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Sex and Shame

Exploring the Relationship Between Sex and Shame


By Cory Silverberg, About.com Guide Updated March 08, 2011 Shame is one of those words that gets used a lot (like self-esteem) but we don't always think very carefully about what it means. How is shame different, for example, from guilt? Is feeling shame and being ashamed the same thing? And when I feel shame, is that the same feeling that people are referring to when they say I should feel ashamed about something? Generally speaking, shame refers to negative or painful emotions that are tied to who we are or at least who we think we are. Guilt is often related to a particular behavior or event; we feel guilty for something we have done. Shame can feel more like there is something fundamentally wrong or broken with us; we feel shame for something we are. Both feelings are connected to messages and expectations of others, but shame may be distinguished by a particular depth of negative feeling about ourselves.

What Is Sexual Shame?


Sexual shame refers to are all the ways we come to feel that who we are as sexual beings (including how we think about sex, our sexual beliefs and values, our sexual desires, and our sexual behaviors) are wrong, broken, fundamentally bad, or even evil. People experience sexual shame in response to many things, including:

who we feel sexual desire for who we want to have sex with the kinds of sex we want to have our sexual thoughts and fantasies the ways that we see ourselves as sexual (which often includes how we understand our gender)

Sexual shame doesn't just come from "doing" things. Many of us experience sexual shame whether or not we ever act out our thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. One of the most dangerous parts of sexual shame is how easy it is to believe that the shame originates from within us. For example, someone who likes to watch pornography may feel shame about their desire. They may feel that they are bad for wanting to watch pornography or bad because of the kinds of activities they like to watch. And they may feel as if that shame is "natural" which is to say that it's something they were born with. This can lead that person to never question their feelings of shame, and certainly to keep it private and never talk about it with others. Unfortunately, questioning and talking about the things we feel sexual shame about are two key ways of working with those feelings of shame and, if it's our goal, of

transforming those feelings of shame into other kinds of feelings. Not enough of us ask ourselves the question...

Where Does Shame Come From?


One of the lies we're told about sex1 is that sexuality is natural, and there is a biological drive that leads us to feel, think, and act in particular sexual ways. If you believe this, it follows that when you feel shame about a particular sexual thought, desire, or belief that it is "natures way" of telling you that what you want or what you think is wrong. This is a very common way of thinking, and in fact it is an idea that many different traditions (religious and otherwise) encourage us to believe. But there is simply no truth to it. There is nothing "natural" or "unnatural" about sexual desire. Nature has nothing to do with it. No one is born feeling shame. Our shame about sex begins not within ourselves but from outside of us. It comes from our families, from our cultural and religious traditions, it comes from our friends and our communities. It comes from professionals (doctors, nurses, police officers, teachers, therapists, etc...) and it comes from current cultural material like television, radio, books, websites, and other social spaces online. We learn to feel ashamed of sexuality in general by being constantly exposed on the one hand to images and messages that say that sex is great and that happy, successful, popular people have sex and on the other hand to messages that say that sex is indulgent and sinful and wrong, and that it leads to disease and betrayal and death. We learn to feel shame about our own particular experience of sex and sexuality by being hit with a steady stream of messages that tell us the only sexuality that is okay is a very narrowly defined one (heterosexual, young, white, nondisabled, skinny, middle class people who do it to make babies and then once a week as an expression of their undying love for each other). The truth is that even if you are some of those things, none of us are all of them. Sexuality can't fit into such a narrow frame. In other words none of us meet this ideal. We learn these lessons in ways that are painfully obvious at times and other times are so subtle that we don't even notice we're learning. We learn these lessons when we are exposed to violence, from harassment to assault and abuse that is physical, emotional, and/or psychological. We're told that feeling too much pleasure is bad. We're told that some kinds of sexual activities are okay, but others are wrong; that not wanting any sex is unhealthy; that being too open about sex and your body is a sign of a problem. We're told taht if you experience violence there must be something you did to deserve it. The list goes on and on and on. These messages seep into our brains and our bodies. By the time you're a teenager you already "know" what your body should look like and all of us feel some shame about the ways our bodies don't match that ideal. The same thing happens with desire, with sexual activities, with sexual and gender identities.

