Why is sex taboo?

I regret to say that conservative and puritanical religious beliefs are largely responsible (and I'm not just referring to Christianity). I'm afraid some people of faith are obsessed with sex, in a very unhealthy way and want to close down any sort of open and reasonable discussion about the subject, and God forbid any comment about same sex attraction.

I don't think we can adopt an anything goes approach to depictions of sex, but we are far too censorious, to the extent that we suppress perfectly reasonable images of male and female nudity. I'm really not sure what we hope to achieve by doing that. Personally, I think it's counter-productive.

 

I agree with PatrickUK... it seems that the US in particular but yes, many monotheistic religions see sex as a subject they don't want to talk about. Wicca views sex entirely different and same sex issues are.... well, not an issue.

 

True. Though I can't really think of any other countries that are particularly open about sex. (KarenLynn, nice to know about Wicca! It seems rather unique in this aspect)
As far as I know of Eastern Asian countries, they seem much more conservative. (Christianity is common there, but I think the vast majority of people living in those areas aren't monotheistic) I mean, medical diagrams of genitalia have been censored on a South Korean website by the government. Seems pretty ridiculous to me. And from what my friends living in China have asked me, it seems the sex ed my friends got is REALLY bad. My mom knows less about sex than I do. Although, I find people in China are more comfortable with public breastfeeding, (than so in America) but I think that's because the boobs aren't sexual in that situation.
Maybe some Scandinavian countries are more open about sex? I heard there's alot more comprehensive sex ed anyway. The fact that it is legal in some US states to teach factually incorrect information in sex ed concerns me. Though at the same time, the US has Hollywood, which seems to be rather open about sexual stuff, though not in an educational way.

I don't think nudity or sexual topics should be restricted, particularly if it is educational. Most of the time nudity is censored/looked down upon/hypersexualized even when it's not meant to be sexual, which wrongfully makes body parts taboo as well.

 

I had zero sex education in my school. My schools idea of sex education involved a video of a woman who listed off STDs like the alphabet a second video entitled Abortion: The Silent Scream. A retreat team all the way from Canada came to our school and all we were told is don't do it. All I learned about sex came from books and a t.v show that was called The Joy Of Teen Sex but was later retitled The Sex Education Show. Thank God for books. Though in retrospect the books I was reading really weren't suitable for my age group.

 

Its an odd thing, since here in the US we use sex to sell pretty much everything. Cars to food, sports drinks and sports wear... Its okay to show barely covered boobs on a bra add, but breast feeding is the worst thing in the world.

It is ridiculous.

 

Coming from a current High Schooler we're taught it's something you shouldn't speak about by how they speak about it and by the simple fact teachers who are responsible to teach it say "Don't talk about this outside of class." It's also just shown off as taboo to us since they only tell us of the diseases you could get if you don't have one partner so don't do it until you're married. Who cares about actually informing us on safety. I don't think they ever even talk about safe sex outside of marriage just the downfalls of birth control.

 

I don't get why it is considered taboo, that's one thing I will never understand like why does monotheistic religion have such a negative ideal of sex. I will never have a negative view on sex and it's like whenever other people have a negative view I just don't get it. What is wrong with any sort of nudity and sex.

 

sex ed was okay in our school, but it wasn't viewed in a very good manner, even the teachers lowered their voices and looked awkward when saying the word sex, like it was some kind of crime. i still do not understand why, it is very strange

 

I had sex ed in two different schools. Personally, I prefer the year long, sex-ed centric health class I had in Pennsylvania, in 6th grade. Mainly because we colored in coloring sheets of genitalia diagrams, and the teacher was very welcoming and passionate about what she taught. The curriculum consisted of an introduction to different types of contraceptives, a series of videos debunking common myths about HIV, quizzes on labeling genitalia diagrams, and the general puberty stuff.
Sex ed in my school in Minnesota was much more brief — about 2 weeks max. And learning about contraceptives was mashed into one day, where we copied down information onto our fill in the blank notes. An abstinence speaker came into our class, who was pretty funny, and wasn't really offensive, as far as abstinence speakers goes. I mean, it wasn't the usual rose or gum demonstration, and it was basically her ranting about the grossness of genitalia (It's like a cave, you don't know what's in there! Remember that when somebody is giving a blowjob, they are dangerously close to the other's smelly butthole!) Overall, I think the second sex ed was more or less acceptable, though it could be improved.

Unfortunately, both failed to extensively talk about LGBT people. The first sex ed mentioned and defined the words Gay, Lesbian, homosexual, and Bisexual for vocab. (along with the word heterosexual) In the second class, the teacher was asking the class about why birth control might/might not be used, and a student happened to mention that gay couples wouldn't use it, at least for contraception.