Puritans realized long ago that nobody is buying their “sex is evil” bill of goods any longer, so they’ve broken it up into bite-sized chunks to more easily cram it down the gullets of the Great Unwashed. These bites include “porn is evil”, “pragmatic sex is evil”, “sex between people more than a few years apart is evil”, “sex a woman later regrets is retroactively evil”, “kink is evil”, “any sex trans people desire is evil”, “any sexual thoughts occurring even one minute before the thinker turns 18 are both evil and unnatural”, “wanting more or different sex than a monogamous partner is evil”, and many others. And as each of these was accepted into the popular consciousness, the puritans worked to expand it like driving a wedge into a log, until laws and policies nobody would’ve agreed to if presented up front are suddenly a fact, and the conversation is being dominated by people who actually think Cosmopolitan and Sports Illustrated qualify as “porn” and rather bland sex education materials qualify as “obscene”. Paradoxically, the anti-sex mob are those most obsessed by sex; they see it even where normal people do not. Moreover, they reveal their specific fantasies & kinks the second they open their mouths, because as those of us who have studied the psychology of human sexuality understand, taboos, either societal or personal, are the biggest turn-ons. So when Joe Arpaio goes on and on about bestiality with dogs, and Gail Dines goes on about triple penetration, and when other “feminists” go on and on about semen despite the existence of condoms, what they’re actually doing is revealing the specific nature of the fantasies which simultaneously obsess and bedevil them.
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There is an old joke about that.
A psychiatrist was administering a Rorschach inkblot test to a patient.
Psychiatrist: “what do you see in this image?”
Patient: “A wild sinful orgy of men and women copulating.”
Psychiatrist, showing the next one: “And what do you see in this image?”
Patient: “Two perverted women, having sex in ways they are not built to do.”
Psychiatrist, showing the next one: “And what do you see here? …”
The inkblots and dialogue continue many times, like a shaggy dog story.
Finally the psychiatrist says “You seem to be obsessed with sex.”
Patient: “What do you mean I’m obsessed? You’re the one showing me all the dirty pictures!”
Delacroix “Death of Sardanapalus” is an excellent example of such an obsession becoming cultural. Sardanapalus likely never existed, and was certainly not the last king of Assyria. But the myth of Sardanapalus has persisted off and on for centuries. It became a popular belief again in 19th century Europe.
Puritanism is also responsible for dividing feminism, from its first wave during the suffrage movement. Christabel Pankhurst embodied the puritanical side with her book The Great Scourge and How to End it (the scourge being sexually transmitted disease, her “solution” being “votes for women and chastity for men”). On the other end were women like Marie Stopes, who argued that encouraging women to be more aware and assertive of their sexuality was as much a part of the effort for equality as voting rights. Through the Feminist Sex Wars and the present-day divide over “sex trafficking” and sex workers rights, puritanism continues to split apart those who claim to be feminists; I’d hardly call the anti-sex branch as such because they ultimately want to take away women’s sexual autonomy in the name of “protecting” us. Bullshit!!