Feature photo by kawetijoru. Lead photo by See Wah.

In the wake of Facebook’s decision to remove photos of women breastfeeding, a lively debate sparked on Matador Life about cultural perceptions of breastfeeding, misogynistic attitudes toward women’s bodies and the definition of pornography.

This led to the questioning of our definitions of concepts like “modesty” and “nudity.” Is there a universal standard of what should be considered modest or lewd? If one culture considers showing certain body parts as public nudity while another does not, does the second culture have the right to see the first as backward, oppressive or uneducated because of its differing views of modesty?

There are organizations, such as the Topfree Equal Rights Society (TERA), that promote the legal right for women be topless in public places. The TERA website states, “We do believe that since men may choose to do so [go topless] in many situations, women must also be able to at least in the same situations. Without penalty of any kind.”

TERA questions the premise of what is defined legally as nudity and why women who go topless are often considered to be in violation of public decency laws while men who go topless are not. While TERA focuses only on the United States and Canada, the existence of organizations like TERA, along with the following examples, make me wonder what the limitations are when it comes to determining what is a ‘right’, what is a violation of other people’s rights, and if it is even possible to agree to national or universal standards when it comes to issues like modesty and public nudity.

Bikinis in the Supermarket, Burkinis at the Pool

In the U.S. it is common to see cleavage in public and skimpy bathing suits on the beach, but why is it that if a woman showed up in a bikini in the supermarket she would elicit stares? What if a man went to his office wearing only boxer shorts?

In American culture it is generally not acceptable to expose that amount of skin in public. A woman in a matching g-string and a bra could not go to the neighborhood ATM without being noticed, yet if she happened to be standing on sand or near a body of water nobody would blink an eye. Well, unless of course they were checking her out.

Even in current-day Western culture, we can see that there are no clear lines. What is modest at the beach is immodest at the workplace. We have different standards of what is appropriate and inappropriate based on different contexts.

In some cases it can even be taboo to wear too much clothing. Just this month a French Muslim woman was banned from a public swimming pool in Paris. Her crime: having too much skin covered. She showed up wearing a burkini, a wetsuit-like garment that also covers the hair. Not only was she prevented from swimming with her children, but a local government official deemed her decision to wear the suit as “obviously a provocation by a militant.”

Photo by CharlesFred

In France right now, there is significant debate over whether the burka should be banned. French President Sarkozy has made clear the that “the burka is not welcome in France” and has called it “a sign of subservience…a sign of lowering.”

The question here is: is it naïve to assume that all women who wear a burka or burkini are oppressed? Should we completely discount the idea that some of these women choose to wear such garments from their own personal conviction or preference, whether or not similar garments serve as a sign of oppression for other women?

Just as most of us in the West would feel embarrassed if we were stripped to our underwear in public, could it not be that some of these women simply feel uncomfortable and shamed at the thought of showing their legs, knees, or even their faces?

Naked Britney Spears

In Japan, posters of a pregnant, naked Britney Spears were temporarily banned from subway stations. The poster portrayed the cover of Harper’s Bazaar August 2006 magazine issue, and at the time many Western bloggers criticized Japanese officials for being prude and not promoting the beauty of a pregnant female body.

Author’s note: The naked Britney photos are not included in this article out of respect for those who would prefer not to see them. The photos can be referenced here and here.

Eventually the subway company caved and ran the ad, but if other nude ads similar to the Spears photo had been rejected in the past, why should the fact that the singer was pregnant force the company to treat the Spears ad differently? A spokesman for Toyko Metro explained that, “Our earlier request to cover the photo from the waist down was because of nudity, not because we had anything against pregnant women.”

This is an example of how one culture, represented by the editorial team at Harper’s Bazaar, did not take into account the norms of another culture regarding what constitutes public nudity. Just because we may not be phased seeing a naked singer on billboards or magazine covers, does that mean other cultures should be forced to get used to it too?

Mini-Skirts, Car Accidents and Guerilla Warfare

Photo by Leo Reynolds

In response to a 1970 mini-skirt ban in Malawi, one European expat wrote about how the country’s “paradise was shattered” due to the ban, and it was now “a question of guerilla warfare. Chins up, hems up is the order of the day.” The article relates stories of expat women ignoring the ban, getting deported for breaking the mini-skirt rule and conspiring ways to get around it.