How Shame Influences Our Sexuality


Shame creates a great deal of conflict within ourselves when it comes to sexuality. If you've had consensual sex in your life then you probably have had the experience of sex being something that feels good (or even great). Being sexual, alone or with

partners can create a lot of physical, emotional, and spiritual pleasure, and an overall sense of well being. And yet we're told much of it is wrong, and wanting it makes us bad people. It's easy to get stuck in a cycle of wanting something so badly, but making ourselves feel terrible even in the wanting of it. The impact of all this is devastating to our sexuality. If you ask most sex therapists and educators they will tell you that one of the biggest obstacles to experiencing sexual health is the sexual shame that most of us carry around with us. And for many professionals, helping people to move towards greater sexual health means helping them uncover where their sense of shame comes from, and working with them to decide how they want to deal with it. Our sexual shame can keep us from letting people get close to us. It can keep us from feeling comfortable in our own bodies. We can also come to feel as if our sexual shame is more of a rule book for how everyone should be sexual, and our sense of shame can lead us to judge and mistreat others. This can have an obvious impact on our ability to find sexual partners that we want, or sexual partners who will accept us for who we are. Our sexual shame can keep us from exploring specific sexual activities we may want to explore, and it can keep us from being with the sexual or romantic partners we want to be with. In this way sexual shame can not only prevent us from experiencing the possibilities of sexual pleasure, but also love, intimacy, companionship. One of the biggest ways that shame affects our sexuality is by making us silent. When we feel ashamed about something we usually don't want to talk about it, we want to hide that part of us that we feel shame about. Shame leads us to compartmentalize our sexuality, to only show people (or even ourselves) the parts we think are acceptable and to hide the other parts. This compartmentalizing of our sexuality is artificial. It is something we impose and it can lead to many different kinds of sexual problems.

Can You Get Rid of Shame About Sex?


The short answer is yes. Or at least it's true that some people do seem able to lose their shame about some parts of their sexuality. This isn't to say that everyone can, or even that everyone wants to. For some of us our experience of shame is tied to something important and protective, and we may not be ready to give it up. Forcing someone to "deal with" their sexual shame isn't a good idea (also it won't work). But for many people who discover that their feelings of shame are keeping them from being the people they want to be, and from having experiences they want to have, it is very possible to eliminate or at least significantly reduce their feelings of sexual shame. Perhaps one of the most important things we can all do to reduce shame is to start talking about those things which we feel most ashamed of. Shame flourishes in silence. While we may be bombarded with sexual messages, this isn't the same thing as direct or honest communication about our sexual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The lack of public discussion of sexuality in ways that match our lived experience of it only increases our feelings of shame. Read more about dealing with sexual shame2.

Can Sexual Shame Be a Good Thing?


What if you feel ashamed of something that everyone agrees is wrong? For example, feeling ashamed of a desire to force someone to engage in sexual activities either through physical violence, or psychological or emotional coercion? What about adults who want to have sex with children? It seems reasonable to ask whether that shame isn't a good thing. There is no easy answer to this point. And different sex educators would answer this differently. My response to this is that while shame alone may stop some people from engaging in activities, it won't stop everyone. People who have a desire to hurt others against their will, to control or do violence to other people, to deny them their basic human rights, need to be helped to not act on those desires (and it should be mentioned that it isn't always about desire, and it usually isn't about sexuality at all). These people need lots of different kinds of help (or "treatment" in the language of the medical model). Only shaming them likely won't be enough. And in fact when we focus on shame we encourage them to hide their desires even more. While it's true that few of us want to hear about another persons wish to do harm to someone, when we keep them silent and hidden we actually make it harder to protect ourselves and our communities (and at the same time harder for them to ever consider seeking help).

