[majormajor]

"WASP prudishness" doesn't explain why there's less "purely sexual" TV and film content now than in the 90s.

[echelon]

There was a ton of nudity in 80's movies.

The internet stole the show and actors started pushing back against it because it was still culturally taboo. Only now are we starting to see a big reversion and normalization of nudity in the arts.

Netflix and HBO are dialing up on nudity and sex. Millennials and Gen Z like it, and they have the metrics to show for it.

https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17369/heres-why-youve-been-...

[majormajor]

80s, 90s, not sure we need to make a big difference there.

Since then I think what you're seeing is more of a fracturing than an overall increase or decrease in prudishness.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/t... This talks about the small-screen stuff (and indie film) and dicks like you link out; but also points out the shift in mainstream cinema.

There's no more dicks or even breasts in tentpole blockbusters or the increasingly-adult-embraced "kids" films than there used to be. Even your R-rated stuff tends to have less of the sort of "coincidental" not-central-to-the-plot sex scenes than you would've seen a few decades ago. But what's left blockbuster film has found a place in "prestige TV" and by being moved less front-and-center, take-the-family-to-the-theater, it's been able to be amplified since entertainment as a whole is more fractured and it's less one-size-fits-all.

[stcroixx]

I assume this is to sanitize the big blockbusters for the Chinese market.