Wednesday, August 13, 2008

What's the Matter With Australia?


A sculpture knows as the "Birth of Venus" by artist Antone Bruinsma has been ordered removed from an Australian beach by a mayor who declared it to be "offensive to women".
Mother-of-three Terri Johnson, 35, from Morayfield, said the sculpture should be in an art gallery where there would be a more appropriate audience.

"It's not appropriate here, it's not the right spot for it, with young families, where you have to explain everything and kids start asking questions," she said.
And what exactly is wrong with children asking questions? The problem is not the questions, it's the immature and hung-up adults that have to come up with the answers. Men have penises, women have vaginas, deal with it.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had very prudish parents. All of my childish questions about the body were met with very incorrect answers. I didn't learn the proper name for my "parts" until I was about eight years old. The worst might have been when I turned 18, and my dad tried to have "the talk." How embarrassing... for him.

I realize that they were trying to raise me to be a good and moral person, but it did more harm than good. Since they were unwilling to teach me anything about sex and my own body, I turned to the internet. That's not how you want your 14 year old son learning about basic facts of life.

I ended up developing serious body-issues that led into problems with self-esteem, paranoia, and my performance in school. It probably sounds like I'm blowing a lot of this out of proportion, but I'm not. I felt like people were always staring at me in disgust, so I would make about six trips to the bathroom per day to see what was wrong. I wore baggy clothes to hide my body, kept my shirt on while at a friend's pool-party. Girlfriends? I pretended to be asexual.

Things slowly got better after I left for college, but only because I realized that I needed to change. I started working out, and went to my first nude beach (alone). It was a drastic step, but one that pushed me full-force into a better attitude about my my self.

To think, it all started because my parents didn't want me to know what "parts" were for.

Rick said...

Apparently, Ms. Johnson doesn't take her children to museums. I'm sure the sculpture is not offensive to women, only her.

Sure, kids ask questions, that's how they learn. When it came to the "talk" my father just told me one thing and it was totally wrong.