Quote:Regarding german culture?
Apologies that the question is in English...As i don´t understand German - please respond to questions in English.
I am doing research for a class project on the body and I had a couple of questions regarding nudity in Germany...
1- I believe Nudism is much more accepted in Germany than in other countries, is this true?
2- Does this mean that all Germans (or at least a high majority) are comfortable with nudity in the house or in public with other people?
3 - Would it be acceptable to be in nude in ones own home with people that a person did not know so well (such as in a shared flat or a students residence)?
4 - Is it acceptable to get dressed (while in the process becoming completely nude) in front of a member of the opposite sex, even if the person did not know them so well..
Thank you for helping me with this - It is appreciated!!!
Quote:I'm French but lived in Germany and have a lot of friends there.
1) It is absolutely normal in Germany to be naked. If you go to a nudist (FKK) resort, you don't have to lie to your friends, colleagues, family etc. If you show your holidays' photos, you don't have to remove naked ones.
2) The majority (not all because there is an important Turkish community) of Germans are confortable with nudity. In the house, they don't weare pyjamas etc., they share the bathroom, they can be naked at home.
In public : you can (and a lot of people do) have a sunbath naked in parcs (even in center city like Englischer Garten in Munich, Freilichpark in Berlin etc.), nobody takes care. In swimming pool, you can swimm naked.
3) At home, there is no problem to ne naked if it is during the night and you go to the bathroom (please note that Germans sleep naked, pyjama is quite unkown there), if you go out of a shower, in the morning for your breakfast and before the shower.
But in other case, it is not common. It can be the case if you know well the people, if the weather is hot, but in America, are you only in swimsuit when you have friends at home?
I remember the family were I stayed : I've seen many times the mother, the father, or the two children (the girl 18 or the boy 16) naked.
4) You can be naked in front of member of the opposite sex as well as in front of member of the same sex. Usually, dressing rooms, showers etc. in swimming pools, stadiums etc. are not separate. Men and women dress together, take a shower together.
Including in class at the junior high school or at the high school (Gymnasium). The first time I went to Germany and I took a shower after a basket ball match, I thought I went to the bad shower room when girls came. I began to apologize, when other girls and boys came and everybody took the shower together. Then I realized nudity was not problematic at all. (One told me it is sometimes problematic with the Turkish community. But I was in Göttingen (at the same high school were Gerhardt Schröder had been student!) and there, nudity was absolutely normal).
I remember also we took the bicycles and went to the lake to take mesurements of acidity etc. with the teacher of biology (a young woman, approx. 30). And we swomm naked (not everybody, but at least 75%, including the teacher).
On a opposite side, the girl in the family where I stayed told me she went in America (California), and she swam naked in the sea : when she get out of the water, policemen were there! (Since she was young and pretty, she explained that in Germany it is absolutely normal to swim naked and she didn't know it was forbidden in America, and after all it was O.K. for her, but one of the policemen wanted to arrest her!!!)
I remember also that during the olympic games in L.A. in 1984, the French embassy had a message for French tourists that topless was forbidden in America (is it still the case today? I think topless is now legal, or not?)
Please excuse my bad English, I'm French.
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