"Sex Watch" everyone lives in each person's clothes! The naked crisis in the women's bathhouse

Before Shanghai, the friends and relatives around me always teased me: "Go to China, don't be scared by the door without toilets and the big bathhouse." "And on the first day of my life in China, I had a solid experience of a different bathing culture."

The public bathhouse in the school, a door will see the girls in the wardrobe before the scramble to remove the shackles of the body, large tracts of youthful flesh in the case of wanton flow, "What should I do?" "In the bathhouse because of shame shyness and I am not the first time to stay, nor is the first group life, but never this opportunity to directly in the stranger before the chest dew bath."

there is no door between the baths, you can see the girl across from the naked look. I casually into the bath to gradually undress, turned back to the chattering girls, with the fastest speed after washing at will be free to wipe, and then put the clothes to the original position. And compared to my cover, the local girls seem to be without a pinch, so the whole naked side of the chat side of the bath, but also three or five o'clock with the cleaning aunt in your back with a hard brush, forgot to take bath supplies girl casually into your bath room to borrow.

other from the exchange students from Taiwan are not comfortable at all, and some people start in Shanghai , and take a shower every day with their own extra-prepared shower curtains and rods, the first thing in the bath is to put the guy on the shelf first, but also some people simply do not go to the bathhouse, their own in the dormitory in the water, would rather bear a heavy two barrels of hot waters climbed six floors, only to be able to bathe alone in the room.

So in the school there is an observation: "Into the bath room before undressing, with the shower curtain, their own water to bathe, must not be locals." 」

Hide the body more, as if the heart is more stable. The less willing to reveal their own more, as if to be closer to civilization more.

But the language and behavior is always the vein, but in no door of the women bathhouse Bath, why so worried about fear, why so obscure? As Taiwanese, we are often afraid of being caught in the stereotype of "unruly Chinese", and are eager to build their own "civilized upbringing" that is different and superior. But every time I walk into the shower, I can't help but think back to those, what is the reason for us to rush for the "naked Chinese to bathe" the behavior of the "lack of civilized literacy" label? (Recommended reading: Louis Four do not bathe )

Why do we always smile at China's "naked"?

China's gradually strong, so that "civilized progress" or not become a material loss of weapons, so we are accustomed to the irony of China's economic prosperity, even if some of the upper-middle class consumption is amazing, but only "tyrants" bursting, in the connotation of the civilized level is still far inferior to the west. The old colonial thinking and racism are visible everywhere in the anti-middle complex.

When clothes are worn on a person, it is not only the judgment of beauty and ugliness, but also the dominated of power.

in the nude history, the nudity of colonial tribes is equated with backwardness and barbarism, which is actually the mechanism by which the western imperialists, in dominated non-Western countries, are used to show the progress of their own civilization, so as to tame the bodies of the colonial people to consolidate order. In the framework of civilization, sex and nudity and the original desire to combine, and be regarded as "dirty" in order to strict norms, until the the 1970s, the Western community began to actively criticize the body and mind two of the opposition, and through blatant nudity and sexual liberation to deconstruct the role of the body in the discipline.

The Wang Pao has published an article in June this year, it describes the Taiwan exchange students in the Chinese People's University Bathhouse "shock education", when this report was transferred to the Tianya forum, triggering a lively discussion of Chinese netizens, the following palindrome is a fascinating Chinese netizens eager to skim, fear of "nudity" and "backward" become synonymous: " Most baths now have doors. "," China has overtaken Japan in the economy, why not say that Japan's hot springs behind? 」

the privacy of the genital organs, is a long time the progress of civilization is not a pointer to the race to dress well "more civilized", rags is close to the savage animal. Today, the world is in pursuit of China's money to a piece, but secretly in the bottom of my heart to tease China "poor only money", even their own private parts are still learn not to cover, so we ridiculed the Chinese people wont in the bathhouse collective naked, the media fabricated Lu Dong in the Ding Taifeng blatant pee. This is always reminiscent of the late 19th century, the European and American colonialism in the east as a "yellow peril", mocking the Western gold-panning dream of Asians, is a low species.