Dealing with Sexual Shame


By Cory Silverberg, About.com Guide Updated March 08, 2011 It's probably safe to say that everyone experiences some degree of shame about sex1. Whether we feel shame for what (or who) we desire, shame for things that we chose to do, shame for things that were done against our will to us, or any number of other sexual thoughts, feelings, and desires, if we want to explore our own sexuality we're likely going to come up against feelings of shame. With sexual shame being so common it may seem surprising that we don't talk about it more. Only it isn't. Shame leads us to be silent about our sexuality and it gets more powerful in that silence. Whether you can live a life without any sexual shame or not, there are things we can all do to change our experience of sexual shame. For many of us this work is best done with a professional (either a general counselor or therapist or perhaps someone who specializes in sex therapy2). In fact for some people, starting to unpack their sexual shame can be unsafe if they do it on their own, without any supports in place. The ideas below are not a substitute for talking with a friend, partner, family member or trusted professional. And because this is information for a general audience, I am not suggesting everyone should, or needs to, follow the ideas below. But if you have some support and you're interested in shifting your experience of sexual shame the suggestions below may help you begin to think about a different way of approaching your experience of sexual shame.

Begin to Notice and Name the Shame


Feelings of shame can be like a vicious cycle. We feel sexual shame, we keep it to ourselves, it leads us to tell ourselves that there's something wrong with us, which we feel shame for, but can't tell anyone about. Live with shame long enough and you stop noticing it's even there, you just feel bad or tired or unmotivated to think about it. One of the first things you can do is catch yourself when you're feeling ashamed and just take note of it. What prompted the feeling of shame? And what was your response? Did you get quiet? Did you retreat socially? Did you start telling yourself anything in particular? And when you feel it can you just say to yourself, oh, I'm feeling ashamed.

Learn About Others Shame


Because we are usually silent about the things we're most ashamed of, most of us never discover the truth, which is that everyone feels shame about some things, and many people share shame about the very thing we are ashamed of. Whether you want to read a book, check out a website, watch or listen to a documentary, it can help to hear other people's stories about shame. It may be sexual shame around being the victim of sexual violence, or shame around a sexual orientation. It might even be shame that isn't about sexuality at all. Just witnessing other people who have found a

way to talk about their shame can sometimes begin to change the way you feel about your own shame.

Think About the Origins of Your Feelings of Shame


For many of us, feeling ashamed of our sexuality is related to difficult experiences in our past and often to something to do with our body. It might be connected to something someone did to us emotionally, physically, and/or psychologically. It might be related to a relationship in our family or community or in the context of a romantic or sexual relationship. Taking some time to think about where the sense of shame comes from, or at least where feeling shame takes you back to, can be one way to find an opening into the closed system that shame can feel like. Working on something like a personal sexual history3 is one way to do this.

Talk to Yourself
If you think talking to yourself is something only people with mental illness do, think again. Talking to yourself is not, in and of itself, a problem. In fact it can be an important tool in changing the way you think about things. Often when we experience sexual shame it comes with a lot of negative self talk. We can tell ourselves that we're disgusting or dirty or unlovable. We can say the most horrible things to ourselves. But you can also make a conscious effort to say different things to yourself. To tell yourself that it's okay. Even if you're feeling shame you may not always feel this way. That you don't need to feel ashamed, and that you could stop feeling ashamed and still make whatever decisions you want about your sex life and your sexuality. Something as simple as saying to yourself "oh, that's sexual shame I'm feeling" every time you notice you're feeling ashamed can be a useful exercise.

Talk to Others
One of the most powerful ways to reduce or eliminate feelings of shame is to talk with others about your feelings honestly and openly. Of course, depending on what your feeling shame about, you need to choose those others carefully. Because of abuses of human rights around the world, there are some of us who risk arrest, imprisonment, even death if we reveal the thing we feel ashamed of (particularly when that shame is tied to our sexual orientation, identity, and/or gender identity). The truth is that not everyone is safe to talk to about our sexual shame, not everyone has the boundaries to accept our vulnerability. Even professionals who are trained to deal appropriately with personal disclosures can let their own values and judgments come out when hearing someone be honest about their feelings of shame about sexuality. This is one of the reasons why talking with a professional who has some training in human sexuality can be a good idea. Although talking to a partner or family member or friend who has proven trustworthy can be just as good or better. Talking with others may not be something you ever choose to do, which is okay too. But for many people this is an important part of the process once they've worked through a lot of their own feelings and thoughts about whatever it is they feel ashamed of.

