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Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Maribor, Slovenia.
Portoroz, Slovenia.
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This blog now has an autographed postcard from a German porn star.
[A word of warning: Some of the links in today’s post lead to nudity and/or stuff that is NSFW. If in doubt, don’t click on anything.]
Ljubljana is usually described as the political, economic, commercial, industrial, governmental, and cultural capital of Slovenia. But all that changed a few days ago, when German adult-film star Vivian Schmitt snubbed the foggy capital in favor of a visit to Slovenia’s second city, Maribor.
You may remember Vivian Schmitt from such films as "Excessive Weekend," "Pure Pleasure," and "Animal Heat." She came to Maribor to promote these movies, and to sign some autographs and get nekkid on a stage. I don’t know what it says about my circle of friends that I got an invitation to this event. And I don’t want to know what it says about me that I actually went.
I have to say, first of all, that I was surprised by the many women in the audience. You can’t see it in these pictures, because once the stripping started the men surged forward to claim the best vantage points. But females were there; as were some other local notables, including the Mladina writer Max Modic. (His story is here: 48 ur z Vivian Schmitt.)
I’m afraid you won’t find my face in the leering audience. I mulled around in the back during the show, and then left early. Of course, if I was about 15 years younger it would have been a completely different story. I’d probably still be there right now, picking cigarettes up off the floor to keep as mementos. When you’re 13 and operating under the influence of hormones, a female breast is — to paraphrase St. Anselm — "something than which nothing greater can be imagined." Even catching a brief glimpse of one can be an unforgettable moment.
But maybe this was because I was raised in the United States, which has a decidedly Victorian attitude towards nudity. (Many people say "Puritan attitude," but that’s not as correct. Puritans were rigidly moral, but it was the Victorians who were hyper-sensitive to the very idea of the human body. For them, it was indecent to say words like "cockroach" or "leg" or to even mention anything related to your physical form. Like many present-day Americans, they would also have been traumatized by Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl.)
Slovenes, on the other hand, seem to have a very relaxed attitude — something that took me a while to get used to. And I guess I still find it strange that mainstream newspapers and magazines will sometimes show naked bodies. Then again, they used to air hardcore pornography on public television at night. When I first arrived here, that completely shocked my sense and sensibilities.
But maybe if I was born in Slovenia, none of it would. If we can reincarnate, maybe that’s what I’ll do. I’ll return, as Miha ManÅ¡iÄ?, and find out how different things really are…
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I think its better to have a more
relaxed attitude. A few years back I
heard a scream from the living room where
my son was watching ” Humanoids from the
Deep. The Salmon monster had attacked a
couple on the beach and I thought all the
gore scared him. I asked whats wrong. Did
the monster frighten you. No there was a
naked lady he told me. That just about sums
up the north american view on sex. lots of
violence is fine but sex is yucky
Interesting point you make about the Victorian/Puritan distinction. People tend to forget that the Puritans brought “bundling” to North America, after all.
It’s funny that a lot of years ago I thought the opposite was correct: that anything about sex was more relaxed in American and less in Europe. Now I know it’s just the other way around.
As a “Ljubljancan” I don’t know what you’re talking about her snubbing LJ. She made her rounds there January 24th, as is evidenced from the article by Max Modic
As far as nudity is concerned, I always get a kick out of the Americans’ reaction when I tell them that me and my family used to go to a nudist beach every vacation until I was 10 or so. According to them I should be traumatized for life for seeing my mother and father naked. Weird.
Puritans were equally bad when it came to sex. Anyway, while we are on the topic, dear readers of Carniola, why not take a lookie something similar on the perplexities of renting nudity (and more) where I live, in a safe-for-work way, here:
loxias1.blogspot.com/2005/01/angels-of-heaven.html
Enough with self-aggrandisement. Enjoy your German mammaries!
Oh man, now we’re talking!
I guess I should produce my account of going to a $5.75 all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at the Pink Pony. Or taking my dad to see the NCAA finals at Hooters when he visited. The bar we started out at was too crowded. Seriously. Hooters was next door and we got a seat right away.
One drunken night we ended up at the Claremont Lounge, where strippers go to die. Waffle House after that, never good news.
Good times, good times.
Disclaimer I am not a dirty little man, I ended up at these places because of a) curiosity or B) drunken stupor.
Eheh, crni is right about nude beaches, i live minutes away from one here in Portugal, spent my whole childhood there with my entire family and acording to a couple of american friends that makes me a pervert
But i think it’s actually the opposite, this way for sure i’m not paying to see something i naturally grew up with. Hooray for the Boobies 
I don’t know what you’re talking about her snubbing LJ…
Hmm. What I meant to say was that she could have gone to Ljubljana twice, but instead she skipped a second trip in favor of Maribor. (Yes.. that should stick.)
Puritans were equally bad when it came to sex
They were definitely hardcore when it came to punishing things like adultery, illegitimacy and masturbation. (All of them were capital crimes in New England at one point.) But they were loose like long-necked geese when it came to, as mig already mentioned, things like bundling . They also had no difficulty talking about sex. As David Fischer writes in Albion’s Seed:
“Sex among the Puritans was very far from being puritanical in the popular sense. Copulation was not a taboo subject in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, as it later became in the nine-teenth. It was discussed so openly that the writings of the Puritans required heavy editing before they were thought fit to print even in the mid-twentieth century.”
He later goes on to describe how they didn’t value chastity in the Roman Catholic sense, with one Boston minister calling it a “Popist conceit.”
It was the Victorians who viewed the human body as intrinsically shameful, a viewpoint that still seems to hold a lot of sway in North America, as connie’s and pedro’s stories attest.
In Latvia, we also had some high-quality erotica on public airwaves. Then, commercial channels showed us the Playboy’s Tv series Eden; then we’ve got the Aduylt Channel on basic cable for a pithy $2 a month.
What shocked you when we went to Europe shocked me when I arrived to the United States, Suddenly, movies are edited for content and language; all guys are gawking at women more so than I remember from the Latvia day. It seems to me if in the US, there is a assumption of sex on TV, in Europe is right in the open.