29 de juny 2014

visual hazards?

I bike a lot, and it actually often awakes thoughts, sometimes whole soliloquies.
The last one was about the values in the community I grew up in. It was composed in its beginnings by people in their early 20s working in what is known as white collar jobs. For companies the right wing parties find so important for the economy. Everything was in a sort of acceptable balance until the sign of the times started bringing new neighbours adding more diversity in our uniformed "married couple, middle class-two children" average. As we kids grew up, we started to incorporate our own value system and morals to the existing  ones and some new neighbours came to prove that living with differing values was just as fine.
Things can be experienced  by hearing, speaking.... But some came visually  and one was once our new neighbour, unmarried, who worked in the fashion industry. He used to have many female visits and engaged in very long and loud sexual relationships (I remember me hearing the shouting  going on in the middle of the night). This was part of the noise hazard and people complained, yet, it didn't cease. Sure nobody dared interrupting in the middle of the night and he just  probably got a firm passive agressive letter from the neighbour's council.
Once and only once his stunningly gorgeous partner dared going to the swimming pool downstairs. And she dared to go topless. In the future other guests also dared the same thing, but this lady was the very first case.
That was a very big breach in the community's implicit pool dress code. I should say there were very clear written rules at the pool's door, but none made explicit mention about being topless and in Barcelona it was and it is an acceptable thing to go topless on the beach, however, doing that in your private property, with your trusted neighbours suddenly seemed to be a big no-no. Needless to say, she was kicked out on the spot. The pool rules updated  accordingly.
As a pre-teenager I could probably understand why that was the topping on the cake for our rather conventional family oriented community (he and his many "girlfriends" were on the spotlight already...), but I couldn't understand, objectively, how that was an issue, when kids had already seen boobs on beaches and adults were over that... were they? Who were they visually protecting?
Boobie bouncy castle!
And that thought lingered on during my bike ride. An image speaks more than a 1000 words. So what was this toned lady lying topless transmitting?
What were those families trying to protect? The uniformity? She did something they never  did, she failed to contextualise and adapt to the environment, not only with her boobs. She was an unmarried, childless, hot woman lying among classic Mediterranean mommas. But, was she a threat?

Since I am studying hazards, while riding my bike I started thinking of behaviours that could be a hazard (like loud love making- it can disturb your sleep, thus becoming a health hazard) but in society in general, isn't it amazing  that some visualisations of every day things can be considered a threat, a hazard to ideology? A guy walking around with a svastika is unacceptable, in Germany it is illegal. It represents a past, an ideology of a very damaging kind. It represents genocide, intolerance, violence. How can the sight of boobs affect your moral, your health, your well being? 
I mention because it is an issue many have, lately I see a lot of posts circulating about mommies sticking their boobies out to breast feed in public places. Regardless of how pleasant the sight would be according to your taste, esthetics or even maybe morals. How is that a threat? Should I start a plattform to complain about Crocs, then?!

And then I wondered. We often judge by looks. How a person looks triggers certain judegement according to your view of the world. To me, the image of a man in a suit and a tie means that they are more likely to prioritise money before any other values. They are not to be trusted. Or shall I jockingly ask: why did they never banned Speedos when they leave no room for imagination?

How is this relevant? We can measure sound hazards, air hazards, even physical hazards (if a building blocks the light or if a mine harms the close environment) 
So certain beautiful images (are boobies not beautiful to someone?, can the human body provocate rejection to someone like the svastika example?) can damage the carriers of  certain morals. And morals have a very wide area of subjective/cultural nature. How do we acquire them, how come do we modify them?
 Fascinating, nicht wahr?