I think your heading is a bit misleading. You're not really talking about "Nudity in Art"; you're talking about the commercial explotation of nudity which is a totally different thing and in this area America seems to be totally schizophrenic. On the one hand you have the TV networks and Hollywood and even to a degree the record industry all of whom kow-tow to their advertisers and none of whom would say boo to a goose. (There are exceptions to this and I do think things are improving - like for instance the sex scenes in True Blood and that was on HBO, outside the normal commercial realm). Then there's the sex industry in which America rules, though no necessarily in the right way all the time.
Now a lot people think that European, in particular UK, TV and film is more open, but often the nudity and sex displayed there is, how shall i put it, slightly smutty and played to the lowest common denominator (take a lot of Channel 4 shows for instance). We are more relaxed about sexual language in the UK than in the USA; we don't have the FCC and their stupidity to guide us, but even then it's often used for effect than for context; you could probably say something is "fucking stupid" (after the watershed hours) but to dramatically say "Fuck me, please fuck me" in a television drama is probably not allowed. Funny really 'cos one is an insult and the other is asking for something pleasant and desirable; its the old violence v. sexuality debate all over again.
As far as nudity in REAL art is concerned I suspect that attitudes in the US and the UK are pretty well balanced, though our police as "guardians of morality" do close down the odd exhibition every now and again. There's an interesting debate going on in the Observer at the moment which examines the use of children in art ://.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/nov/01/art-child-porn-old-masters; as ever, if it's an Old Master it's OK, if it's modern it's suspect. How the hell did we get this paranoid? I blame it on the gutter press which in the UK is deeper in the gutter than it ever is in the US (compare The Sun UK to The New York Post, both owned by News International, the former makes the latter look like pages from a great novel. Such press continually stifles REAL debate and it's not just about SEX. To sum up, I'm inclined to believe that every country has its own brand of Puritanism, it's just that there are more of you in America, so maybe it feels worse
Livingjukebox
London UK