Throughout southern Africa, the waist, hips and butt are often seen as the most sexual part of a woman’s body. Countrywide mini-skirts bans have also been enacted in Swaziland and Uganda after an increase in traffic accidents allegedly caused by immodestly dressed woman. Mini-skirt wearers, both locals and foreigners, have been accused of indecency and public nudity.

Something makes me question the ethnocentrism of the European expat’s attitude toward the Malawi mini-skirt ban. It is really our place to engage in “guerilla warfare” against another culture’s concept of modesty? Glimpse contributor Saman Maydani wrestled with a similar issue when it came to wearing pants in Zambia. After a local man shared with her that wearing pants was considered to be “morally degenerative,” she chose a different course of action than the expat women in Malawi. She started wearing skirts.

In the West, we sometimes hold to this ideas that less clothing inherently equals more freedom, and that any culture that promotes differing views of modesty is either behind the times, fundamentalist or oppressive. I see the situation as much more complicated than that, and to assume to that our view of what modesty is defines freedom or lack of it just serves as another face of cultural imperialism.

Community Connection

Now that you know not to wear mini-skirts in Malawi or go swimming in a burkini in France, check out 12 Things You Don’t Want to Be Caught Doing in Foreign Lands.

Photo by author

How We Got Together

You know how it goes. We happened to be in the right place, at the right time. In the right mood.

That pretty new tour leader who had been hovering around the periphery of my awareness suddenly snapped into focus, and we found ourselves on a felucca on the most romantic river in the world, huddled close under a blanket as the cold weather played cupid.

Before I knew it, I became one half of a couple. The problem was that we never saw each other– working as a tour leader takes over your life.

You meet a bunch of strangers and try to mould them into a cohesive group. You are responsible for every aspect of their holiday. You organise, advise, inform, entertain, and trouble-shoot. Sometimes you rebuke.

Photo by author

You are on call 24 hours a day. Outside your group, the world barely exists. Then you say goodbye, and do it all again with another bunch of strangers.

So, passing like cruise ships in the night, my new partner and I formed an early relationship of frantic phone calls– moments of cellular intimacy snatched from the possessive demands of our groups.

The forced separation drew out our honeymoon period. Months down the line, I was still a bundle of nervous excitement, anticipation and endorphins whenever I saw her in the flesh.

We barely knew each other, but we had plenty to talk about: the woman who asked if you could see the pyramids from Luxor, the surgeon who squandered all his money on fake papyrus. Snippets of gossip or scandal from life on the road.

We were constantly comparing our schedules, trying to work out which of our tours overlapped, and when we would next have time off together.

An Attempt at Stability

After two years of tour leading and roughly five months of dating, I decided to quit the life. There are only so many times you can wake up at 3:30 am to go visit old stones.

But I wasn’t ready to leave Egypt. This was the first woman I had ever met with whom I could sense a future.

We found an apartment, and I tried to find some work. We thought with one of us in a permanent base, things would be more normal. We’d see each other more often. No more creeping around hotels whilst on tour, hiding from the staff and our passengers. No more searching for privacy in the scummy flat we shared with the other tour leaders.

But things were not normal.

Leaving tour leading is like resigning as head of a cult. You no longer have hoards of worshippers hanging on your every word.

All of a sudden, you have free time. I tried to build other friendships, tap in to new lives, but part of me was still off in the desert, dancing to tabla and wondering at the stars.

Hearing about her tours made it worse, because I was trying to leave that world behind.

“Tour leader rubbish,” I thought to myself daily. “I’m beyond that now.”

But I wasn’t beyond it. How could I be? She needed to vent her frustrations about tours gone wrong. I needed to hear that her passengers were all horrible, or ugly, or 40 years too old.

Building a Nest Together

After another six months of repeated hello’s and goodbye’s, she sacked off the tour leading and we moved in together full time.

This was what we’d been waiting for. Breakfasts in bed and lazy nights curled up in front of the TV. Putting down shared roots. No bloody tourists whinging about hotel water pressure or dirty whatevers.

But it didn’t work like that.

Living with someone new is often difficult, especially if you haven’t spent that much time together before. Up to this point, at least one of us had been working as a tour leader. Now, we were both thrust back into the real world. The entire context, the setting, of our relationship had changed. Perhaps we had changed.

We always knew we argued, we just never knew how much. Now we had new things to argue about. Washing up. Housework. Coming home late. That these arguments were about such petty, mundane things made them all the more painful.

