so we have a reputation abroad for being so puritan when it comes to nudity or sex as a culture. But i disagree? I think we are pretty sex-positive compared to many countries. No one waits before marriage lol, we have a strong “sex sells” culture in entertainment, Las Vegas exists, there are bathhouses and cruising areas, sex stores in rural highway areas where you simultaneously see billboards shaming you for not believing in Jesus, etc etc. what do you guys think?
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Not really, no. Ubiquitous but still negative.
Compared to a lot of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries, very much so, they see us as being too sex positive.
Compared to a lot of Western and Northern European countries, no, we are definitely a bit more on the prudish side.
Too much so
Compared to who?
They teach abstinence-only sex education many places & several state governments are using their legislative sessions to ban drag shows. Fucking drag shows. No, I’d argue we aren’t sex positive
We are in the middle, but more positive than puritan imo. When compared to Western Europe, nope. When compared to anywhere else, yep.
Yes and there’s a lot of hypocrisy.
You forgot Nevada, the state of churches and brothels, they live in harmony sometimes on the same street, because main religion in America is money.
I’m in Florida, so I’m going to go with a gigantic resounding no
I mean, we’re more squeamish about than a lot of other places in the world, but my asexual ass can guarantee that yeah, we still are.
We’re way too diverse (and many of us too hypocritical) to generalize.
What even is a “sex”?
The US is probably in the middle regarding sex positivity, globally speaking.
I’d say we’re in the middle. Some countries are less sex positive, other countries more so.
There are still many who wait for marriage you are wrong. We are a puritan country and it is a good thing.
Well we have gotten to the point where we are bragging about the number of our sexual partners so yeah
I’d argue the U.S. is moderate-conservative about sex.
Sex education is still lacking, and euphemisms (like pee pee and flower) are too integrated into the culture to allow for a more open dialogue.
Yes, the concept of sex is everywhere and overtly advertised, but it’s still a taboo subject. For example: Amsterdam has a red light district that anyone can stroll into/see nude women, while strip clubs in America are highly secretive.
Hell, I’ve even gotten flack from a female doctor for asking for an STI test, and she shamed me for having premarital sex. If a *medical doctor* feels the right to express their disdain for **sex**, no, I wouldn’t say we’re as progressive as we think we are.
We’re both sex positive and sex negative, with the worst aspects of both. It’s one of the reasons our young people struggle as much as they do.
A comment I made on another post applies here:
I mean, overseas, places like the Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavian nations and yes, Japan, don’t panic at sexuality and their cultures and children are all the better for it. Nudity is much more calming and acceptable there. Even family shows have doses of innuendo or fanservice. Families watch these programs together. They treat it as a healthy normal part of life, something to be responsible with and enjoy in a consensual relationship. Nude beaches, bathhouses, saunas, fun, playful “scenes” of joyful couples in 10+ rated movies. Framed in the context of human interaction and encounters. Something to share and enjoy. A natural human desire. Funny enough, this approach actually leads to delayed AND more pleasurable sexuality for adolescents!
America is WAY too prudish about sexuality, and it is reflected in our ridiculous out of wedlock birth rates, too young marriages in many areas, various addictions and addiction culture, and teen birth rates. Generational poverty. Our issues with assault and child scandals. Not to mention the major hypocrisy from churches and cults that would much rather worship image than JUSTICE. You are suffering because you were given no framework for understanding what you were consuming nor a healthy, happy attitude toward natural human sexuality and desire.
>…compared to many countries.
That’s the clincher right there. Sure, compared to many countries our culture is sex-positive. Compared to what I envision a sex-positive culture should look like, however, we aren’t even remotely close.
We have been moving in his ex-positive direction decidedly so since the 1960s. There was a bit of blowback and pendulum swinging during the AIDS epidemic, but sex and sexuality is far more acceptable in the US that it used to be and we’re probably just over the average in terms of globally. Globally. Thats being said, we seem to be a lot more accepting of sexuality and nudity than we are of outright sex acts. It’s possible to see topless women or bare assed men in a PG-13 movie. However, as soon as you see a penis or a vagina or even a simulated sex act, it tends to jump it up to R and societal expectations tend to follow similar guidelines.
We’ll happily accept songs about sex and drugs and we absolve ourselves in media with nudity or violence, and of course porn.
Show a boob to students, kids, or someone breast feed in public? That’s a no no.
