We should be ashamed... and we are.

I recently heard a rebroadcast of an episode of "Definitely Not the Opera"on CBC radio were the general discussion was on what happens in society when we make the "private" public.  The last part of this segment was one I found particularly interesting where they discussed and interviewed a former teacher from Austin Texas who lost her job after it was made known to the school administration that she had posed nude for an art photographer.  I would encourage anyone to listen to this segment of the broadcast via the link I have posted or simply type her name, Tamara Hoover, into Google or Wikipedia and read about her unfortunate case.

This incident only servers to reinforce the negative and shameful way in which we view our own bodies in North American society.  These attitudes and misconceptions about nudity and sexuality belong in the past with the burning of witches or the belief that the earth is flat.  In a world where we can build the Hadron Particle Collider and recreate the big bang to view how our universe may have once began, it is astounding and baffling that with this incredible intellect, we cannot wrap our heads around the fact that nudity and sexuality are not the same thing.  Yet they are continually treated as such.  You need only look at ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures to see that this was not always the case.  As a species, we where once able to look upon ourselves and appreciate the beauty and magnificence of our own bodies.  We once were able to take that appreciation for our own magnificence and express it in art and sculpture, and then display these incredible works in public places without causing riots, mass orgies, or damaging the public psyche.      

In the case of Tamara Hoover, I fail to understand how her posing for a photographer was somehow going to damage her students either mentally or emotionally or was in any way a reflection of her abilities as a teacher.  It was in fact the students that rallied behind her in support and in an attempt to reverse the school board decision to terminate her contract.  So what is the message that is being taught to the students in this case?  Be ashamed of your body and of your humanity?  That nudity in any form is intrinsically wrong and that it will insight sexual deviance?  Don't ever express yourself creatively or be comfortable in your own skin, because one day you might loose your job over it?  That's a hell of a lesson to teach the entire student body in one shot.