And so, the lockdown has dragged into plain sight the taboo trade-offs we constantly make between life, liberty, and financial wellbeing.
Taboo, anxiety, stress: What over one lakh people in quarantine in Kerala seek help for
From concerns about being socially ostracised because of the taboo of quarantine to support for medical emergencies, the needs of people vary, say the counsellors.
“During the initial days, the majority of the people were concerned about the taboo and stigma associated with COVID-19.
Many people do not want to talk about death; it seems to be a taboo topic, as supported by Cortney Warren PhD, “Some of the biggest lies we tell ourselves center around death.
The kiss, long taboo in Hindi movies, is now becoming taboo across the world; in times of Covid-19 the kiss could become the kiss of death.
The handshake is becoming a taboo greeting among workers, as employees and clients fear the spread of coronavirus in the workplace.
The coronavirus economy is shredding records for government borrowing and for central-bank lending. Soon it may also smash the taboo that’s supposed to keep those two things apart.
Like dominoes, the taboos are falling, one after another.
Which means that either we must accept that our favourite retailers, pubs and restaurants, not to say the choice we once enjoyed, will no longer exist, or we must face our biggest taboo and accept our own mortality salience.
In this regard, social media posts from celebrities who have the disease are also likely to help lift the taboo.
Anthropologist Mary Douglas, in her foundational 1966 book Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, notes, “Dirt offends against order.
Douglas’s attempt to analyze cultural taboos as judgment-neutral fails at many levels, but at the base level of “order,” she’s got a point: as we move through the COVID-19 pandemic, we can see both a craving for order, organization, control, and predictability; at the same time, we see clearly taboos surrounding race, class, ability, gender, and size.
This oversight has been inadvertent, but since this is a taboo topic, it is typically overlooked due to cultural discomfort, despite its ubiquity in practice.
The culture also makes clear that this behavior is taboo, disgusting, and should never be discussed.
Special access to Oz for Pacific workers became a taboo topic in Canberra.
When the Pacific Islands Forum was being created in the early 1970s, Australia feared that the new regional body would be used to attack our migration policies, and worked hard to impose the taboo.
Score this a major achievement of island leaders, working through the forum, to change Australian thinking and dismantle the taboo.
Conversation around porn, sex toys and masturbation is conventionally seen as taboo, but an inadvertent consequence of the pandemic is that masturbation is not only being more freely discussed, but might be considered an important part of our wellbeing – even life saving.
SO GUNS ARE ESSENTIAL BUT NOT VIBRATORS? — “Atlantic City sex shop scolded, Ventnor beaches fenced off at border: Jersey Shore gets weird under coronavirus shutdown,” by The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Amy S. Rosenberg: “The city did have to crack down on Taboo, a 24/7 sex shop on Atlantic Avenue offering ‘lingerie, peep shows and adult toys,’ Small said, after the shop tried to remain open after Gov.
Taboo was gated closed on Sunday, with a handwritten note in the window apologizing for having to shut down due to the ‘heath crisis. ’”—”With soup and sandwiches, Atlantic City man fights for Boardwalk’s homeless during pandemic”
Sex workers are not part of the formal economy in Pakistan, eliminating them from Covid-19 relief agendas; the taboo exacerbates their invisibility at times of such crisis.
MILAN – The coronavirus may have done what euro zone crisis could not: persuade the European Union to shrug off its bond taboo.
Breaking remaining resistance to common deficit will require some effort. But Angela Merkel, who takes over the rotating EU presidency in July, has already endorsed the idea. If the global pandemic cannot break the EU’s taboo on joint borrowing, it’s hard to think that anything else will. TORONTO — As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps through almost every corner of the globe, political leaders and public figures are showing something unusual: visible emotion.
“The two of us were just being open about our sexual preferences; she and I have garnered a large following and attention from that live. I am a very sexual person and like to hear stories on that topic, especially in Jamaica where everything is so taboo only to continue on the previous broadcast on Instagram, I decided it should be a series,” he told THE STAR.
“These may be taboo topics but the views shared by the guests have been respectful.
But as we practice social distancing to prevent the community spread of COVID-19, platonic physical touch among friends and colleagues is off limits. Hugs, high-fives, friendly pats on the back or anything that breaches the six-foot rule are now taboo.
Violence, poverty and cultural norms are key reasons but in many countries including Nigeria, girls miss school for a reason that is treated as a taboo, menstruation.
On the issue of persisting period stigma and taboos, the website stated, “Lockdowns intensify the impact of household-level taboos and stigmas on women and girls and make it more difficult to manage menstruation, without shame and discomfort in often confined spaces.
Aspects that were once considered futuristic have suddenly time-travelled and become the present reality shared by the speakers. Ayushi shared, “Until about six months ago, drones was almost a taboo subject.
If there’s one underlying theme that the panelists pointed out time and again it was that the pandemic has changed the world for good and that focus should now be on adapting quickly to the new reality to insulate from the challenges and tap into the new market opportunities. Indonesian authorities complained on Wednesday that hundreds of people had refused testing for the new coronavirus as social taboos emerge as another obstacle to stopping its spread in the world’s fourth-most populous nation.
