While sex seems to be on everybody’s mind these days, there are those for whom sex and sexual health are the last things they want to think about. Sexual guilt or shame plagues their mental wellness, causing these individuals to feel grave responsibility and deep remorse over participation in or even thoughts about sexual activity. Those whose wellbeing is affected by sexual guilt generally are so affected because they believe that sex (or a specific sex act) is immoral, sinful or unclean. But how does sexual guilt develop?
According to the Sinclair Intimacy Institute, ‘From birth, a child receives messages from its parents about what are and are not acceptable ways of expressing sexual desire, as well as messages about approved or disapproved attitudes toward sexual issues. These social hindrances on the free and open expression of basic desires contribute to the formation of three distinct aspects of the human personality, according to Freud.’ These three distinct aspects are:
1. The Id: Your most primitive drives and the psychic energy needed to initiate actions designed to satisfy these desires, including the desire for sex.
2. The Ego: An executive function in your mind that takes in information from your sense organs about the external world and directs the day-to-day fulfilment of sexual and other desires in socially acceptable and achievable ways.
3. The Superego: The learned and internalised social standards of behaviour you have received from your parents and others, including an understanding of “wrong” behaviours.
‘The superego is our conscience,’ the Sinclair Intimacy Institute explains. ‘It consists of internally held values about what is right and commendable, on the one hand, and what is wrong and condemnable on the other. Transgression of superego standards leads to guilt feelings as well as to a sense of remorse, anger directed at oneself, and a loss of self-esteem. These transgressions need not be actual behaviours, such as participation in banned sexual activities. They may occur in dreams or fantasies as well.’
As well as the obvious impact that sexual guilt has on your mental health, other negative outcomes have also been found to be associated with sexual guilt. Sex and relationship expert Dr. Drew Pinsky notes, ‘Guilt and shame may further impair people’s ability to prepare for the sexual behaviours, particularly in young people. If they feel guilty or ashamed that they are sexually active, they might not be prepared to prevent the potential of sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy.’ That said, sexual guilt is by no means on the rise. ‘In my work I rarely see guilt and shame about being sexual or having sexual thoughts,’ says Dr. Drew. ‘That seems to be something of a historical anachronism perhaps still present in the older population,’ and young people from extremely religious upbringings.
However, for Dr. Drew it’s not uncommon to see this sexual guilt tied up in excessive, bizarre or addictive sexual behaviours. He points out, ‘Even then guilt is not the predominant feeling. There is the sense of guilt that somehow if they were to be found out by others, they would be disappointed or embarrassed. The overriding experience is that of shame, that because of these actions these people start to feel as though there is something deeply wrong with them.’ Still, the ironic thing about this is that the shame often causes them to increase the very behaviour that causes them to feel this way in the first place. ‘It actually accelerates their desire to lose themselves in their preoccupations,’ Dr. Drew details. ‘This is the so-called shame spiral that is so often experienced in sex addicts or sexual compulsives.’
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