Eh, I think it depends where you are but as a whole I think not compared to other western nations.
We are a sex-obsessed culture, and typically we’re not sex-positive about it. If a woman uses sex to sell a product she’s usually shamed by the public. Being a sex worker can get you fired or ridiculed at other jobs. Young people are constantly warned about sharing sexual pictures of themselves because it could ruin their life. Everybody in the US is obsessed about sex, but few people are positive about it. Sex is a dark juicy secret in the US not something that is celebrated positively.
Yea I’d say so
> so we have a reputation abroad
Only among Western Europeans who forget that they don’t constitute “the rest of the world”.
…is this a real question?
No. Not at all. No country which imposes risk and outright death as a punishment for sex can be Sex Positive.
The US is hardly a monolith. There are extremely prudish parts and very progressive parts. Like most issues, we are sharply divided
To some places yes.
But women who’ve had their breasts removed and still present as women can still get arrested for being topless….so that needs to be addressed.
No one wants indecent exposure, sure. but a breatless, nippleless woman shouldn’t be arrested for showing her non-existent boobs.
Our culture pressures women to be sexy but punished them for being sexual. It’s patriarchal bullshit.
Our culture is also stupidly squeamish about women’s bodies in general – just see some of the bullshit that breastfeeding mothers have to deal with.
Very forward regards sex
I think we are misguided on both sides. We have an unnatural obsession with sexuality. Either by suppressing it or flaunting it.
It’s that beginning scene of Idiocracy if you’ve seen it
At least in New York City, I feel like it’s mostly do what you want unless it’s harming someone
The problem with this is how people perceive sex positive.
If you define sex positive as most people who want to get laid probably can, and there’s relatively easy access to contraceptives…Then yeah! so positive.
If you define it as…Being in a society with equality where people make safe informed decisions about their sex lives and aren’t persecuted, judged, or endangered for their sexual activity (whether they’re having sex, if they’re having sex, or based on how much sex they are -or- are not having and with what other consenting adult] then no. Not super sex positive.
I think every American can agree even the Mormons in Utah even though they’re in their special bubble.
I think in our actions yes but we are still behind on talking about sex. Mainly because of the religious nut jobs.
Not at all.
Edit: at least not in the healthy ways where sex is normal and boobs aren’t taboo to be seen, etc.
Although I fully agree with the thought that the US falls in the middle (not as Puritan as as the East, not as skanky as the West), I’d argue that there’s a gender bias as well. For at least 50 years, nobody has cared AT ALL if men are slutty. But a woman having multiple one-night stands? Clearly she has daddy issues. Or God forbid, she dare to say that she requires a big fat peen, well, that’s even worse than being a gold-digger. While there are some notable European exceptions (like Iceland), I don’t think most of western Europe is much better in this regard. Certainly not Greece or Italy or Spain or Portugal or, or, or….Even sex-positive German or Dutch men will fiercely (yet naively) argue that most German prostitutes aren’t sex trafficked and are just “normal women who enjoy sex,” while simultaneously saying they’d never date a former prostitute because she clearly has issues. And don’t even get me started down the rabbit hole of the intersection of race and sex in Europe.
Less sex positive than Western Europe, more sex positive than most of the rest of the world.
It’s a mixture. The urban blue areas are just as sex positive as Europe while the rural red areas are more prudish. The suburbs are a mixture of both extremes
I would say that American culture is heavily sexualized, but not particularly sex positive. That comprehensive sex education is even a little controversial, that people actively fight HPV vaccination, and that girls and women are simultaneously sexualized and slut shamed from before the time they reach puberty is all you really have to look at to see what a weird, repressed culture around sex and sexuality exists in the US.
I think we’ve reached a toxic point in sex-positive. The destruction of the family, the inability for people to remain committed and faithful to their partner, and the court systems biased heavily against men to the point they’ll award sole custody to a junkie because that junkie is the mother.
I’d say middle of the road compared to other countries. There’s still a lot of judgment thrown both ways where some people think any sex but procreation sex is wrong, and then you have others saying that if you aren’t having sex (or certain kinds of sex) there’s something wrong with you.
Our sex education is horrible or straight up nonexistent in some places. Little information about how to protect yourself and flat out incorrect information about STIs are spread. Knowledge about the body is poor too. We have adult men and women who think women urinate out the vagina and adults with no concept of how menstruation works. I don’t feel like this would be a thing if it wasn’t seen as so taboo.