Meet Elga

Wolf | January 20th, 2012 - 15:33

Elga is not the girl in the photograph at the top. Elga is an acronym for an integrated health information system that the Austrian government is planning to introduce.

Elga is an acronym for an integrated health information system planned by the Austrian government. Click on the picture to see it bigger.

The Austrian doctors’ professional organisation (similar to the BMA in Britain) is opposed to the plans. They argue that the vast amount of money would be better spent on actual healthcare. The costly – to the tune of 23 billion Euros, they say – failure of a similar system in Britain is mentioned in an advert that was running in all daily newspapers when I last visited.

The advert shows a naked, middle-aged woman. She is not glamorous, she is not retouched and she wears the signs of ageing proudly – a wrinkle here, a bit of saggy skin there. She makes us feel good about our own bodies, which are equally imperfect. The notion of perfection is of course redundant and only exists in the minds of the cosmetics producers and the fashion houses. The image visualises a common Austrian and German expression. Literally translated “something that costs your last shirt”, meaning that you could lose everything.

In the same week I came across a Viennese district magazine, very similar in purpose to the magazines that local councils in Britain send to every household in their areas. Page one of this particular issue featured a prize draw for an erotic wall calendar – see image above.

Can you imagine in Britain a naked, middle-aged woman prominently displayed in the Guardian or the Independent or the Times? Can you imagine an image of a young woman clad only in stockings and gloves in the Wiltshire, Oxford or Hackney Council magazine? Neither can I.

This photograph was not accepted as an advert in a local magazine because it was deemed not family friendly. Photograph by Wolf Kettler.

This photograph was not accepted as an advert in a local magazine because it was deemed not family friendly. Click on the photograph to see it bigger. Photograph by Wolf Kettler.

I once had an advert declined by the publishers of a local magazine because they felt that the photograph that I wanted to use was not family friendly. The photograph was of a fully clothed young woman. I am glad to say that I did get my way in the end but I never found out why this photograph was so offensive.

What is it, I wonder, that makes opinions in Britain so hostile towards the naked body? The British are not prudish per se. At least I think they are not, although I have to admit to finding it strange that nudity in this country is always seen as something devilish, funny or embarrassing, never normal.

Does nudity not play a natural part in everybody’s life? Are we living in a morally oppressive society that is obsessed with what is considered proper at any one time? Or perhaps the enjoyment of the naked human body is seen as something morally improper and therefore intolerable.

We are born naked and we were created by people, who were presumably naked at the time – both of them, in the same room and at the same time. How shocking!

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