Breaking Free From Prudery

Like almost any psychological status, some people would probably have felt the emotions or believed the ideas that would lead to prudery with or without social influence.  It is not impossible to feel ashamed of sexuality or even of the nonsexual sensuality of the body apart from having the philosophical beliefs that might foster this and apart from a culture that actively promotes prudery.  However, it would be far less likely that even individuals would embrace prudery in an ideological sense (as a belief that prudery is obligatory, that sexuality is inherently negative, and so on) if prudery, to varying extents, was not the norm in much of civilization.

No one who was not making very obvious assumptions left to themselves or who was not looking to arbitrary cultural norms would ever arrive at ideological prudery.  Subjective discomfort towards sexuality or nonsexual, bodily sensuality experienced by one person does not even mean anyone else experiences the same thing, and even if everyone shared the attitudes behind prudery, this would only mean that everyone has the same subjective attitude.  Nothing about sexuality or the body themselves would be discovered through this set of feelings because the feelings are not truths about the issue.  Only when people look to reason and, to a lesser extent, introspection can they prove to themselves truths about sexuality and the body that are true irrespective of recognition or comfort.

It is even possible for people who were raised and bombarded with prudery for their whole lives to not only break free from any of the erroneous or fallacious beliefs that lead to it, but also from any emotional stronghold that cultural conditioning might leave after rejection of the ideas themselves.  Perhaps for some this intellectual and psychological liberation might take months or years, but it is beyond the reach of no one.  Once someone realizes that prudery is only rooted in conscience, traditions, and preferences and never in reason or the Bible, they can let reason liberate them from bondage to emotionalism and embrace their sexuality without replacing one set of irrational beliefs for another.

The ironic part about breaking free from prudery is that even basic logical facts about the true nature of sexuality--such as how it does not overpower other aspects of one's humanity unless it is allowed to or how many things considered sexual by mainstream Western or church culture are not sexual at all (like friendship or nudity)--can be appreciated even more precisely because they can be contrasted with the irrational beliefs that so many people will defend and live out.  The philosophical tenets of sincere prudery could be understood and refuted without a society having professed the opposite at one point, but not everyone would savor the truth of the matter as much as they would if they had to ideologically part from their culture.

American rationalists will have many chances to let this contrast of fallacies and truths stir up in them a deeper appreciation of the latter.  North America is still very openly in the clutches of prudery inside and outside of the church, even as evangelicals insist that the culture outside of the church has the opposite characteristics.  Clothing is still widely regarded as a necessity to ward off sexual thoughts about sexual or nonsexual displays of the body.  The entertainment world still has violence get taken less seriously than even mild sexual content--not that fictional violence is something to object to either, but nonsexual nudity in entertainment is regarded as a moral peril for children moreso than plenty of violence is.  It will likely be generations more before this trend generally subsides.