Western Bellybuttons or Indian Legs - what is sexier?

Some time ago, a woman commented on one of my blog posts. In that post, I wrote that Indians thought of Westerners to be more liberal with the naked body. She pointed out and made me realize once again that this is really a cultural issue – and that you cannot say black on white that westerners are relaxed about nudity while Indians are not! One has to go a bit more in details there!

Of course – while you have nudist areas on beaches in the west, you cannot even think of taking off your bikini top in India. The words ‘in the west’ however are very broad. I was told that in earlier times, while German and French tourists used to sunbathe topless, the British had much more problems being so relaxed – and actually found the tourists of the other countries too free.

When I was in America in 2010, we went to the beach and I was wearing what I had worn already on many beaches around Europe – it looks like a thong. The lady who was with us, our organizer, got frightened and told me that the police could come and object! And I was not even naked!

So those morals when it comes to clothing are very different in different countries. When it comes to India, the general idea is that the Indians are very close and rather prudish, even bathing in the ocean with their full clothes on. It is however not fully like that!

In India, there are a lot of Hindu and Jain Sadhus who walk around the country completely naked! There are men and women around everywhere – but nobody minds it. They even have disciples, a whole crowd of people sitting just feet away from their naked penis – and neither are they shy nor are their disciples. They wash the feet of their naked guru. Try walking around in any western city just in your birth suit and you will most probably be arrested! You won’t get away with explaining that you are holy and that this is your way of devotion!

Another thing is the clothing of women – which is always one of the biggest problems when people talk about the lack of morals of other cultures, especially the west. But when guests come to the Ashram, they actually see it the other way around! They know that it would be considered very sexy if they showed their legs in India and have read that this is why Indian women always wear long skirts or pants! For them however, it would not feel that sexy to show their legs, as sexy as it would feel to expose their back and belly the way Indian women do in their sarees!

Yes, a saree looks extremely sexy to many westerners because it shows nearly the complete back and belly! For many women in Germany, showing the belly is something that they would only do at the beach where they wear a bikini – or not even there because they could rather choose a bathing suit as well! But they would comfortably go to work with a skirt that Indian women would never even think of wearing.

The conclusion is simple: don’t judge others before considering the circumstances of their country and knowing that they might think the same about you in one way or another!