Unless you've been living under a rock lately, you've heard the news of J.D. Salinger's passing. He was most famous for his ground-breaking novel "Catcher in the Rye". Loved by most who read it, the book was controversial, not because of its ideas or philosophy, but because of the language and the topics that Holden Caufield (the story's protagonist) discussed. America was founded by Puritans, and it seems that influence has never really gone away.

The book itself was banned in numerous schools, teachers even lost their jobs for assigning it to high school students. You would think that after centuries of advancement, our society would have moved past this. Granted, this was way back in the 1970s... that's practically ancient history. We're way beyond that now, right?

Of course not. In the last few days, a California school district pulled the Merriam-Webster Dictionary from the shelves because it included the definition for Oral Sex. I don't know about you, but looking up dirty words in the dictionary was a right of passage for me as a youngster.

Another school district is also pulling an updated version of Anne Frank's auto-biography because of a "vagina passage" (no pun intended) in the book. The original version had been censored by her father; this version has restored Anne Frank's original words. Apparently, high school kids aren't supposed to know what a vagina is?

TV has faired no better. Remember the huge flap over Janet Jackson's "nipple-gate" (no pun intended). How often does someone on TV inadvertently let a "fuck" slip out, and wait nervously like a little kid to find out if they'll be slapped with a huge fine?

This knee-jerk reaction to all things sexual (no pun intended) doesn't show any signs of abating. Gay marriage? Still forbidden. Gays in the military? Still forbidden, although the military is seeing the writing on the wall. That doesn't mean they have to like it. For those that watched the SOTU speech on Wednesday, the Joint Chiefs sat stone-faced when President Obama made the declaration that plans would be put in place to end DADT. That reaction did not go unnoticed.

I have to wonder if we'll ever get over this frowny-wavy-finger reaction to anything of a sexual nature? Politicians that have affairs resign in disgrace (unless they're Republican) while it's almost accepted that politicians in Europe (hell - most everyone) has mistresses (or misters). Movies with violence - okay for kids. Movies with 5 seconds of bare boobie - rated R. It just doesn't make sense. We've (mostly) gotten past a mindset that anyone other than white males is property. Why can't we get past this?