Work With Your Body and Your Thoughts


A lot of sexual shame is tied up in how we feel about and experience our bodies. For this reason a lot of people find doing some kind of work with their body can help them change their relationship to shame. It might be dancing or yoga or meditation, it could be taking a self-defense class or soaking in a tub. For some people learning to show love and feel pleasure in their own bodies, through masturbation4, can be transformative. The shame we feel about our bodies can be intense and sometimes only thinking about it or only approaching it from a physical perspective isn't enough. This can be a particular struggle as even those people who support reducing sexual shame in the world often still hold ableist5 beliefs and judgments about what our bodies are "supposed" to be like.

Focus on the Process Not the Goal


Shame is often the result of experiences, beliefs, and values that have been forced on us from others. Trying to eliminate shame by forcing yourself, or pushing yourself beyond what you feel like you can handle may be trying to achieve something good, but the process matters. It can be helpful to focus on the process instead of fixating on a need to rid yourself of shame right away. The process of exploring where your feelings of shame came from, what other options you may have to feeling differently about yourself and your sexuality, even imagining what life without sexual shame would feel like, is useful in and of itself. Think about the process as something good you're doing for yourself. Don't consider yourself a success only if you never feel shame again, and a failure otherwise. Which brings us to the final suggestion...

Be Gentle and Generous with Yourself


Most societies are set up to keep us feeling ashamed of some aspect of our sexuality. If you're working on changing that acknowledge that the work is hard, and that even trying is an important way of saying that you're worth it, that you're valuable and worthy of love and respect. Often shame feels like harsh judgment, so be your own best example by trying to be gentle with yourself. That may mean not pushing yourself if you don't feel up for it. Or making sure you have someone you can always call when you're feeling down, or just doing one thing every day that gives you a bit of pleasure or joy.

Lies We're Told About Sex


By Cory Silverberg, About.com Guide Updated December 14, 2010 The messages we receive about sex from our parents, the media, and our educational, social, and religious institutions tend to be contradictory, and often downright false. One way to combat the lies were told about sex is to start cataloguing them. Below is a very incomplete list of some of the biggest lies were told about sex.

Sex is genetic: Its the puppe t-master and were lucky to be getting our strings pulled now and then.
Because procreation is tied to our species survival, evolutionary scientists and pop psychologists alike argue that the most important understanding of sexuality is the one that links our sexual behavior to procreation. Thus we are told that male sexuality 1 is voracious and dangerous, that female sexuality is a side effect of the need for women to have babies, and that the psychological, emotional, and spiritual aspects of sexuality are not as important as the genetic ones. There is clearly a genetic component to sex,2 but that doesnt mean that this is either the most useful, or truest perspective from which to think about our sexuality.

Sex is natural and simple: You should just know how to do it.
Sex is natural, were told, because we have to do it to survive. But this doesnt accurately describe what human sexuality has become. Intercourse 3may be instinctual for some (but clearly not all) of us, but sexuality is much more than intercourse,4 and none of it actually comes easily. Its it strange that we are taught how to perform most other basic human behaviors (how to eat, how to communicate, how to go to the bathroom) and as we get older we learn the more complicated ones (how to read, write, drive a car, work) and yet were just supposed to know how to have sex.

Sex is gender: Men are from sex-crazed Mars; women are from soft and romantic Venus.
This lie takes many forms:

Women just want to cuddle, men want to have raunchy sex. Women are sexual communicators, men cant talk about their sexual feelings. Real sex takes place between a man and a woman. Men and women cant ever be friends, sex always gets in the way. Men want sex all the time, and women dont. Men are more visual than women when it comes to sexual arousal. 5

All of these are variations on the big double-shot sex lie: That sex is 100% tied to our gender, and we are all only one gender. The fact is that how we think about, feel about, and actually have sex is infinitely more complicated than which door we walk through in a public washroom.

