Let's talk about sex, baby...

I'm consistently surprised by the lack of taboo in Chilean society, especially when it comes to sexuality.

To begin, the prolific public displays of affection are enough to make any American blush. Since most young people live with their parents until they get married, they turn to public places to physically express their affection for each other. Any park, plaza, beach, grocery store, micro (bus), metro and classroom is apparently fair game. The picture with this entry is a random couple I saw on the boardwalk. The boardwalk!?! It wasn't even sunset.

Many of the ISA students have had awfully uncomfortable sex talks with their families (BC). This past weekend, with some extended host family in town, I had one of my own. My host aunt was talking to her son, who was asking her hard questions about cigarettes, as most of the adults in the room were smoking. When he grew bored and scurried off to play, she turned to me and started talking about kids and their darndest questions. As she is a grade school teacher, this turned into whether or not and when parents teach their kids about sex. Now, the details of such conversations are pretty implicit, but she must have either been worried that I couldn't understand what she was talking about in Spanish or that I had no idea of the birds and bees myself because she went into full graphic detail, over dinner.

Finally, in my Introduction to Religious History class, we were discussing depictions of the sacred manifestations in Hindu tradition. The Profe must have spent 15 minutes explaining that Shiva is usually depicted in a seated yoga pose with an erect penis. Of course, it didn't help that the other gringa in the class had to ask what "falico" meant... Latin roots, people, latin roots!

I'm certainly not one to shy away from discussions of sexuality in casual or intellectual settings, not by any measure. In fact, I think it's a fascinating aspect of what it means to be human. But apparently, my US roots to Puritan societies go deeper that I had expected. In comparison to this free-love-spirited Chilean society, my view of sexual propriety is certainly repressed.