• I know this is my “old man yells at clouds” take, but young people especially are so socially and economically progressive while being so remarkably puritanical. Like, you could have a movie about sex workers and the same people that praise it for representation would unironically complain if it (god forbid) had any nudity.

    people are only against it from years of religious based shame

    I don’t think that’s really it in a contemporary perspective. During the 20th century, sure, but young people don’t really go to church or unironically consume Christian ideological rhetoric en masse. I think a lot of it has to do with how mass media is structured, built, and presented today. Everything has been boiled down to the most formulaic and family friendly fare imaginable, so people just don’t see sex, nudity, or physical intimacy presented in the media they consume. That’s not something “fit for all audiences,” which means it reduces the number of people they can sell it to. You see the same thing with places like reddit that have been slowly cracking down on and removing NSFW subreddits for years. I mean, it’s great if you’re asexual. But for everyone else? It sorta ghettoizes the idea of physical intimacy.

    • The religious rhetoric and shame is so baked in the system people don’t even have to go to church anymore. The religious right and their abstinence only education has been forced into everything. Most states don’t even require medically accurate sex education and most don’t even talk about it. This leads to the situation you described. This is usually caked in the “protect the kids” rhetoric.

      I’m always surprised that every year around pride this same sex negative talk against nudity and sexual comes up. It’s like people are for queerness as long as it’s not sexual