You just hit the nail on the head with that one.

Erm...no pun intended of course.

I was thinking about this very topic a few weeks ago and wrote a blog about it. For anyone who cares to read it--and with apologies in advance for this being longer than the average thread post--here it is, "American Taboo: Sexuality in Art and Literature":

From 1990 to 1992 I attended Grand Canyon University , a private college run by the Southern Baptists. Even then, in my youthful Protestant zeal, one policy of the college struck me as somewhat irrational. No nudity was tolerated in any of the artwork displayed in the university’s art gallery. Now just think about that for a moment. Think about the great works of art—even the great works of religious art—that could not be shown. Michelangelo’s David, for example, would not be allowed in the hallowed halls of GCU.

I remember someone—Chesterton, it may have been—arguing that clothing makes us complete, that we are not whole without it. But this is circular reasoning and clearly an argument from cultural bias. With our upbringing, we do feel “naked” when we’re naked, but this is certainly not innate. Visit a family with young children. The kids will come running out of the bath naked as jaybirds, without a trace of self-consciousness. Then a parent yells “Get some clothes on!” And thus the taboo is instilled.

          How ironic that misguided European missionaries even tried to impart this taboo across cultures, appalled by the lack of self-consciousness displayed by native tribes in Africa . But the disposition toward being clothed did not come from Eve biting an apple and then slapping fig leaves on herself—it came when our ancestors left those very tribes and headed north into colder climates.

          I was fascinated to learn that the taboo in Japan is not against genitalia, but pubic hair. In all but the most hardcore manga and anime, even ones full of nudity, naked people are portrayed as being smooth as a newborn around their pelvic region. Mind you, we’re talking hair here. At least it’s just hair on one part of the body—Amish and Muslim women alike must cover the hair on their heads!

          This all seems quite silly and arbitrary to us. But if we could step outside our own culture and see it objectively, I have no doubt we would find taboos in our society that are just as fraught with logical inconsistencies and outright nonsense.

          Graphic portrayals of sex: a strong taboo—perhaps one of the last taboos—in our society, in which even a pretty tame depiction of sex can get a movie slapped with an NC-17 rating, while virtually any portrayal of violence is rated R. Violence is fine for children, as long as they’re accompanied by a guardian. When it comes to sex, we’re ascetics; when it comes to violence, we’re barbarians. We shun the temples of Bacchus in our march to the altar of Mars. (Although given the profits generated by porn in terms of both home-video and online viewing, we are also great big hypocrites.) I’ve seen a lot of recent horror films, and even my calloused sensibilities are sometimes shocked by the graphic portrayals of prolonged torture that are deemed healthier viewing than the act of making love.

          Now, I am an artist, a storyteller, a poet. I will likely never decapitate a man with an axe or blow his brains out with a gun, but it is generally acceptable for me to write about it. Yet the puritans in my society tell me that something I experience regularly (if not always as regularly as I would’ve liked) is a taboo subject. Should be kept offstage. One whole aspect of my life should be off-limits? An aspect that, next to eating and sleeping, is the most universal of all experiences of the human race? The physical act that is, biologically speaking, the reason for my being here? And everyone else, for that matter, unless they were a test tube baby or Jesus. It is also, frankly—assuming we are healthy, rested, and fed—one of the aspects of life we find most enjoyable, that we most anticipate, that has all sorts of interesting repercussions—physically, emotionally, and, ultimately, reproductively, literally ushering in the next generation of our species to live and love and wonder what the heck they’re doing here. How it ever became taboo is a long and convoluted tale, but I think we should look to our European brethren who have come to their senses, and who are much more grown up about it, even as they enjoy and celebrate it unburdened by guilt. For them it’s not dirty; it’s not taboo.  No wonder they consider us Americans so odd.