My wife got some nasty looks around Americans, and appreciative looks from Germans. They don't like bottle feeding over there either. Even the baby formula commercials say essentially "Breast feeding is always best, but if you can't do it, use our formula."
I suspect it's commercial slutty shots to sell clothes, beach resorts and beer. And ubiquitous commercialized nipple and crotch-shots are something we can do without.
I don't remember any that focused right in on the breasts (and none on the crotch). I remember two billboards off the top of my head: a hot tub scene with many people and a woman's breasts visible (nothing under the water visible) and one of those Las Vegas-type dancers.
I re-assert what I said before: streetcorner display of female nudity doesn't translate into a sense of reverence for sexual wholeness.
I guess you're right. It's not so much considered sacred, but natural. And you shouldn't be ashamed of something natural. An unsightly consequence of this is that very fat, hairy German men will wear small swimming trunks at the pool.
One other thing about the public pools, kids up to about five years old often run around naked. Americans tend to freak out at the thought, but Germans think they're just little kids, and if you see something sexual in that then you have a serious problem.
In general, German society seemed to have a LOT less sexual tension than ours. Yes, you'll see breasts on billboards on the rare occasion, but it's not always "Sex! Sex! Sex!" like it is here. And any of that that does happen is usually from American products. I also never heard of those young teenage orgies or oral sex on the bus like happens here a lot.
Yes, U.S. baby formula companies are required by law to put this same caveat on their packaging--- "Breast feeding is best, but if you can't do it, use our formula"--- but in teeny tiny print! From an objective or scientific point of view, non-Mama-milk is sub-standard, and in my opinion should be prominently labeled as such. For about a million reasons, too lengthy to be discussed here!
"I also never heard of those young teenage orgies or oral sex on the bus like happens [in the U.S.] a lot."
I don't think it happens here a lot. When it does, it gets publicized, both because we're appalled by it and because we're titillated by it. But that's what's coming, unless we figure out a way to turn this thing around. Europe is 20 years further along the path of sexual disintegrtion than we are, in my opinion. The only time I was ever in Europe (Italy, Ireland, England, Holland and Germany) was back in 1984, and even then I was distressed by the open display of nudity on billboards, magazine covers, etc. and the casual attitudes towards gay guys pursuing each other in public toilets, and other sexual imbecilities.
The extreme low birthrate ---and even more strikingly, the extreme low marital birthrate --- throughout Europe amply demonstrates that European culture does not value sex as something "natural." All of Europe is significantly below replacement level: some birthrates at the lowest levels in human history, all the more remarkable because this is happening at a time of peace and prosperity, not war or plague years.
The two most indispensible powers of human sexuality, the power to make a durable bond between a man and a woman, and the power to continue human society into another generation, are failing rapidly.
My question would be, not why you're (we're) so sexy, but why sex has become so shriveled and powerless.
No, the U.S. isn't much better. Our marital fertility rate has been below replacement for decades, and without immigrants and the first-generation children of immigrants, we'd be swirling the demographic toilet-bowl with our European cousins.
However, ubiquitous public sex display and the society-wide shrinkage and failure of sex as a power for family-formation are concurrent phenomena. Ever wonder why?