Culture in the United States
Novels, plays, films and songs that put sin, morality and censorship on stage.
All topics · 10
Sin and Shame in The Scarlet Letter: Hawthorne's Puritan Boston
Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter follows Hester Prynne, a married woman in 17th-century Puritan Boston who bears a child outside her marriage and is forced to wear a scarlet "A." Britannica calls it a classic moral study. Hawthorne drew on real colonial practice: Plymouth Colony could make adulterers wear the letters "AD."
View the topic →Adultery and Reputation in Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible dramatizes the 1692 Salem witch trials, in which 19 people were hanged, as an allegory of McCarthy-era anti-communist hunts. Its plot turns on John Proctor's past affair with Abigail Williams: that hidden episode feeds her accusations and forces him to choose between confession and his good name.
View the topic →Easy A and the Scarlet Letter in American Teen Culture
Easy A, a 2010 comedy starring Emma Stone as high-school student Olive, borrows the plot device of The Scarlet Letter. A false rumor about Olive's sex life spreads through school, a self-appointed religious leader tries to shame her, and Olive takes ownership of her reputation, echoing Hester Prynne's scarlet "A" in a modern setting.
View the topic →How the Hays Code Kept Sex Outside Marriage Off the Screen
The Motion Picture Production Code, known as the Hays Code, was Hollywood's self-imposed rulebook from 1934 to 1968. Adopted partly in response to public outrage and the threat of government censorship, it barred depictions of promiscuity, profanity and obscenity, among other content. The current film rating system replaced it in 1968.
View the topic →The Oneida Community and Its "Complex Marriage" Experiment
The Oneida Community was a religious utopian society led by John Humphrey Noyes, which grew from a group he formed in Putney, Vermont, around 1841 and lived at Oneida, New York, from 1848 to 1880. It practiced "complex marriage," rejecting exclusive couples, which set it sharply apart from the marriage norms and laws of its time.
View the topic →The Bible Belt and Sexual Morality in the American South
The Bible Belt is a mainly Southern US region associated with fundamentalist Protestantism; Merriam-Webster dates the term to 1924. Several states still carrying fornication or cohabitation laws lie there. Attitudes track faith: Pew found in 2019 that 35% of white evangelicals accept unmarried couples living together without plans to marry.
View the topic →Are Americans Puritanical About Sex? The Stereotype and the Evidence
"Puritanical," meaning rigidly moral, recalls the Puritans who settled New England from 1630 and based criminal law largely on the Old Testament. The label survives in debates over sex ed, film ratings and morals laws. Yet surveys complicate it: Gallup found in 2026 that 65% of Americans call sex between unmarried adults morally acceptable.
View the topic →Fact-Checking Viral Lists of "Weird Sex Laws" in America
Some are, many are not. A widely shared 2021 list named Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah as banning sex outside marriage, but Massachusetts reportedly repealed its law in 2018, Utah in 2019 and Idaho in 2022. Statutes that remain, as in Mississippi and South Carolina, are considered unenforceable after Lawrence v. Texas.
View the topic →Why Americans Still Say "Fornication": The King James Bible's Legacy
Largely because of the King James Version, published in 1611 under James I and the standard English Bible from the mid-17th to the early 20th century. It renders the Greek porneia as "fornication" 26 times, in lines such as "Flee fornication." Many American churches still read the KJV, keeping the word alive.
View the topic →Alfred Kinsey in Pop Culture: From 1950s Celebrity to Hollywood Biopic
Alfred Kinsey's books on male (1948) and female (1953) sexual behavior became bestsellers and made the Indiana University biologist a public celebrity, featured in cartoons, novels and popular music. His reports challenged official morality about sex outside marriage. Hollywood later retold his life in the biopic Kinsey, with Liam Neeson in the title role.
View the topic →