Are Danish people really comfortable naked?

Generally speaking, there isn’t a more prudish country in the world than the U.S.

The Danes in question would be better qualified to answer questions about their comfort level with nudity than a group of people who know nothing about them.

I imagine it would be difficult to wear clothes if I was a type of pastry. Perhaps that’s it.

@dverhey : I can’t stop laughing.

@Trillian : I didn’t know if there were any Danish people on this site – there could have been, and there might be. And I can’t really just hop up and ask them since they’re all the way in Denmark right now anyway.

I think you would have to do a scientific poll of Danish people to be absolutely certain what their attitudes toward nudity were, but I’m thinking probably yes.

I would temper the observation that @wundayatta made by saying that there probably isn’t a more prudish generally non-Muslim nation than the US. Most predominantly Muslim nations are far stricter than we are about covering up excess skin. I suppose Hassidic and other fundamental Jews are similarly strict about covering excess skin (and hair, on a woman). But outside of those generalizations and to make one more, the US is pretty strict on this stuff, both in public and in private.

If you bankroll it, I would be more than happy to research this question. Also, I would need to choose my subjects.

@CyanoticWasp And how exactly did Muslims and Jews enter this conversation????

@lillycoyote Don’t you remember that hullaballoo in Denmark about people blaspheming Islam? I don’t remember if it was the cartoonist or the day of drawing Ayatollahs in disrespectful positions.

According to Beowulf, yeah. >_>

@wundayatta I do remember that. I just don’t remember how it might have worked it’s way into this conversation.

Maybe it’s the little mermaid in them :¬)

@lillycoyote isn’t it clear from my response? It was a qualifier of what @wundayatta said to lead off the thread. And then I qualified my qualifier.

I think that standards regarding what is and isn’t “okay” with respect to nudity are just generally more relaxed in Europe. I’m thinking nude beaches and the fact that in some European magazines (not porn – I mean tabloids and such) nudity seems to be shrugged off.

I wouldn’t know whether Danes are more comfortable with it than anyone else, but I think Europeans are more comfortable than North Americans.

Muslims, @CyanoticWasp reminded us, are more prudish that even Americans. Or rather, some Muslims are—certainly those from the Middle East. I’m not sure about the ones in Indonesia.

One would expect this, of course. In the Middle East, there are a lot of deserts, and if you don’t have covering, you won’t last long. It’s pretty practical. In Southern Asia, it’s hot, but it’s a different kind of hot, and a lot of water is available. So I don’t know this for a fact, but I would expect Indonesian Muslims to be less prudish than those from the Middle East.

Danes, of course, are much less prudish. Maybe that’s why they make fun of Muslims…....

or not.

I would hope the Danes would think of the comfort level of their hosts. I would be very uncomfortable with naked people walking about in my house. Manners are making sure the other people you are with are comfortable.

@wundayatta the Muslims in Indonesia dress and act much the same (at least superficially, and to my old Western eyes) as those in the Middle East. Not that I have ‘extensive’ experience there, but I have been there, and the dress (especially skin and hair coverings for women, though not the full-face masking) is similar. (But even that isn’t universal across the Middle East, either.)

I was in Denmark once in the summer and never saw any naked Danes.

I am Danish. I have been Americanized (is that a word?). But, from everything I know about us Danes, I’m pretty sure it is, as it is with the rest of the world, up to each individual comfort level. If you don’t like the idea of walking out of your bedroom to a bunch of naked people, tell them to put something on.

Usually nudity has its custom, too. Like in the sauna. Probably not in the living room.