Sugar and spice and everything nice

A photo taken by a friend while we were walking past a wedding in Kazan.

Americans are prude and yet, there's a nasty stereotype about American girls being "easy" when abroad. Americans, compared to European countries, are conservative. We don't say 'bad words' on public TV or radio, we censor nudity, and the sexual education in our schools teach abstinence-only methods. It's not surprising that Sex and the City 2 still has a following, regardless of how bad it is (it seriously embarassed me to watch). It's not that surprising when a small-town girl gets a little wild on her vacation to Europe, is it? Let's compare that to the freedom children feel when they go away to camp. Some just want to act out, but not all. Definitely not all.

When I'm abroad, my greatest culture shocks come from romantic interactions between girls/women and boys/men. We are conservative in America. On a vacation in Chicago, I saw a couple passionately kissing outside. I rolled my eyes and said, "They need to get a room." Shortly after, I was told that the woman just accepted the man's proposal. Whoops. Public displays of affection (PDA) is not a widely-accepted concept for us.

In Russia, I was shocked to see how romantically young couples act together. Argentine couples were also very publically affectionate, but it seemed to me that it was more...carnal. Overall, this is probably connected to the fact that many Russian couples get married in their early twenties.

At camp, I saw a kissing game played by young teenagers while we were waiting for lunch. It was an innocent, friendly version of the wildly popular 'Spin the bottle.' To play the game, they stood in a big circle and one person was in the middle. Those who made up the ring sang a chant and walked in a circle while the person in the center closed his/her eyes and pointed to a random person. Only the person of the opposite sex was allowed to the enter the circle. When there was a couple in the circle, they stood back to back. Everyone else counted to three. At three, the couple would turn their heads to one side. If they turned it to the same side, they'd have to kiss each other on the cheek. If they turned to a different side, they'd only have to hug. It's a simple children's game but it got me thinking a lot about our different cultures.

Another night, there was a show that picked 10 boys and 10 girls and made 10 random pairs of the two. This show was a competition to pick out the best pair. The tasks each pair received was to role-play and improvise a short sketch. For example, "Act out how a couple first meets in school," "act out how a couple first meets at the bus stop," "act out the first time a couple says 'I love you' in a movie," etc. The second part of the competition was when all the boys left and the girls sat in a row. One by one, a boy came in blindfolded and had to figure out which girl was his partner by feeling the girls' knees. Of course, this is completely innocent--but I only imagined all the lawsuits that would've been filed if this game was played in an American camp.