Cover you Eyes!

Even though this native of Texas has now been living in Regensburg for three years, some things still manage to surprise her.

Super Bowl halftime February 1, 2004, the legendary Janet Jackson performed on stage with successful heart-throb Justin Timberlake. At the very end of a lusty performance, Justin rips off a piece of Janet’s costume - revealing her breast for 9/16 of a second. At this very moment, as if the stage had blown up, everyone in the living room at the Super Bowl Party screamed, “Ohhh My God! Did you see that? Did you see what Justin just did?” And those who didn’t catch it were hoping for a replay.
This very performance resulted in lawsuits made against the performers, a $550,000 fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission against CBS Corporation, and the performers having to make public apologies, claiming that it was a wardrobe malfunction. Yeah, I can see the Europeans rolling their eyes at this whole incident.
America as a whole is quite conservative, and coming from Texas it’s even worse. But the things I have seen and experienced in Europe never cease to shock me, as well as my American colleagues.
In the middle of the night on German TV: Janina says: “Null, Null, Null, Vier, Vier,Vier… Ruf Mich An!” I won’t even tell you what she is doing on TV! There are so many topless women featured on television - shows about how unhappy they are, about breast augmentations, the list goes on and on… I’d never even seen two guys kiss until I saw it here on TV! That’s enough to make any American faint! Now that’s just on TV.
It amazes me to see women sunning nude by the Danube while the Ratisbona is floating by, or completely nude women dousing themselves in lotion in the locker rooms while conversing with others, or the shocking nudity of the saunas! What happens if you run into a work colleague? What do you say? “Oh hi, Frau Kohler, how are things at the office?” while trying to keep a normal face and uhh... not look?
This could be one of the hardest things for an American to adapt to, especially coming from Texas. My colleagues and I have shared our stories and laughed at how we’ve dealt with the culture of nudity in Europe. Walking nude through the women’s locker room is too much of a daunting task for us. I guess we’ll just stick to the towel for a while longer.

30.01.09 - online redaktion