Why does religion encourage prudishness?

Question

And why do people cast moral judgments on sexual activity anyways?

Isn't having s*x only "bad" if it physically or psychologically harms someone?

Discuss.

Answer 1

s*x was created by God.  All things created by God are inherently good, but can be twisted.  s*x is one of those things that can be easily twisted, because it is so easy to focus only on the self gratifying pleasure and become "addicted" if you will.  Once we focus solely on the pleasure, we become slaves to it, and we are no longer seeking to do good for others or for God, only for ourselves (even if we don't admit it).

Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, that it's not only the action, but constantly thinking about and meditating on the action.  Why would that be, since you're not "hurting" anyone. In reality, you are--mostly yourself.  Jesus is trying to teach us self discipline, because that it very important for our spiritual development.  We may not see this, but that's like a two year old not understanding why his/her parents are doing certain things.

But, you can get a sense of the "wrongness" of the sexual desires just by looking at how it's affected society today.  I mean, the number of broken hearts, broken marriages, broken families--it's terrible.  And it's always the kids that suffer.

Well, enough of my soapbox.  I tried rationalizing this before, and it doesn't work, because you can rationalize anything.  I've come to except that God wanted it this way for a reason, even if I don't understand that reason completely, I will accept it and go with it.