As Tom mentions in his comment, it might be the case that there might be both cultural as well as commercial rationale for promoting violence and making sexuality a taboo.

It’s really easy to get numb to the violence in our world, or at least desensitized. Until till we wake up to the violence “close to home”.

First to war. The powers that be do not highly value human life. To them, war is an economic means to an economic end. But to wage war, there must be some level of acceptance of the hostility by the public. They have to be desensitized to a good degree.

The sex taboo, on the other hand, I think was originally accidental. It is interesting to note that some “primitive” societies do not have a sex taboo, having instead, for example, taboos concerning speech or temple etiquette. However, the sex taboo seems to be particularly potent and successful.

Now, the United States has two main political motivations which trace back to the religious extremists and the economic opportunists that originally came here to evade persecution and make a quick buck, respectively. The latter, in my opinion, really don’t care whose wardrobe might malfunction on prime time, but do understand that the former is so terrified of sex that they actually believe that some sort of superstitious harm would actually come to their child from seeing a breast. Fear is effective. Very effective.

But there’s also a profit motive. Take away their sexuality and then sexualize the merchandise. We embarrass a kids’ beauty pagent 12,000 miles away from home into removing a so-called “sexy body” event (much to the confusion of the locals) and we turn around and call inanimate sports cars “sexy.” Sex sells, as long as we can keep transferring the sexiness from the consumers to the products. If we allowed ourselves to be sexy, why would we need the Corvette?

And then there’s the political shell game. War? Young men dying? Shell Shock? (Did I say Shell Shock? I meant PTSD) Don’t worry about that, John Q. Citizen, worry about Adam and Steve being allowed to marry each other. Why? Directly, the powers that be only frown upon gay marriage because it means more marriages, which means a more expensive payroll. But indirectly, it serves to rally a whole bunch of zealous busybodies who are so preoccupied with the splinters in Adam and Steve’s eyes, they can’t see the 2×4s in their own, to vote for their camp. But if sex weren’t “bad” this distraction tactic wouldn’t work. And it’s so easy! As an extreme example of this, Bills of Attainder are expressly forbidden by U.S. Constitution, BUT if you name the bill after a deceased Child killed by a SEX offender, *POOF* it passes into law. (Note that naming a bill after a child tortured, hacked to pieces, and eaten by a cannibal does not work, unless SEX is somehow involved.) People are so afraid of sex, that when a convicted murderer’s has finished paying his debt to society he goes free, but when a SEX offender has finished paying his debt to society he can be remanded to preemptive “civil” confinement for the rest of his life. Not only does this legislation fly, politicians get PRAISE for doing it. Why would politicians give this up without a vigorous fight? It is in their best interest to promote the SEX fear right alongside the TERRORIST fear as much as they possibly can. Fear is very, very effective at controlling the populace.

Make Love, Not War. I wish, my friend, I wish. But if little Timmy and Mary start playing with each other instead of toy guns, who’s going to “protect the interests of democracy?”