How have we ended up where seemingly anything to do with sex and our sexual pleasure is being seen as shameful? Shame is such a powerful word too. Shame represents fear, as well as negative and upsetting emotions that are coupled with who we are, or at least our perception of who we think we are.
In contrast to shame, guilt is also something that hangs around sex and sexual pleasure as well. However, guilt is typically tied to a specific action we took or an event we participated in. Shame tends to feed on our feelings and emotions more by implanting seeds that there is something fundamentally wrong or broken with us.
Guilt is something that overcomes us about something we did. Shame is something that we feel about who and what we are.
The Origins of Sexual Shame: Societal and Cultural Influences
Both feelings are negative and both feelings can impact every one of us. They arise and manifest based on the ideals and expectations of others. What draws shame out in front of guilt, however, is that our shame generally has us suffering from more profound negative feelings about ourselves than guilt does.
Even in our supposedly modern and liberal 21st Century world, we often tend to neglect our erotic and sensual nature. This nature finds itself torn between two worlds: one where so many people are still ashamed and embarrassed to have natural, courteous, and open conversations about sex and sexual pleasure, and one where sex and eroticism are embellished and exaggerated in pornography which is so easily available on the Internet and via social media.
Sometimes we need to be reminded of the fact that it is because of sex that we all came to be living and breathing. Yes, as hard as it is for you to picture, you are here today because your parents had…gasp…sex!
Erotic energy is our creator and it is a part of our being. In several ancient traditions – from Tantra to Kabbalah – sexual energy was and is still honoured as the foundation of creativity and power.
I am sure you remember how great you feel after you have had a special sensual and pleasurable experience. Can you remember how you felt so energized, revitalized and that spring you had in your step? That is your sexual energy overflowing. When you can connect with your sexual energy, suddenly you get motivated with new ideas, new solutions pop up for old problems, and life just seems to be so wonderful.
What Is Sexual Shame?
Sexual shame is the culmination of all the negative ways we come to feel bad about our sex and ourselves as sexual beings. Sexual shame encompasses things such as what we think about sex and masturbation, what our sexual beliefs and values are, our sexual desires and fantasies, and our sexual activities. It is this shame we bring to these things that make us view them as being bad, broken, dirty, immoral, wrong, or even disgusting and evil.
Sexual shame can come about in response to many things of an erotic nature, but some of the main triggers are:
- Our sexual desires and wanting to experience sexual pleasure.
- The people we want to have sex with.
- The type of sex we want to have or wish we could have.
- Our sexual ideas and fantasies.
- The ways that we imagine ourselves as sexual and what is perceived as “normal” for our gender.
It is important to be aware that sexual shame does not always have to come about because of what we have done or acted upon. Many people can feel sexual shame simply because they think or feel a certain way about sex.
When sexual shame presents itself within us, one of the most dangerous things we start to believe is that sexual shame stems from within us.
For example, if a person has been living in a sexless marriage for many years and begin to have fantasies about having sex with someone who is not their spouse. They may feel shame about their desire for needing touch and sexual release. This person may then start to feel that this shame is natural for all people in their circumstances so they must continue to push any such desires away. This can, in turn, lead a person to never truly address their feelings of shame, and almost always keep it hidden and private and never revealed it to any other people.
Regrettably, not nearly enough people ask themselves the question as to why they feel this sexual shame. When we ask questions – of ourselves or to others – and talk about what we are feeling, we begin the process of transforming those negative feelings of shame into more positive types of feelings.
Where Did The Shame Come From?
One of the established misconceptions we accept about sex is that our sexuality and our sexual desires are natural, and what drives us to think and do the sexual things we do is pure biology. As such, it is our biology that pulls the levers when it comes to how we feel, think and act in sexual ways.
What I have just described is a very common way of thinking. It is a way of thinking that many societies, community groups, cultural traditions, and religions encourage us to believe. The problem is that there is little to no truth in it.
Our manifestations of shame, especially sexual shame, are not born within ourselves. They originate from outside of us. Our feelings of shame come from our families, our society, our peer groups, and our cultural and religious belief systems. And it doesn't stop there. Our friends influence us, and so do those we often seek help from (counsellors, therapists, doctors, nurses, social workers, etc) as well as in modern popular culture such through television, movies, music, books, magazines, websites, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
It is these constant streams of mixed messages about sex that we are exposed to throughout our lives that lead us to feel ashamed of our sexuality and sexual desires.
