Sesso e il Corpo

My puritan upbringing presented me with new challenges when living in Italy. Most prominently my shame surrounding the body and sex. All good puritanical leaning cultures indoctrinate shame in growing children as soon as possible. The history behind this behavior is long and varied depending on the sect of religiosity, but I was well indoctrinated to the fact that “good girls” don’t do certain things. Namely, they don’t behave like boys, they cover their bodies with decorum, and they don’t above all have unfettered sexual desires. TV wasn’t well monitored in my household, it was the 80s after all, and there were unnecessary breasts in just about every movie, but I was unprepared for the nakedness of Italy.

Nakedness and pornography in Italy are like McDonald's in the United States. McDonald’s has been present in the United States for so long everyone is just used to the idea of fast, crappy food. No one blinks an eye at the realization that the hamburger tastes very little like hamburger, or the limp fries taste very little like potatoes, or the fact that one can drive up and get food in a matter of minutes and drive off. In the United States, this system seems as normal as breathing. It’s just how things are, fast food is just around, and some people eat it, and some don’t. The same is true of pornography and nakedness in Italy.

I was shocked while staying at Angela’s house one day after turning on the TV in the late afternoon to find a woman naked and doing sexual things. I was embarrassed, mostly because I was curious, but I had been taught to be ashamed by my curiosity. Everything about sex and nakedness in my life was hidden behind clothes, whispers, knowing glances, and closed doors. No one ever explained anything, and nothing was on display. When I asked Angela if she was afraid of getting in trouble because of what we saw on the TV she looked confused. “This is how Italian TV is like,” she explained. Angela was right, in Italy, nakedness just was. It was a normal part of life: on the TV, in magazines, in movies, in posters on the boardwalk, or trash lying in the street. No one thought anything of nakedness or the body. Humankind was compartmentalized into the flesh and the spirit. The different human segments gave over priority depending on the occasion. During church services, weddings, and christenings the sanctity of the spirit required covering of the flesh and reverence for piety. On the other side of the spectrum, when appropriate the body was free to be flesh. Angela and I achieved great mischievous satisfaction underneath the beach boardwalk spying on the many steamed-up parked cars rocked by naked proprietors. The challenge was to sneak up undetected and bang as loud and fast on the car window as possible before turning to run with lightning speed. We never really saw anything, just fuzzy and blurry movement, but it was a thrilling challenge to frighten those engaging in the flesh outdoors. Apparently, they had nowhere else to carry out their urges. Perhaps they were grown adults, broke and still living with their parents, or local gentleman with a prostitute, we would never know.

Angela was dying for me to go to the beach with her and her family one weekend because they were doing a big family get together. I told her I would ask my mother about it and try to go. My mother was vehemently against us ever going to the beaches at Castel Volturno because she had heard rumors that…so and so…stepped on a heroin needle and had to have a tetanus shot. When I asked my mother, she said, “not in a million years.” When Angela brought up my coming to the beach with her again, I told her what my mother said about the needles, she was visibly wounded by this. I immediately felt bad and regretted saying anything—what did my mom know anyway? We devised a sneaky plan for me to go anyway by telling Angela’s mom (who did not speak English) that it was completely fine for me to go. Since Angela’s mom and my own couldn’t communicate they could never collectively check up on our dealings. When we arrived at the beach, I must admit, regardless of Angela’s reassurance I was afraid to take off my flip flops in fear of the needle rumor—what if my mother was right? The entire family was down by the beachfront sprawled out on beach chairs with towels. Wine and snacks being passed around and all the women were nude except for bikini bottoms. The old women, the young women, the fat women, the fit women, breasts that were underutilized, and those that had been utilized plenty in motherhood, all nude. Of course, the men were basically wearing bikini bottoms too as far as I could tell. I felt shy and embarrassed and the women could tell. They talked and laughed, and Angela relayed their message, “they say this is natural, in Italy the body is normal, everyone has body.” The women looked at me with pity because they could tell I didn’t understand this simple truth.

The shame of the puritan over their body, the one thing in life that carries them from cradle to grave, is a strange concept to Italians. It is a strange concept for me as well. The Italians are judgmental without a doubt in many areas and for many reasons, but the human body isn’t something to judge. They understand that there are times for the flesh to be honored and times for the spirit to be honored. In honoring the one you are not automatically condemning the other. Italians are very modest and reserved but they are realists who don’t create dreamy narratives around human nature. They know they are human and not yet spirit. The afterworld will arrive for everyone so there is no point in living like the Judgement is already here.