I spent the weekend sitting in my husband’s leather chair. It doesn’t fit me, my feet don’t reach the floor when I sit in it and the back is too high, but it’s the only chair I can sit in without pain. For the past two days, I’ve had a pinched nerve, disk, something, that causes me real … breathtaking … pain when I stand for more than three minutes.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t complain because I would be writing anyway, but that’s not happening. The words won’t come. I know why. And I know this drought will not last. But for now, I can’t write. That’s not to say I’m not typing anything. I’ve typed a couple thousand words this weekend, but will any of them end up in my novel? Probably not. They’re just the product of the logical me, pretending she can write fiction.
The real me, the one who can write, is confused, in hiding, treating herself to wine, and orange chocolate sticks, and visions of a certain young actor in a BBC production. All of him. Every single, gorgeous inch of him. (I considered accompanying this post with a photo, but I’ll let you dream your own.)
Which brings me to the last part of this post title … why is America so prudish about nudity?
[Disclaimer: disclaimer: I am not advocating that family programming should include gratuitous or sexual nudity.]
Linda Cassidy Lewis 
Because Janet Jackson’s nipple is… evil? Or something.
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No doubt some research group has a grant to study the psychological trauma caused by that display of “evil”. 😉
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I don’t think they are. You’ve only got to watch good quality US TV from the last few years and you’ll see that it’s chock-full of nudity, profanity and violence. Watch The Sopranos or Six Feet Under then watch Dexter or True Blood or Californication. Now if by ‘Americans’ you mean ‘large-US-corporations-that-rely-on-selling-advertising-to-other-large-US-corporations’ well then that’s a whole different story, and it’s not about the nudity per se.
Advertisers want their message in front of the largest possible audience, obviously, and nudity is one way of cutting the audience size down. This displeases advertisers who go elsewhere with their budget, which makes TV networks nervous about nudity…….and so on. And that’s without getting into the problems of syndication. So it’s not about nudity, it’s about money, like most things unfortunately.
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Robert, thank you for your thoughtful input. I agree with your statement on the business side of it. But all the shows you mentioned are on cable (pay) TV, not prime-time network. And of the ones you mentioned, I’ve only seen Sopranos and True Blood and, if I’m recalling correctly, they don’t show full frontal nudity, and even if they do, it’s rarely (never?) full frontal MALE nudity. And even on cable, isn’t nudity only shown in a sexual context?
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Hope you feel better today.
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Thank you, Paul. Maybe a bit less physical pain today, but still too left-brained to write fiction. However, I’ll try to come up with a better blog post than this one for tomorrow. 🙂
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Good points, Robert.
We all have those days Linda, hope the real you who writes is no longer confused and has come out of hiding. (Although I liked your post.)
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Cathryn, I’ve come to the conclusion it’s probably not a good idea to mix pain meds and wine before you write a blog post. Or maybe it was the chocolate. 🙂
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This is Linda’s brain on pain meds and wine (and too much time in an ill-fitting leather chair). And, hey, I like it! That’s your sliver lining – you can still be fun in your blog!
And by the way, I do think real America is prudish.
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Judy, I’m glad you found some humor in this … it makes me feel slightly less ridiculous. 🙂
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