I find the US prudishness thing so fascinating. I'm travelling at the moment, and meeting lots of Americans (and Europeans for contrast). There's definitely a huge difference in tolerance for swearing and blasphemy. Also several well-educated and seemingly intelligent Americans who hold strong racist opinions. But that's another subject. I guess it all comes down to the religion. Americans do seem to be more religiou…
> Though I can't find that anywhere in any of the commandments, or the new testament. A quibble - while this negative view of sex may not be the view of other texts in the Bible, it is very clearly part of Paul's worldview, as evidenced in e.g. 2 Corinthians.
A further quibble - Paul's worldview wrt. sex is actually, and very clearly, a negative view of Graeco-Roman sexual practices, which were by-and-large openly exploitive. And that negative view was broadly shared by philosophers at the time, especially within Stoicism[1] - indeed, there had been at least some philosophically-inspired criticism of Greek practices, however understated, even centuries before Jesus or Paul.
[1] The broader historical analogies between Stoic and early Christian views actually explain a lot of early Christianity's success, particularly within Graeco-Roman elites. We have sources essentially stating as much, such as one Stoic philosopher regarding "the wise king of the Jews" as the equal of Socrates and Pythagoras-- in that all of them were unjustly murdered, and yet their wisdom spread thereafter; proving that the favor of the gods is what really matters in the end.