Sex is spontaneous: Dont talk about it, just do it.


When you think of it, this lie about sex doesnt make any sense. If sex is meant to be something fun and exciting, something that makes you feel good about your body and yourself, makes you feel loved and attended to, why would planning for sex ever be a bad thing? Wouldnt it actually be nice to know youre going to get to have sex at the end of a particularly hard day? Yet were told that the most exciting sex is the sex that just happens. In reality, sex rarely just happens. Its true that many couples never talk about sex beforehand, 6 but that doesnt mean that one (or more likely both) partners arent thinking about it, wondering when theyre going to have it next, and fantasizing about what kind of sex it will be.

Bigger is better, more is betterbetter is better.


These statements are true for some people, some of the time. The specific lie were told is that these things are true for everyone, all of the time. In reality people have size preferences 7that change depending on their mood and what sort of sex they want to have. Similarly, we all have different levels of sexual desire, and these levels can change throughout the month, and over the years. Finally, there is a more contemporary lie that tells us we should always be reaching for better sex, trying new things, pushing ourselves and our partners to attain new heights of great sex. Some researchers have pointed out 8that this competitive attitude can have the opposite effect, making us anxious and on edge about the sex were having.

Sex is special: Its a rare transformative moment that only comes once in a while.
On one hand, its true that sex can be transformative and that some of us dont get to have sex as often as wed like, but on the other hand, sex is an incredibly common and regular occurrence. Yet many of us are raised to think of sex like its a nonrenewable resource thats about to dry up. If instead we put sex in its place among all our other activities of daily living and all the ways we communicate with the people around us, we might have a lot less anxiety about how were doing it, when were doing it, if were doing it right, and who were doing it with. Sex doesnt need to be treated with kid gloves, it can take it, if we start to dish it out.

We can make it on our own: Sexual agency is the same as sexual independence.
We can thank the mostly positive influence of the womens movement on sexual expression for this subtle lie. Whats true is that we all have a right to sexual agencyto experience sexual pleasure on our own terms, think sexual thoughts, and have sexual desires separate from those around us. But the silent lie is that sexual agency equals complete independence. In truth, none of us are completely independent from those around us, and we rely on others in ways few of us

acknowledge. Among the few people who have managed to really figure this out are folks living with disabilities who require assistance with regular daily activities. When you rely on others for some form of help, it becomes very apparent the way we are all connected. If you dont, you can go through life imagining that youd be fine without anyone around. Yet even masturbation, which is often fueled by sexual fantasy, requires some external stimulation (even if youre only d reaming of the UPS guy or gal, theyre still involved to some extent).

Theres a right way and a wrong way to have sex.


Whether were being told we have to do it with someone else (masturbation isnt real sex), we have to do it with someone of the oppos ite sex, we have to do it in a bed, 2.5 times a week, or some other form of this lie, there are no lack of people who want to feed you the lie that there is only one (or two) right ways to have sex. The truth is that there are no rules (beyond age and consent) to how you can have healthy and fun sex. Whenever you catch someone feeding you this lie, call them on it.

Great sex is all about


Is it about sexual technique? Is it sexual communication? Is it the spark, or the bed sheets, or the sex toys, or the weather system? Amazon lists over 150 books with great sex in the title, each one offering you an endless stream of advice on what constitutes great sex. Its no lie that great sex can be had, but the lie is that one persons great sex will be your great sex. Great sex probably isnt like a great chocolate chip cookie recipe, which works best if you follow the directions to the letter. Learning more about sex can probably only add to your experience of good sex, but in the absence of any proof, Im going to go out on a limb and suggest that great sex happens in the way you uniquely put it all together, not in following a step by step guide book written by someone whose main goal is to sell you a book.

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