http://jezebel.com/fox-news-blurs-the-boobs-on-a-picasso-pai...
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?377387-The-Etiquette-of-...
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jsgeq/would_the_f...
http://techliberation.com/2006/11/07/nipple-indecency-is-com...
If someone could dig up a youtube, that would be great.
I may well get burned for this, but I'm going to quote a friend's quip from years back. I think he made a good, if caustic, point. (Your choice of term "puritan" is the operative word here.)
"It's cultural baggage. The country was colonised by Puritans. You know, the segment of British population whom even then Victorians considered uncomfortably prude."
I do believe there is a kernel of truth in that. As to why it has remained such a dominant feature in the collective US psychology, now that'd be an interesting study.
If it helps at all, remember that the US was founded in large part by the Puritans.
You answered the question. This country's first moral code came from puritans who were trying to get away from England because the other religions there had too much frivolity.
In fact now that I think about it, when that Picasso painting was in the news a week or two back for setting a record price at auction, some channels blurred out part of it in case their viewers got offended by cubist depictions of the female breasts: http://metro.co.uk/2015/05/14/fox-news-blurred-out-the-breas...
You can show all sorts of atrocious acts of violence on network TV, but display a penis for 3 seconds and it's a $325,000 fine: https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-32A1.pd...
No word yet on how this horror will affect the fine children of Roanoake, VA - no doubt the monies collected for the fine will be channeled to treating their post-traumatic stress disorders.