I loved visiting one of my friends during my childhood, not only because they always had Tropika in the fridge (yum), but also because his parents were Dutch and liberal. There was a freedom given to you as you entered the house: to be who you wanted to be. Don’t get me wrong; there was discipline and manners but no forced censorship.

Censorship fascinates me and is a bone of contention in many countries. South Africa is no exception. I find it intriguing that Hollywood appears to produce more violent films than those with nudity and sex. Do the exercise yourself: take note of the age restrictions of films that you watch on TV and you will notice this (and remember to look out for the nudity – it is often only a glimpse of a bottom). DSTV has an Action channel and yet there is an uproar about a proposed pornography channel. Why is violence condoned more than sex or nudity when the latter is so natural and something that most of the world’s population indulge in at some point in their life? We would wish that violence would not be necessary in real life and yet this practice is what is put all over our screens. Bizarre? I think so.

Just recently the South African Arts and Culture Minister Lulu Xingwana walked out of an exhibition of women’s art, offended by photographs of naked black women. Xingwana is now looking to debate when art becomes pornography. How can naked people lying together looking lovingly into each other’s eyes be considered pornography unless there is something shameful about nudity?

On Facebook I am a member of a page called “Conscious Parenting” – I recommend it to anyone who deals with children. The page administrators, a lovely Scandinavian couple who epitomise innocence and love, posted pictures of their young boy (I would guess he’s around four or five years old) enjoying the garden on the first warm day of spring. The pictures illustrated the innocence of children and were posted in that innocence. They were beautiful. Most of the fans loved them but then there were those who were disgusted because their son was naked in the pictures. They eventually removed some of the “offensive” pictures.

Nudity and sex are natural and normal. Those who don’t view it as such demonise and condemn and make it shameful. In some European countries it is not unusual for people to swim naked in public, yet there is no evidence of public nudity increasing the level of sexual violence, as opponents often argue. In fact, the situation is quite the opposite.

We are born of sex and naked. This is how we enter the world and then the judgement begins and with the judgement follows shame. This shame, grouped with low esteem, results in sexual obsession and sometimes abuse. It is not the nudity or exposure to sex that is the problem, but the judgement of it.

Let’s think twice before we censor for children because we are perpetuating the problem.