Re: Cuba:Child Psychophysionomics

[Beth Benoit]

Title: Re: Cuba:Child Psychophysionomics

It might be possible to look at this situation as an example of a failure to understand cultural customs if indeed it were a "cultural custom"  for Granny to pull down a six-year-old's pants and "check" his genitals. However Cubans interviewed after the incident was described (including Cuban grandmothers) denied that this was a custom in Cuba. So where does that leave us, Michael? Beth Benoit University of Massachusetts Lowell ---------- From: Michael Sylvester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: TIPS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Cuba:Child Psychophysionomics Date: Sat, Feb 19, 2000, 12:32 PM   The grandmothers of Elian Gonzalez assessed his growth and his well-being by taking his pants down and to look at his penis. When the relatives in Miami heard about this,they accused the grandmas of being child molesters,but the response though was that this a cultural custom in Cuba. It appears that assessing penis sizes as a biological index of health is a common practice in the Caribbean and Latin American. Could this fact be construed as an example of the cultural standard of normality? Michael Sylvester Daytona Beach,Florida