Photo by author

We started to question if we really knew each other. Whether, without the common tie of tour leading, we were actually compatible after all.

And then we argued some more.

The Break-up

You know how it goes. We happened to be in the right place, at the right time. In the right mood. We finally admitted it wasn’t working, and that maybe it was never going to work.

The words were said. Before I knew it, I was single again.

The Aftermath

Breaking up with your loved one is pretty shit. She moved to another town. I considered moving to another country. Or joining a monastery. Or running home to my mum.

But I dealt with it in as clichéd a manly manner as I could. I drank. I played a lot of pool. I surrounded myself with people that didn’t know her. Did I mention I drank? I might have cried, too.

Which is another way of saying, I got over it.

Even though the rational part of me knows that she and I were too different – that we would never even have gotten together if we had been living in England – I still miss her. We had each been a rock of support for the other in a city that doesn’t always take kindly to strangers.

This is life.

Community Connection

Have something to say? Leave Nick a comment below!

Photo by alborzshawn

I’ve been couchsurfing going on four years now and in that time I’ve hosted and surfed couches all over the world. When I began, I didn’t have a place of my own, so I surfed. I kept notes, too, on the things I most appreciated from my hosts and tucked that information away for the day I would finally have a couch of my own.

I love couchsurfing. How great it can be to meet a complete stranger one evening and by the time you climb on your bus, car, or airplane a day or two later, you’ve shared something deep, fun, silly or stupid and that stranger has become a friend?

But surfing can be exhausting. You’re always on the move and you’re living by the rules — for lack of a better way to describe it — of your hosts.

Hosting, I find, to be much more relaxing than surfing. You’d think having a stranger in your house might put you on edge, but really it’s the opposite. As a host, you’ll find you have fewer responsibilities than as a surfer. You set the boundaries of the interaction and don’t have to live as much by someone else’s schedule. That is, if you’re doing it right.

So how do you do it right?

1. Be clear about what you offer as a host.

Don’t offer more than you can afford money, time, space or any otherwise.

Photo by Aine D

Are you uncomfortable leaving a stranger with the key to your home? Write that in your profile. Are you alright with showing your guests around at night, but want them out of your apartment during the day? State that directly.

Some other guidelines to think about: How much space do you have for guests and how many people can realistically fit in that space. Some people are perfectly happy to have 10 people sacked out pile-of-kitten style in sleeping bags on their living room floor. Some are not. Do you allow smoking in your apartment? Are you comfortable with people drinking or would you prefer they do it elsewhere? Do you have pets? Are families welcome in your home?

If you check the Describe Your Couch section of the Couchsurfing profile page, you’ll find other ideas to keep in mind as you fill in your own profile.

One warning I include in my profile? If you break something, just let me know. I’d much rather you be honest about what happened, than sneak off and pretend you had nothing to do with it. I care much less about your ability to replace said-broken-thing than about your stupid lies.

2. Say no to those who haven’t carefully read your profile.

If someone doesn’t have the decency to actually find out who you are before asking to stay with you, do you really want this person in your house?

Of course, not everyone feels this way, and many don’t mind having random people using their house as a hotel. Most people I know, do not share this sentiment.

In fact, many of my closest and most experienced Couchsurfing friends bury a sentence somewhere deep in their profiles asking you to mention a specific word or topic in your couch request. If you don’t mention that word, they know you haven’t read their profiles from top to bottom and immediately deny your couch request.

Photo by elementality

3. Carefully read the profiles of potential guests.

You want to know who will be sleeping on your couch, right? Well, you should.

You learn a lot from a profile. I’ve read literally hundreds of profiles over the past four years and have found the questions and layout to be extremely efficient in letting you know exactly who a person is. That’s why I tend to ignore incomplete profiles. If I don’t know who you are, I don’t really want to take the chance with you sleeping in my house.

You’ll also quickly learn whether you have common interests. You’ll know from references the types of things a person likes to do. Sometimes, I’ll see a profile and all references are very bland. Nothing sticks out. No inside jokes. That makes me think this potential guest maybe doesn’t interact much with his hosts. Does the person talk a lot about staying out late pounding beers? Does that appeal to you? Great. That may well be a match made in heaven.

