what i have come to realize is how much different people's view on sexuality differs.

Everybody thinks their own emotions are absolute and the way that everybody sees it; though that is not true at all. A very clear example of this is how different people are attracted to different kinds of people. It's not only about being gay or not, it's also that there's a huge number of people who are either asexual or rather prudish to the extent that they basically don't have sex outside of very narrowly-defined contexts.

This has been a huge surprise for me to learn about since my own instinct is the opposite: sexuality is what keeps the society together, what facilitates the exchange of people and causes relationships. without sexuality, a lot of things wouldn't work or work only very slowly.

i'm nowadays also convinced that it is strongly related to the weather/climate of the region. areas like italy and france have a significantly higher tendency towards sexuality than northern regions, which tend to be rather prudish, i guess.