On one hand, we are shown images and messages that sex is wonderful and that beautiful, happy, popular people have great sex all of the time, and on the other side we get told messages that sex is dirty, full of disease, is selfish, sinful, wrong and should not be mentioned.
What teaches us to feel shame about sex and sexual pleasure is the barrage of messages that tell us what is normal and acceptable is narrowly defined as something heterosexual, young, white, non-disabled, skinny, attractive middle-class people do to make babies and then once a month (twice if it happens to be your birthday!) with the lights off as a demonstration of their everlasting love for each other…within marriage. This is what sex is to most people and this is the sex that gets called normal. Any deviation from this (I intentionally left out things such as masturbation, orgasms, etc) and you are meant to feel shame.
Truth be told, no one person fits into all of these categories. None of us do. Our sexuality and sexual needs and wants can't be crammed into such a narrow definition.
What this means is that none of us meet this model. We all fail. These lessons about sex are continually taught to us throughout our lives, sometimes they are painfully obvious and at other times they are very quiet and so subtle that we don't even realize we are being programmed. We are told that wanting sexual pleasure and enjoying the feeling of it too much is bad. We are told some types of sex are good (procreation), but others are wrong (using toys or doing it in a position other than missionary style). We are told you have a problem if you have no sexual desire, but wanting too much of it or being too open a free about your sex is a sign you have an issue that needs fixing.
I could go on with so many more examples. I am sure you can even come up with many yourself. These messages are steadily fed into us for so long that they soak into our brain and our body and take hold. By the time we are teenagers and reach high school we are already taught what our body should look like, and there has never been a teenager who hasn't felt some shame about how their body doesn't match the ideal. The same thing also happens with our sexual desire, our sexual activities, and our gender identities.
How Shame Affects Sex and Sexual Pleasure
It is through shame that our sex life and our sexuality are inflicted with much conflict and struggle. If you have ever had sexual intercourse then you are probably able to agree that the sexual experience feels great. Even if you are alone the act of still being sexual through self-pleasure can be equally as pleasurable.
Just by being sexual – alone or with partners - we can produce a great deal of emotional, physical, and spiritual pleasure, plus a noticeable improvement in our vitality and overall well-being. But still, we are told that much of sex and sexual pleasure is wrong, and desiring it makes us bad people or people who think dirty immoral things. It is frighteningly easy to get stuck in a prison of wanting sexual pleasure, sexual release, and sexual connection with another so badly, but make ourselves feel guilty, dirty, and terrible even at merely thinking about it.
All of this can have a shattering and demoralizing effect on our sex life and our sexuality. If you ask a sex therapist or sex coach for advice, they will often tell you that one of the major hurdles to reaching our full sexual potential is the sexual shame that most of us carry around with us. The shame we hold within ourselves about sex can act as a barrier to letting people get to know us and get close to us. It can make us feel uncomfortable in our bodies. We can also come to believe our sexual shame is "the way" and it can become a type of rule book for how everyone else should be sexual (or not), and our sense of shame can lead us to judge, shun and mistreat others who differ from us.
I have personal experience of being shunned and isolated. I have two immediate family members fully aware of the work I do through this website. These family members – both women in their late 30s - have such torment with my work that one family member refuses to talk about anything to do with my work, relationships, or sex in general. The other relative has described Tantric work as being weird and, to use one of her words, "icky" and I should stop if I want a relationship with her and her family.
Given this ultimatum, and given that my website is still up and running, both family members have had nothing to do with me or my children since. Both of these family members hold the belief that sex is embarrassing, shameful and should not be discussed.
Don’t Be Held Back by Shame
Our sexual shame can hold us back from ever exploring and experiencing certain sexual activities we may want to sample (not necessarily kinky), and it can keep us from being with the sexual or romantic partners we yearn to be with. Sexual shame has the power to not only prevent us from experiencing opportunities for sexual pleasure, but also intimacy, connection, companionship, and love.
This has the real potential to influence our ability to meet the sexual partners that we want or the sexual partners who will accept us for who we are.
One of the major ways that shame influences our sexuality is by making us silent. When we feel ashamed of something we usually don't want to talk about it. Instead, we opt to hide the part of us that we feel shame about away from others.
Sexual shame leads us to pigeonhole our sexuality and to only reveal to ourselves and others the parts we believe are acceptable and to conceal the other parts. This pigeonholing of our sexuality is false and hollow. It is something we foist upon ourselves and it can lead to a range of relationship and sexual problems.
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The information contained above is provided for entertainment purposes only. The contents of this article are not intended to amount to advice on your personal situation and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article. The Writer and Shoshin Therapies disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article.
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