Don't be fooled. ALL of the Western religions have taboos on sex. The Puritans were fine with married couples and (as most Christian faiths preach) believed that you should be out there going at it because it resulted in babies. But casual sex for pleasure, or sex outside of marriage was a bad thing to them.
As a person who was brought up Catholic here in the USA, it took me a long time for me to be able to step back and see that, to a very large portion of the world, (ie, to cultures other than American or European Judo-Christian) sex is not a big deal and something that should be celebrated and shared first, not bottled up and repressed.
hehe...I can't help it...I gotta' weigh in on this...as a "Judeo-Christian" (actually...most of my experience is Southern Baptist *shiver*...) and a person who has been married twice, had sex in and out of marriage, had all kinds of opinions about sex over the years, etc. etc. ....and NOW I'm studying to be a Christian Marriage and Family Therapy Counselor...let me say this:
The Christian belief does not have a "taboo" about sex...quite the opposite...but, unfortunately, it is usually mistaken as a "taboo" (now, this does not account for those Christians who get it wrong...I'm talking about the actual belief...). In fact, Christians LOVE sex...so much so that it is seen as a holy act between two people...an opportunity to share and come together "as one"...a gift from God to be enjoyed to the fullest by His people. AS A RESULT...they want to treat sex as a somewhat holy experience...meaning, they believe sex is intended to be shared in a certain way...if it is not shared in the way they believe to be holy, then they see it as a perversion of a holy act.
They don't believe sex is taboo or bad...they believe sex is holy...and should be treated as such...protected...their actions/words/etc. are, more often than not, born out of a desire to protect the holy nature of sexuality.
Of course...many, many Christians have gotten it wrong over the years...but many, many cultures have gotten a LOT of things wrong over the years...but their mistakes rarely come up in conversation because that person didn't grow up in that culture and therefore can't blame that culture for oppressing them as a child...but our culture sure can.
Not trying to pick on you jwdenzel...your quote was just the easiest to post and then respond...please don't think I was attacking/disagreeing with you...really.
And now...we are officially WAY off topic...F**K!!!!