I’ve never felt the urge to strip-off while visiting famous sites in Central or South America but it appears it’s becoming all the rage amongst holidaymakers and gap-year travellers. In fact, it seems to becoming part of the Western gap year rite of passage. All of Latin America’s famous tourist attractions are being used for naked images, including Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue, Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, and Peru’s Machu Picchu, a 15th-Century Inca citadel and Unesco world heritage site.
What is the driving force behind this growing phenomenon? Some travellers are undoubtedly seeking more extreme challenges and Western society as a whole has become much more sexually liberal; however, this doesn’t explain the increase in naked selfies and streaking. A logical explanation could be people’s need to be admired on social media for their daring. Being a Facebook and Twitter user it is quite amusing what lengths people go to in order to demonstrate that they’ll having a ‘great time’ or having ‘wild experiences.’ It would be more impressive and entertaining if they did some free climbing or went to a nude disco.
Just to be clear, I am definitely not prudish when it comes to public nudity but there is a time and a place. It appears lots of travellers aren’t too aware of what’s culturally acceptable in the countries they’re visiting. Even worse, some travellers are aware of local cultural beliefs but deem them as conservative and ‘out of touch’ with modern society. Possibly, but that’s not relevant. The bottom line is, if you want to get your balls and boobs out for the camera choose somewhere more appropriate. Stop imposing yourself on other people via social media and show some respect for local culture.
Whatever happened to taking a midnight skinny dip and not telling the whole world about it?