Let's Talk about Sex, Baby

Once upon a time, way back in the days when I was at my actual school, I was sitting in a class unable to take my eyes off of the couple two rows in front of me. In a small class, in which various students were presenting, this couple could not keep their hands off each other. The question was clear, but the answer was not. Were we watching pre-sex or post-sex?

Fast forward six months. Change classrooms. Change cities. Same question.

Although Czechs can be a very private people, the young people seem to be very open about personal displays of affection. Very open. It's not uncommon to see on the in the park, on the street, or for me, on the Metro. All of the American students have noticed it -- one girl even wrote her first assignment on cultural differences about it.

How To Display Affection in Public

The cultural question that arises is about personal space. In elementary school, they teach us about "personal bubbles" which only you inhabit and others can only be invited in. That's how public school did it anyway. How big your bubble is depends on your own personal sense of safety.

American couples allow for displays of affection to enter their personal space in public -- hand holding, playful pushing, quick kisses. In many of these instances, the initiation seems to come from the woman or she cajoles her partner into initiating public displays of affection. [Movie theaters are public spaces and yet seem to be exempt from some of the rules of "decency".]

However, in the Czech Republic, these are some of the forms of affection that have been documented in public spaces.

• A young woman straddling her boyfriend in fashionable low rise jeans. Commando style.
• A young man lovingly grazing his girlfriends face only to stop to pop a zit on her face.
• A man in his mid twenties sitting with his arm possesively slung over the shoulders of the woman with his other hand on the crotch seam of the woman.
• Lots, lots, and lots of tongue. I hadn't realized how popular tongue piercing was here.

More often than not, it's the way in which the two people stand in relation to one another. There's a lot of nuzzling, which sometimes leads to making out and other times, not really. Even people who look like they are in high school are spreading the love. They stand facing one another holding onto the straps of each others backpacks, using them as a way to pull closer into each other.

So this post was a bit lighthearted in part because I'm heading back to the Sudetenland this weekend for a week research excursion. We went to Usti nad Labem last weekend for a trip to a multicultural festival. At that point I hadn't realized it was in part of the Sudetenland but I've come to learn more about the conditions that still currently exist in these regions and can see how it's almost a posterchild for some of the problems that remain.

I will have more details about my trip soon. So far, all I know is that I'm practically in Germany and that I may or may not need a sleeping bag. To sleep in a barn...