Sexual norms are not necessarily representative of a society's overall openness to change. My impression is that America (modulo some parts of the South) makes much more fuss celebrating innovation than most of the rest of the world does, and even if this is not a good reflector of the status quo, it certainly has a long-term impact on how people think.

I don't know where you're deriving social norms from conformity. If anything, with Europe being traditionally much more leftist than the U.S. there has been much more conformity of the individual to the state in Europe.