly:Toivo

 

Yes ,I agree. It's much better to get them out of the jungle where they can change sheets for tourists from Idaho, or do yardwork for for their fellow citizens in the cities. Four words for them=adapt and go shopping.

 

You fool:

the tribe of my wife has continous contact with White Man's world since decades. She not only speaks her tribal language but fluently Portuguese. She has gone to shool, but her reading and writing is still poor.
At home and in village she still goes topless and paints herself (and me as well).
Not only in village but also at home we eat and sleep on native vegetal carpets, instead of using table or bed.
On the other hand her eldist son is an excellent football player and enjoys computer and INTERNET.
But they all are still indians and still know the traditional way of life and enjoy it, wherever possible.

Anything against?

Yours truly: Toivo

 

Toivo, it's always interesting to hear from you. I really enjoy thinking about so-called "primitive" people and their view of the world, and of course their attitudes toward the human body. As if we could return to Eden, and they're closer to it than the rest of us!

But, I'm afraid you didn't address the issue of pornography, which is so pervasive in our fallen world. Unfortunately in thinking about representation of nudity in the media, especially the Internet, I don't think we can ignore it. Yes, the sexual revolution was decades ago, or maybe it began decades ago and it's still going on, but when it's combined with cheap and easy to use technology (even Indians are on the Internet!) porn is incredibly easy to spread around, and lots of people want it. Back in the 50s and 60s, they could print pictures of native women in their usual costume and nobody would suggest that it was pornographic: now that's the first thing anyone will think of, and any depiction of nudity has to be defended against the accusation. Unfortunately, naturism gets used as an attempt at an innocent cover all too often, and so might "anthropological research". And if it's true (and I claim it most definitely is) that images of naked women, from any context, will be picked up and circulated and enjoyed as pornography, could you willingly let it happen to your Indian friends? Even if they wouldn't understand much about what was happening, we do understand, and I think we have to protect them. It is strange to think that it's a thing they have no experience of and wouldn't know was happening, but I still think it would be an attack on their dignity.

You say "If I would go naked in a nudistic area and would be filmed by anyone from outside, let him do so!" and that's easy to say, if you're a middle-aged man. We just aren't used to feeling vulnerable by being looked at, but I think it's different for women, and maybe more in a Latin culture than a northern European one, and as for a Native culture, I just wouldn't know. How cautious do women in your wife's tribe feel they have to be in everyday life?

If I'm getting your story right, you say you have Indian stepsons, who are fluent with the Internet? I'd be interested to hear what they make of the things they find there. In fact, maybe you could talk with your stepsons about the portrayal of tribal women--how do they feel about it? I hope they haven't accepted the western idea of nudity automatically being an erotic thrill.

 

Oh Toivo, I am sorry that we must part company at this point. I think it's another topic to talk about sexual issues (except to make it clear that naturism isn't sexual). In fact, to mix sex with body acceptance is to invite people to see the whole thing as sexual. Basically, I think the world ought to be more tolerant of nudity and I'll advocate for that any time; but if someone thinks there needs to be a change in society's attitudes toward sex, I want that campaign to be something totally different, and it's not likely that I'd ever be involved. So I'm suggesting that if someone uses naturist pictures, or pictures of naked tribal people, as pornography, we should respond in some way that recognizes pornography as different from naturism, not by saying "There's nothing wrong with pornography". Not that I'm saying pornography is necessarily harmful--that's another topic altogether--but I just want it to be clear that naturism isn't porn and shouldn't be used that way.

 

Dear Amontillado:

I think it is like an alcoholic drink:
- some people just enjoy beer,
- others want to become drunken.
The first is natural and harmless. The second option includes some illness.

Yours truly: Toivo