Culture shock comes in so many different forms.
For one Redditor, it came in the form of an abrupt interruption during a relaxing afternoon. She explained what happened in a post on the “Am I the A**hole (AITA)” subReddit.
The Original Poster (OP), known as toplestAita on the site, shared the key details right in the title.
“AITA for refusing to put on my top while I was sunbathing in front of my friends?”
First, OP and her friends were all in agreement.
“So this past weekend me and my friends wanted to hang out one more time before finals and the holidays.”
“We live in a very warm part of the country where it’s essentially summer so we went to my friends big house to spend the weekend and use her pool.”
“2 of the guys in my friend group invited their girl friends. In total there were 4 ladies and 3 men.”
Then came some foreshadowing.
“I’m not a Native American. I only have lived in the US for the past 3 years and I’m still learning some things about the country and what’s acceptable and what’s not here.”
“So I wanted to just sunbathe a little before joining in on the pool. During which I took off my bikini top.”
“In my home country there isn’t really an issue with women wanting to sun bathe topless.”
“I didn’t think it was obscene or inappropriate and honestly I’m not particularly well endowed so I didn’t think I was too attention grabbing.”
For awhile, all seemed chill.
“I was on my stomach first and then switched to my back. I don’t think I was being stared at but I had my eyes closed most of the time.”
“Whenever I did open them, no one was focused on me.”
But then there was a turn.
“About 10 minutes in, the two invited guests came up to me.”
“If they had just said, ‘hey I don’t feel comfortable with you being topless around my partner could you please put on your top’ I would have done it.”
“But what she did was drop my top on my stomach and say that I need to ‘put my breasts away in front of her man.'”
OP was struck by what happened next.
“Now because I thought she was just being rude for no reason as I didn’t know I was being un normal, I said no.”
“Then she said, ‘I don’t know what they do in France (I’m not even French) but here, most women don’t parade themselves around like this unless they are a whore.'”
Of course, there was more than a little back and forth after that.
“So I got mad and an argument ensued.”
“Their boyfriends came to break it up and my friend pulled me to the side and explained to me that this wasn’t typical in the US and the guys had been looking at me a lot. So I put back on my top.”
“Now the boyfriends are trying to get me apologize, which I don’t think I should, and think I was being a jerk.”
“AITA?”
Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Redditors offered up a variety of responses.
Many said there was blame on both sides.
“ESH”
“You’ve been here 3 years and you’ve not figured out that sunbathing nude in a group setting is not the norm in the US unless all parties agreed? By now you should have enough information about the culture to know that’s not the norm here.”
“The way the people expressed their dislike for nude sunbathing was just trashy and inappropriate.” — No-Policy-4095-
“ESH Three years is enough time to figure out the cultural norms of a new place. If you were unsure, even when everyone else kept their tops on, you could have asked. You knew it would cause a problem and then, once it did, you escalated it by arguing”
“They could have asked nicely and not called you names, it didn’t need to go to that level. They were rude”
“The dudes also suck for openly ogling you and demanding an apology.”– lilymoscovitz
“ESH. Any nudity that’s beyond the cultural norm of a situation should be consented to from the people you’re with, but they were rude about how they handled it and the guys shouldn’t have ogled you.
“Also, Y T A for saying ‘I’m not particularly well-endowed so I wasn’t too attention-grabbing’ – can people who post in here about boobs stop acting like women with small ones don’t get checked out too? We definitely do.” — CharlieFiner
Others weren’t so patient with OP.
“YTA – you’ve lived in a country for three years and haven’t picked up that it’s not the social norm? No matter what the polite thing to do is ask if people are comfortable” — CarelessCow2599
“YTA it does NOT take a lot of awareness to realise where bare breasts are acceptable and where they are not. Even when you were told directly you decided that you knew better.” — PattersonsOlady
“YTA They were rude, but that’s not what you asked about. You were wrong for refusing: when someone doesn’t consent to seeing your body, or part of it, you respect that (even if they are a**holes).”
“Furthermore, I live in Europe, and we don’t go to people houses, notice no one is showing their breasts and think ‘there is no way this could make these people I don’t know well uncomfortable, it’s definitely not worth asking before I take my clothes off.’ “
“That doesn’t happen, please stop pretending it does you are confusing the Americans.” — theamazinglula
“When I lived in Europe, people went to other people’s houses and women took off their tops all the time… NOT! Learn to read a room. YTA” — Chickenmel
But plenty came to OP’s defense.
“NTA. The way she talked to you was rude and unnecessary. If anyone has a problem with you being topless, it’s not that hard to simply say ‘Could you put your top back on please?’ without being a jerk about it and using slutshaming language.” — MissJunipurr
“NTA- she was uncomfortable that her boyfriend was sexualising your body. She could have easily told the idiot to look away but clearly they are both idiots.”
“Does she really think you suddenly covering up is going to change the fact that he didn’t have enough respect for her to not ogle you so intensely that she felt the need to intervene??” — saffron25
“It’s just Americans being American, they are fine with mass shootings but a woman’s breasts are far too dangerous to see.”
“Definitely NTA.” — bertiebastard
“NTA Americans in general are extremely Conservative about women’s bodies. Sorry you had to learn this the hard way. Some Americans even think bikinis are too ‘slutty’.” — MuadougieJones
With such wide-ranging viewpoints coming from the peanut gallery, OP will have to sift through it all to decide who she’ll handle the next pool outing.