Sex and Religion

I've posted previously on sex and spirituality, and from where I sit, the best sex definitely has a spiritual component. But for many people, negative religious indoctrination has been a hindrance to their full sexual enjoyment. Shedding a sense of shame and guilt about the pleasures afforded by uninhibited sexual activity can be an obstacle to orgasm.

I just read an interesting statistic: nearly 60% of Protestant women surveyed reported they regularly had an orgasm during sex whereas only 26% of the Catholic women did. How much can that be attributed to the Catholic church's prohibition against masturbation, which is how a lot of women learn to have orgasms? Or maybe there's just more guilt in general among Catholics. That's not an indictment of Catholicism. As a Protestant, I, too, was exposed to a heaping dose of guilt. Fortunately, it didn't 'take'. But I remember the guilt I experienced as an adolescent after the sermon about bad thoughts being as sinful as bad actions. I guess I had a lot of 'bad' thoughts.

If religion is getting in the way of your sexuality, you may need to do some de-programming. Write down the beliefs you were taught and then write down beside each one what it is that you believe now. Make sure you keep talking back to the guilt-inducing beliefs that rob you of sexual wholeness.