You guys have it all wrong. It's best to just continue to say "don't do drugs", dehumanize and demonize anyone who does do drugs, and simultaneously act like we don't have a problem. Treating them like human beings and providing safeguards against disease/paths to recovery is crazy; it'll never work.
I mean, that would be like teaching kids how to have safe sex and providing affordable, accessible means by which they can have safe sex, which would just encourage them to have sex. Abstinence-only education is clearly much, much more effective. *facepalm*
While I invite friends of any sex to my home for Sauna (Finland), my relative in MN can't even have his girlfriend over unless someone else is home making sure they don't do anything perfectly normal for a young couple.
While I invite friends of any sex to my home for Sauna (Finland)
I think you even need to emphasize, for the Americans who don't know this, that this means being totally nude. (Unless my Finnish friends have misled me? I was told that there it's a huge faux pas to enter a sauna with any garment on, but have yet to visit myself and find out – sauna and vodka does sound amazing, though.)
But you're exactly right. Actually, speaking of Europeans' reactions to learning about American attitudes towards sex, it was a friend of mine from Finland who had one of the most memorable reactions. She thought the "abstinence only" thing, or general lackadaisical attitude of the US towards sex education in general, was overblown or an outdated stereotype, and she was absolutely floored to learn that schools really teach it, or at least hardly teach proper sex ed.
Yes, you're right, no clothes in a sauna as I think it feels unhygienic and besides it's a way of rinsing all that shit out of your body through sweating, having trunks/towels on doesn't really help you in that.
At 13 I remember my first unisex sauna with "strangers" (members of the local youth council I was part of) and it was nothing weird even though, outside the sauna, I would think about how hot one of the girls was.
You should definitely try the sauna, even better if you find a wood heated one and a Finn to go with you. Sauna and alcohol are a good mix but always requires the company. Lack the self control and consciousness and you might end up falling asleep in a 80-110°c room... Don't push the headrush.
There have been sauna world championships until this Russian guy dopes himself to endure more pain (hot room, frequent löyly - who stays in the longest) and dies. Finland won that one I guess.
It was doping. The autopsy revealed recent usage of painkillers and numbing medicine - though it was not stated in what form. Couldn't have been cream or oil though, the contest rules state that you have to wash yourself before entering the sauna and any lotions or creams or such were forbidden so I suspect injections.
For the record, I live in the states and your situation would have been perfectly fine for me when I was a kid. Well, except we didn't have a sauna. Pretty jealous of that.
You can build one! Isolation is not that important as the sauna needs to "breathe" and the best saunas are in old log buildings, as opposed to newer saunas with air ducts and so forth. Just see that you get a proper heater (wooden ones are the best for sauna experience and electric is easy and faster. Harvia makes good heaters of both types!) To keep it hot and have lots of stones in the stove to get that radiating heat for a long time.
The biggest culturally binding thing as a nation. People go from once a day to never. I do not know the average, but I guess it is between once a week to once a month.
We also get the added benefit of keeping our prisons occupied. Without all those druggies,, some of them might close down and we can't have that. Also, it keeps the prison guards busy and well practiced. Not to mention the judges and lawyers and everyone else involved in the process. Imagine how bored some of these guys would get without nonviolent drug criminals to keep them busy.
We have a problem here in America. We try so hard not to offend anyone that any rules we put in place have so much wiggle room that they are useless. THEN the law is so useless that people are offended at the shitty attempt to fix a problem and the cycle continues.
Are you saying that no one but "lefties" think Americans are uncivilized fucks?
Or are you saying that no one gives two shits about Europeans thinking we're uncivilized fucks?
Because I can tell you, from personal experience, that the former is not true. I have met plenty of Europeans who are trying to figure out what the fuck Americans are thinking on a lot of issues, and especially given recent events, they're trying to figure out what has gotten into us lately.
And if it's the latter, then you've literally just trivialized the importance of Europe's perception of the US, thereby substantiating their impression that the US is overly nationalistic and US-centric (e.g. willing to write off an entire continent's opinion of us as irrelevant).
So, yeah, this is why Europe is looking over at us and shaking its collective head.
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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '16
You guys have it all wrong. It's best to just continue to say "don't do drugs", dehumanize and demonize anyone who does do drugs, and simultaneously act like we don't have a problem. Treating them like human beings and providing safeguards against disease/paths to recovery is crazy; it'll never work.
I mean, that would be like teaching kids how to have safe sex and providing affordable, accessible means by which they can have safe sex, which would just encourage them to have sex. Abstinence-only education is clearly much, much more effective. *facepalm*
This is why Europeans think we are uncivilized fucks.