More evidence of my puritanism

This translation of an article (courtesy of The Week) from a German magazine called Stern is the perfect epitomy of the American stereotype of Europeans as well as the European stereotype of Americans (for those of you who prefer the original German, click here). I'm not going to try to draw macropolitical conclusions from a stupid article, but this does illustrate two important facts. First, European-American culture gap is widening and both sides are getting a bit resentful. Second, the media glorifies the frivilous worldwide.

Where a man can strut his stuff
By Milan Obradovic
Stern
Americans are such prudes, said Milan Obradovic in the German magazine Stern. As a German expatriate living in Los Angeles, I go to the beach regularly. But God forbid I should wear a normal men’s bathing suit. In the U.S., any garment tight enough “to show the faintest outline of male genitalia” is completely unacceptable. Men wear knee-length trunks lined with an extra panty to make doubly sure that their manhood is suitably restrained and camouflaged. The get-up “appears to be neither comfortable nor hygienic, not to mention utterly uncool.” But it’s a requirement in this “puritanical” country. Even women have to cover up. Going topless “can be punished with a steep fine or even arrest.” The prohibition is particularly odd when you consider that, in obesity-plagued America, many men have breasts just as large as women’s, yet those ugly saggers are on proud display while the women’s must be hidden. To a European, the “moral standards of the American majority” are a mystery—and a pity.