Last month both the World Health Organisation and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US issued updated guidance recommending that everyone wear face masks in public areas where there is a risk of transmission of Covid-19, to help reduce the spread of the disease. Herd immunity is the only long-term solution to Covid-19 but the idea has wrongly become “taboo“, a leading scientist has said.
“Allowing infection in those at very low risk while making it safer for them and wider society needs consideration but is currently taboo,” his paper says.
The nursing officer also said that COVID-19 comes with a taboo.
Cannabis was a taboo topic 250 years ago and still is in some parts of the world.
Cannabis Really A TABOO Topic?
This the major reason why marijuana has always been one of the taboo topics.
Therefore, considering Cannabis a taboo is unfair to the humankind.
It is high time to consider the utility of Cannabis and cross it out from the list of taboo topics.
Campaigns to raise awareness and ease the stigma around mental health problems have been gaining traction in several countries in recent years, while in others it remains a taboo topic.
“Despite several notable attempts to tackle the taboos, there is still a long way to go to open up the conversation. Though talking about mental health remains difficult, either because people worry that it might harm their careers or due to cultural sensitivities, HR teams can play a major role in breaking down barriers so that staff feel supported to come forward.
Muto said organizers are “reexamining service levels and requirements in every possible area.” IOC President Thomas Bach has said “nothing is taboo” as billions in costs pile up.
No matter how enlightened a society may view itself, taboos exist and are deeply ingrained. But in times of life-changing crisis they become more visible, says taboos researcher Dr Sabine Krajewski. “This actually presents a chance for a society to change,” she says.
From domestic violence to mental illness, taboo subjects have been pulled into the open, impossible to ignore, as the pandemic has upended life as we know it.
“Once you talk about a taboo, it is the start of lifting it, and dealing with it as an issue,” Krajewski explains.
“All cultures have taboos. They are negative conventions in a society – things one doesn’t do or talk about. And they are always context-related.
To decide which taboos are worth having and which ones we should dismantle, is sometimes difficult.
“In Western cultures particularly we see taboos as bad things we should get rid of, and very often that is true but not always.
They also protect a society – imagine if there were no taboos and you could ask anything you want in any situation; it would be pretty terrible.
“But to decide which taboos are worth having and which ones we should dismantle, is sometimes difficult.
Krajewski, whose research has explored taboos in relation to silence, spitting, menstruation and menopause, runs a workshop titled ‘Taboo: health issues around the world’, as part of Macquarie University’s Global Leadership Program.
Since the pandemic struck, the workshop has been in demand, with students eager to explore taboos in relation to COVID-19.
Here are some of the new taboos the workshops have identified that may be appearing – and old ones the pandemic may be helping to erode.
Spitting in particular is set to become even more entrenched as a taboo, Krajewski says, while coughing and sneezing – largely involuntary acts we paid scant attention to before – have joined it in the cross-hairs.
“Spitting is a social taboo in many countries, but during this time it becomes a real taboo, and my workshop students tell me they feel they get looks that are a mixture of fear and disgust even if they sneeze or cough.
“There are incidents of people who have spat on police or hospital staff, which has never been seen as a polite thing to do of course, but whereas normally you would get a fine, now you can be incarcerated because it shows an intent to transmit a disease … so it makes this taboo, which is connected to a heightened sense of how important hygiene is, stronger.
Asking people what they do for work is a common conversation opener, but Krajewski’s workshop students believe this may become taboo as people lose their jobs, or are forced into completely different fields of work because their industry has so few opportunities.
On the flip side, receiving government assistance may become less of a taboo given the number of people who have lost their jobs and been forced to turn to Centrelink.
Domestic violence is a global taboo which has been brought further into the open by COVID-19 as isolation in the home, job loss, home-schooling and increased use of alcohol all contribute to an increase in its incidence.
It is a very sensitive subject where the taboo protects the perpetrator, not the victim, Krajewski says.
“On the one hand the pandemic might dismantle the taboo because it is in the open and we have to discuss it because it is such a big problem; on the other hand, struggling economies will have fewer resources and domestic violence may not be the first problem that will be taken care of.
Mental illness is another global taboo, but Krajewski says widely felt anxiety due to the pandemic may bring a new level of empathy and understanding around mental health issues
“If you experience this anxiety and you know it is mental health related, then maybe it also creates empathy, so it might be a positive outcome that mental health is more discussed and therefore becomes less taboo.
In the same way, the taboo of loneliness could start breaking down as more people experience it during lockdowns and it becomes a more widely discussed social issue.
“When you buy a steak, you don’t think about the workers there and what happens if we have animals and nobody to process them. All of that is taboo in a sense that it is hidden and now we have to deal with it,” Krajewski says.
Such expressions of odd behaviour, or spiritual possession, are explained in terms of taboos, curses and other paranormal phenomena.
Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, Nawal El Saadawi’s The Innocent of the Devil and Bessie Head’s A Question of Power offer classical literary treatments of the taboo subject.
To couch the topic on traditional perspectives of taboo and stigma is to aggravate an ongoing disaster.
The text of this article was generated by the Breaking The Silence system that collected 34 news articles posted on the web from January 2019 to September 2020 and clustered for the taboo subject of covid-19