Racial identity differences, so that nudity also has a high and low class, from the West began to burn free the nipple is to defend the advancement of women's rights, and China's common bath in public baths is rich and poor after the invisible backwardness.

It is ubiquitous to link people of color with the behavior of animals to prove their national civilization . Racism must be attached to what Peter Singer called "species discrimination", which is the difference between human and Non-human, the closer the animal is to the less as an example of the universe, which is the benchmark of civilization. But nudity does not necessarily mean backwardness and barbarism, but the clothing actually has "civilized" to the body's regulation and the power operation vein. (Take a look: China: Sex, surveillance, and the rise of "People's Pornography" (people ' s porn)

You're not just wearing clothes! The difference of bathing culture between North and South China from the perspective of shame

After combing the outside impression of the culture of Chinese bathhouse, I wonder how the Chinese people think about the public baths themselves. The students from Guangdong said: "In fact, Southerners have always been at home bathing, to school before, but also feel more shy to bathhouse!" "I am curious to continue to ask where this" shyness "comes from? Static so answered me: "I feel very uncomfortable, very ashamed ah." 」

We are accustomed to living in the world, is dressed in the world.

Public baths are different from other clusters of public space, because even in daily life, as close not necessarily have a naked relative opportunity, the hesitation and awkward to enter the bathhouse let us see the contradiction of nudity.

"China" is not a statement of the Covenant, bathing habits also have a north-south difference. The northern "Shang" is a crowd to bathe in the place, because the former house is generally no bathroom, even the toilet is rare, so in the cold winter, can be in a steaming place to bathe is a big thing. And the south due to high temperature and living habits of the reasons, the general family has convenient bathing facilities, but also imagine the public bathhouse in the noise is how a pair of landscape.

"It's very disturbing to be seen so clearly." "Static again adds a sentence." Although the public bathhouse has been ruled out as a single sexual space for the physiological male, it is still difficult to be calm in the first contact, let people see this by exposing the "physical Me" process, the role of social expectations has been temporarily faded, but we in this interrupted moment, will eventually find that the body is not the naked nature, but also bearing the meaning of social empowerment.

The body's gaze and the viewing of others ' bodies, which disturb our perception of hiding under clothing, cause embarrassment, concealment and escape in public baths, and the naked physical crisis has traces of the current social and cultural effects. (same field Gayon:"Queer Notes" bundle chest conflict: sweet and burden of the body fight )

Can feel is flowing, "a few months later, I also think this is nothing, clothes take off." "Quiet in our conversation at the end of this said, but also let me comb again for the different bath culture of the break and adaptation."

Woman into the bath room, not to achieve a specific posture, but in the process of common bath beyond the original existence, or embrace their own lack of, because women are not in order to re-enter the world of clothing, and in the public bathhouse deliberately strive to "transform", also not to challenge the social structure and consciously naked.

Such a shining stare is never had nude experience, let a person clearly see the real woman body, rounded strong breasts, slender waist, pure white skin, these body image by the mainstream culture so touted, but the body, in the public bathhouse almost non-existent.

"You look at my recent track and field of strong calf!" "," I have a lot of moles and spots really yes! "," Who in the end has the nipple can be pink ah? "The voice of the conversation, so that the body does not need a straight and pure packaging, playing with each other's eyes is directly facing the physical intimacy."

Putting on clothes also means preparing for what to be, the spirit of the whole is also focused here, and the roles that must be played in the Bath are temporarily ineffective, and those trivial habits and vague qualities are not completely divorced from us, but can be momentarily ignored, because nudity, because of bathing, has a break in the daily Freedom, There is no need to impose a social setting such as "Employee", "Student", "Lover", "child" or "mother".

Now walk into the bathhouse, I always think of Zhang ailing, "The change in mind" in the sentence: " each person living in each person's clothes." 」