All societies are repressive — some brutally, others benignly, more or less. No society allows us to fully express our true selves. Some societies squash our true selves. Even those that don't will at least keep them in check to some degree. Society could hardly function otherwise.
Liberation is a great theme of the past 50 years. Whatever can be free should be free — so goes the prevailing thinking, and most of the postwar, postindustrial democracies have made enormous strides in that direction. Others, Japan among them, have stridden less rapidly.
That civilization requires a compromise between absolutely unfettered individuality and absolutely rigid conformity is generally acknowledged. Some behavior is acceptable, some not. So far we can all agree. Then comes the hard question: What behavior? If general precepts were all, humanity would be one harmonious, happy family. We founder on the rock of specifics.