The sexual “morality” of the left and the right is strikingly similar, though framed very differently: the left frames it as “protection from harm” while the right frames it as “propriety and modesty” but since both dwell in and unconsciously take their propensities from the culture in which both dwell, essentially they are both sex-phobic, with the left pretending to be sexually open — but they aren’t really at all.

I’m one of the few liberals who has dwelled in both very conservative, patriarchal cultures and extremely left-wing ones, and sexually, most Americans are comically repressed.

A work friend of mine who is not American says things constantly like, “Gah! Americans are such prudes!” And she’s not talking about conservatives.

The average left-wing “sexually open” American would in Germany be considered a puritan goody-goody.

But it’s the culture; hard for people to see when they’re in it.