I don't understand why the US is so puritan. They even blur out footage of babies' bottoms on broadcast TV here. I was watching a documentary about some artist on PBS one evening with an interview scene that took place on a beach. I didn't notice there was a baby in the background until my eye was drawn to the floating blur oval concealing his or her precious little butt cheeks.
In fact now that I think about it, when that Picasso painting was in the news a week or two back for setting a record price at auction, some channels blurred out part of it in case their viewers got offended by cubist depictions of the female breasts: http://metro.co.uk/2015/05/14/fox-news-blurred-out-the-breas...
No word yet on how this horror will affect the fine children of Roanoake, VA - no doubt the monies collected for the fine will be channeled to treating their post-traumatic stress disorders.
My favorite is when they showed a gender reassignment surgery on TV and, at the precise point the editors determined she had transitioned from a man to a woman, they blurred out her nipples.
I once saw a segment on a US chat show about a man who get breast implants, as a bet. (Not gay, not trans.) When he took his shirt off on camera they commented on the fact that he had to have two little round stickers over his nipples for censorship reasons.
I may well get burned for this, but I'm going to quote a friend's quip from years back. I think he made a good, if caustic, point. (Your choice of term "puritan" is the operative word here.)
"It's cultural baggage. The country was colonised by Puritans. You know, the segment of British population whom even then Victorians considered uncomfortably prude."
I do believe there is a kernel of truth in that. As to why it has remained such a dominant feature in the collective US psychology, now that'd be an interesting study.
Well, the nation was founded by a bunch of Puritans. I believe that much of their fundamentalist worldview has persisted, largely unchanged, through the centuries since.
You answered the question. This country's first moral code came from puritans who were trying to get away from England because the other religions there had too much frivolity.
In fact now that I think about it, when that Picasso painting was in the news a week or two back for setting a record price at auction, some channels blurred out part of it in case their viewers got offended by cubist depictions of the female breasts: http://metro.co.uk/2015/05/14/fox-news-blurred-out-the-breas...
You can show all sorts of atrocious acts of violence on network TV, but display a penis for 3 seconds and it's a $325,000 fine: https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-32A1.pd...
No word yet on how this horror will affect the fine children of Roanoake, VA - no doubt the monies collected for the fine will be channeled to treating their post-traumatic stress disorders.