Germans Getting Prudish?

Germans love to show off their bodies. Just go to the local saunas: you find both sexes of all ages and all shapes together all nude in one cabin.

But they seem to get prudish when it comes to showing off their bodies at airports. The sheer mention of bodyscanners (called "Nacktscanners" --"nude scanners" here) causes fear and concerns about intrusions into privacy. Rather than looking forward to what's being called "striptease at the airports," German citizens are concerned.

Funny.  The same scanners seem to be already in use in puritan America.  And nobody seems to care.

That's why the German government is changing the term from "Nackscanners" to "Bodyscanners" to  make the devices more acceptable. http://www.taz.de/1/politik/deutschland/artikel/1/sicherheitskontrollen-verschaerft/

Or is something else at play here, something more rational and less exhibionist -- namely fear of radiation? Those body scanners are basically X-rays, and haven't scientists been warning us for years that too many X-rays won't be good for our bodies?

Comments

[Li]

It looks to me a “strip search” in the public, though camouflaged with so-called high-tech. Nobody would find that to be pleasant. It’s not about body-pride but respect to privacy (if not human dignity) and proper use of technologies.
We are living in a time in which so many advanced technologies are coming out with the speed faster than ever, yet some of those technologies have to be used to "strip" people off only to see what might be hidden? Look out, one day we might end up being sent through an X-ray scanner like those luggage, just to show that we are clean to bones; or perhaps our brains would be subject to a read of thoughts, or I should say "chemical responses revealing emotional changes (that might be related to terrorism conspiracy)"....Are we really that scared?
Former vice president Al Gore suggested in his book, An Inconvenient Truth, that unwise use of high technologies could cause dramatically unpredictable consequences, the warming globe being a serious example. This theory applies to here as well I think. With many highly advanced technologies available today, people need to focus on how to use them right to really benefit human life without causing unnecessary “adverse effects”. For the matter of airport security, we must be able to do better than using a strip machine.

[Maire]

"Funny. The same scanners seem to be already in use in puritan America. And nobody seems to care."
Where have you been? People hate those things here. Of course, it has less to do with puritanism and more to do with classic American anti-government sentiment, as in: why does the government have the right to do this?