Also, unlike the original Puritans, Neo-Puritanism doesn’t have much to do with Christianity. There are atheist feminists who are extremely sex-negative and definitely want to punish the majority of men for wanting sex too much. I also know two queer men who support trans causes and all sorts of bizarre kinks. One of them is Jewish and the other has no religion, but they are vociferously opposed to any sex that even remotely might have a hint of power imbalance between the partners. “What?!? She has a job, but he’s unemployed?!? That’s rape!!” Those are Neo-Puritans.

I edited the title of my post to make clear that it is about US culture, and makes no claims about various norms around the world.

If you want to say “Japan is a quirky outlier” that’s fine. but that’s also a good reason why it’s irrelevant to this discussion.

Strict social norms which inhibit, distort, and repress natural healthy sexual expression (call it Puritanism, or give it any other name you like) will cause large numbers of people to be sexually unfulfilled, lonely, and depressed.

My original post is a comparison of the US today and the US 40 years ago. That is within living memory and we have tons of good statistics from the entire period. The point I made is solid and obvious. Vague and inaccurate notions about other countries make no difference.

Japan is extremely puritanical.

They’re so sex-negative their porn has pixelated genitals.

According to this study…

36 countries studied in 2020.

“Our findings do not provide evidence for substantial declines in mental well-being among adolescents.”

The massive teen mental health crisis is not an international problem.

It’s only in the USA. (we f**ked up)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X20300793 .