4. Trust your instincts.

Once you’ve read everything you can about a potential surfer and you’re still not sure. They have good references, but it’s difficult to let down your guard and allow a complete stranger into your life. This is not something people normally do in polite society. It’s not within societal norms in most countries, particularly in big cities.

That’s when you turn to your gut. Are you excited to meet this person? Or are you feeling uneasy? Go with that feeling. It has never let me down.

5. Turn down requests when you can’t host.

There are many reasons you might want to turn down a potential surfer. Maybe you don’t have time. Or you’ve just had another guest and want some down time. Or maybe the surfer’s profile just doesn’t mesh with the type of person you want staying with you.

Don’t be afraid to say no. You don’t even have to supply a reason if you don’t want.

6. Be mellow and flexible.

Yes, I know I’ve been all up in arms about being straight forward, defining your boundaries and not being afraid of sticking to them. Now it seems I’m telling you to bend those boundaries?

Well, sort of.

If you’ve done your due diligence, your guest has arrived. You get along smashingly, have loads in common, and you’re finding her to be pleasant, fun and very respectful of your space.

But you said in your profile you don’t have extra towels or blankets, and now this lovely, pleasant person is standing there asking if you have an extra towel.

It happens. I’ve asked. I’ve been asked. And if on that particular day, I do have a clean towel to share, I hand it over. If I don’t, I simply say I don’t, and we go about seeking a solution.

7. Be helpful. As much as you can.

Keep a folder of bus schedules, maps and general information about your area. That can be tourist pamphlets, restaurant menus or even hand written directions to your favorite local haunt. Take an evening to show your guests around. Introduce them to friends. Take them to a local Couchsurfing gathering.

But don’t worry if you can’t do these things. Couchsurfing is supposed to be fun. It can be difficult enough sharing space with people and sometimes you find you suddenly have a huge work deadline or maybe you simply need to be alone.

That’s ok. Just let your surfer know that he will have to go out and about on his own. A good guest will respect that. You’ll also find experienced travelers — as the vast majority of Couchsurfers tend to be — are happy enough to go exploring alone.

Photo by love2dreamfish

8. Do let your guests make dinner for you, wash dishes or help out as they offer.

Please, for the love of God, always accept the gift of dish washing. When your guest asks you to point him in the direction of the nearest supermarket along with an offer to make dinner, put on your coat and walk straight to the nearest supermarket. Better yet, take them to a local market singular to your town.

Last week, we had four guests. Two couples. You might already know them as Dan and Audrey from Uncornered Market and Jason and Aracely from Two Backpackers. We all took turns cooking and cleaning up, and I barely touched sponge to dish the entire time they were here.

This is a perfect example of how hosting actually made my life easier.

9. Do expect them to clean up after themselves.

This should be self explanatory. Yes, it’s obvious, but if a guest makes a mess, leaving you something more to add to your to-do list, consider mentioning that in your reference for them. It doesn’t need to be a big production or complaint, but in my book, leaving a host with more work, washing or stress is high up there on the list of bad guest faux pas.

One caveat to this: some people like their homes and lives straightened organized and clean in a very particular manner. If this is you, it’s probably unrealistic to expect the same from your guests.

Sure, you can provide them with a long list of rules detailing the direction in which the knives must point in the middle drawer or which brush to use when cleaning crumbs off the couch, but honestly, if that’s your bag, perhaps hosting isn’t for you.

10. Don’t expect them to clean up after you.

They’re guests. They’re there to share time, space, maybe a meal or a drink out. If you want a personal servant, go to Craigslist and shell out the cash for someone who actually does that for a living.

11. Leave A Reference

Good or bad, references allow others to better evaluate the time you spent with a guest. If the time was good, you should let your guest and others know. It’s can be a sweet parting goodbye.

If the experience was a bad one, mention that too, and don’t be afraid to leave a negative reference if the situation warrants.

What warrants a negative reference in my book? Only if a surfer is dangerous or threatening in some way. I would only use a negative reference if f I want to warn others not to accept couch requests from that particular profile.

I’ll add, though, in four years, I have never even come close to leaving a negative reference. That’s why I so strongly emphasize the importance of reading profiles and turning people down if they’re not complete. I have read hundreds of profiles and have yet to find a person who differs greatly from the image portrayed on their page.

12. No rule applies in every situation.

Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing is 100%. None of these rules apply in every case, so ultimately, you have to use your own judgment.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

What tips do you have for being a good host? Share your thoughts in the comments below.