Sexuality and brutal violence were taboo in the upper classes of the educated French/English "high society".
So it wasn't "cool" to show such images in public (unless, OF COURSE, it was related to scaring believers with Hell
and images of it in paintings).
The male & female body were "sacred", but only as long as they were shown in a "Garden of Eden", non-threatening way (covered genitals/scaled down genitals/one breast covered, etc...)
This changed during the era of pictures, the beginning of pictures being printed in news papers and later, the "yellow press".
The salesmen soon realized, that people simply couldn't look away when seeing the images of mutants, accidents, crime, etc...
Said trend continues to this day; so by the age of 12, you probably rarely seen a boob, but you've seen police chases where the subject was shot in the head, you've seen enough "action movies", where people die every five seconds, etc...
The hypocrisy regarding the human body (especially through the Protestant "Puritan" movement in the US) stayed though and
the religious hypocrites, who'd love to see someone's head explode and parts of it shooting in their face, get "offended" when grown up
women go swimming without a bra on. Well, like I said, hypocrites.
Artists, of course, know about this "condition" and try to profit from it. Madonna would be stupid not to dress up like a teen girl and sing "Like
A Virgin".
The more people got used to it, the stronger the message that needed to be sent.
And oh yeah, only in countries with a history of conspiracy theories being believed in, can you still pull off anything "blasphemous".
"Blasphemy" being a victimless crime, because the subject you "blaspheme" against doesn't even exist. So you insult Spiderman,
the Wizard of Oz or "God". Same difference. None of them will appear and kick you in the butt.
Even Fataltone knows it and has to make up lies and scenarios that excuse the passive nature of his all-knowing, all-powerful, imaginary friend.