I had a
friend (okay, I admit it, she was my
girlfriend at the time, but
I swear she wasn't referring to me specifically) who pointed this out to me once. Her mother was
Danish and she spent a large part of her
childhood in
Denmark, land of free, open, and supposedly
healthy sexuality. This served to highlight what she felt was the somewhat stilted attitude toward
sex that permeates American society.
I think what she meant was that in the USA, sex is ubiquitous. It's used to sell everything and sexual references are now embedded in all sorts of supposedly non-sexual expressions and activities. Ever watch a football player dance after sacking the quarterback or scoring a touchdown?
At the same time, compared to much of the world, Americans tend to be exceptionally prudish when it comes to any real public discourse about sex. We're like a nation of 13 year olds, snickering and nudging each other when the topic of sex is raised. Heck, the Surgeon General was forced to resign just because she suggested that teaching children about masturbation might be a reasonable thing to do.