I think it's an interesting side conversation though.

Which leads me to my larger hunch: As a culture, we are bored with sex. It's too available, too approved, too obligatory.

This made me laugh a bit. I think as a culture we are bored with sex and too obligatory and too emptied of urgent meaning. But not because it's too approved. Not on a human level. On a cultural level, sure. Then again, this is the country that invented "cool" and modern advertising. Just because a culture approves of something, doesn't mean that it's familiar or well-versed in the art of whatever it is that it is approving.

I am not saying that Americans don't know what sex is, but I will say that since the cultural component is so uptight about it, the fact that sex is "naughty" instead of a pleasure, something that can be savored because we allow ourselves to revel in it, is very telling.

Sex is not necessarily too available either. Consider that many people in America consider inter-generational relationships to be deviant, or if not deviant, at least outside the norm. Whereas in many parts of the world, this is common. I think if we look closely, we will see that sex is of average or perhaps below average availability in the U.S., despite all the talk about it.

As for urgent meaning, I think that people in the U.S. think there needs to be more urgent meaning for sex than there has to be. I agree that sex needs to be taken down from the pedestal.