How sexually open the American society is in general?

15 comments

1. I think that’s hard to generalize. It heavily depends on your community.

2. It very much depends on where you go, for example of you go the morally decedent and corrupt urban hellhole of Los Angeles they are much more sexually open than the good and moral people of Boston.

3. Depends on what you mean by sexually open. We’re less chill about nudity than Europeans and more relaxed about sex than the Middle East.

4. With 330 million people with a wide variety of backgrounds you will find it all.

   We are a nation that has very conservative communities when it comes to sex and one that has legal sex workers and a thriving pornography industry.

   In the most general sense you might say we are a bit more sexually conservative than Europeans but that paints Europe with too broad a brush as well.

   Then throw in the fact that “sexual openness” is a pretty vaguely defined and relative term. We are certainly more open than strict Islamic societies and probably less open than the red light district in Amsterdam.

   There isn’t really a simple answer to your question.

5. Why is r/askreddit bleeding over to here?

6. Give a specific example, please.

   We are probably one of the most open for LGB peoples, but we don’t allow much sex on broadcast TV.

   So, are we “open” or not?

   There is also a large spectrum of mores in the US. Utah and Hawaii are not at all similiar.

7. I’d say that the U.S. is becoming less open sexually than in the past. If you were transported back to the 1960’s-1990’s you’d be shocked at how normalized it was compared to today. Some of that is the justifiable reaction to sexual harassment, especially in popular culture (e.g. Hollywood, the music industry, etc.) and part of it is how extreme religious people have gotten in the U.S. now that we’re in the midst of Satanic Panic 2.0.

8. Depends on the region. California has a history of being sexually open, to the point where it influenced many of the other states, either by legislation, hollywood, the music scene, or one of its many human rights movements a la the hippies

   Contrast that to the old prudes running some of the more traditional states and you’ll notice a big difference in acceptance of sexuality

9. Open how? Like open to having sex with other people, or open as in willing to talk about their sex life and sexuality?

10. Overall, the United States is much more sexually open than the Middle East and Asia, but less so than Western Europe. To give a more nuanced answer to this, compared to West European countries, the United States has a higher percentage of people who are more religious, and they tend to be more prudish about sex; relatively speaking, the United States is more religious than many first world secular countries, which makes it more conservative regarding sex than some. But on the other end, the American society has also spawn some of the most sexually open people and groups in its history, with hippies being a primary example. Like everything else about this country, the United States is hard to generalize and sometimes completely self contradictory regarding this matter.

    It does appear to me that the United States is more eager to display the more liberal side of the society through media and entertainment as a way to “market” itself. In recent years, American TV series and films have grown much more open and conformable with showing the sexuality of people with different sexual orientations, which is a way to show sexual openness. I think overall, the United States is becoming more liberal and secular, and sexuality is becoming more and more accepted and normalized.

11. Not very. Making implicit references to sex is fine. Directly referring to it is a no no.

    America is pretty puritanical in this regard.

12. Very

13. eta – this is my own experience and ymmv

    Older, like over 60yo Americans tend to be a bit more prudish, not talking about sex or sexuality even if it comes up. Exception to that may be what’s left of the Hippies, they tend to be a bit more open.

    I’m just over 40 and my husband is almost 50. My husband is more prudish than I am. I can and will openly discuss sex and sexuality depending on things like where I am and who I’m talking to.

    My opinion on people younger than me, like 20’s and 30’s, is that they are more open about sex and sexuality than my generation.

14. Not very. Things tend to be hypersexualized but that’s mostly just a surface thing. When it comes to actual sexuality and talking about sex and expressing feelings about it we’re rather repressed.

15. That’s a tough question to answer, as it varies so much, and the reasons for people’s behavior can vary a lot.

    We have two cultural threads that (partially) define our *public* attitudes towards the *public* display of sex.

    First is that we Americans (though in a country of 330 million, attitudes do vary) *generally* believe that child-rearing and the decisions on what a child should or should not be exposed to *primarily* lies with their parents. Thus, you find “family-friendly” venues all over the United States–venues which are “friendly” (that is, free of objectionable content) for small children. (This means little or no sexual content.) And much of America’s public spaces tend towards this “family-friendly” environment as well. (I do not recall a single place in Europe that was attempting to be “family-friendly” anywhere my wife and I have traveled.)

    (This is one of the reasons why even the possibility that members of the LGBT community may be putting on shows for children which even hint at having sexual content is seen as so incredibly off-putting to a large percentage of Americans: because it violates this contract that parents should be the primary decision-makers as to if children should be exposed to shows featuring gyrating transgendered individuals.)

    *Please note I am only sharing my observations, not my opinions.*

    Second, we Americans (again, caution about generalizations here) have a definite cultural thread that ran through the Puritans who first settled this country–and we have a long history of “moral crusades” in this country, including our flirtation with prohibition which outlawed the consumption of alcohol, moral crusades against child labor, movements against slavery and against pre-marital sex and against pornography.

    Some of these moral crusades were obviously for the better: we don’t need six-year old coal miners and our moral crusade against slavery was definitely righteous. (Though note most of the Western world managed to shake off slavery without turning it into a heavy-handed moral crusade.)

    But we’ve also had the aftereffects of moral crusades “for the family”: moral crusades against prostitution (which was legal in much of the West during the westward expansion period more than 100 years ago), for example, pretty much bans nearly any political discussion about the legalization of prostitution–despite solid evidence that areas where prostitution were legalized, sexual assaults declined.

    And these ‘moral crusades’ (and note that we Americans can turn damned near anything into a moral crusade–and the phenomenon of moral crusades are not limited to the “religious right”; one could argue ‘wokeness’ has becomes its own moral crusade) often cause us to become a little hesitant broaching certain subjects in public.

    For example, even though sex is one of my more favorite topics to think about–culturally, historically, legally, economically–it’s not a subject I broach with most people.

    Not because I’m prudish or ashamed, but because I don’t need to find myself talking about how curious I find (say) the gap between the laws regulating toplessness verses what people *think* the laws are–only to find I’m talking to some “holy roller” who has decided I’m not Right with the Lord and need to find Salvation by becoming Right with Jesus (or whatever it may be).