Our stories around sex, shame, and the church
From my experience working with women in their 20s-40s with a history of growing up with religion in their family or culture, I’d say the hardest topic for many women to talk about with me in therapy is sex and intimacy (pun intended).
And before we dive deeper into the topic of sex in the therapy process, I want to offer a heads-up and apologies in advance - puns are very easy to come by when talking about the topic of sex (puns intended). I use humor when talking about sex not to make light of or to dismiss the topic, but ultimately to help your system feel more comfortable and normal about talking about a ‘serious taboo’. One of my many hopes with the therapy process is to help you find a lightness and levity to any heavy stories your parts are holding, including the story of sex in your life, and sometimes that can include jokes and laughter.
As someone who also grew up in the church, I have lived experience of the convoluted relationship a woman can have around the topic of sex and sexuality. I’ll never forget the moment when I realized I had moved from girlhood to being perceived as a woman when I was told by church leaders that “all boys think of is sex”. I remember the most confusing lesson on sex taught by youth leaders who themselves clearly have never had sex during a pre-teen camp designed to prepare us for teenage life. I remember the internal conflict of having to do a stage kiss for a theatre show, fluctuating between “we’re playing make-believe, and it’s just a kiss” and “I’m committing a major sin against the Holy Spirit that lives in the vessel of my body”.
And the stories I just shared don’t even encompass my whole story around sex and sexuality, and my body is just one in the sea of many other bodies, regardless of gender, and of how the church fumbled the topic of sex.
So in this blog post, I’ll be sharing: 1. The most common questions clients bring in around sex, 2. My view on sex within the therapeutic process, and 3. Where do we go from here?
The questions we carry about sex
Clients have told me that I am the first person they’ve ever spoken their questions and curiosity about sex and sexuality out loud with specificity and permission to get it all completely wrong. This confession warms my heart because I’m glad that therapy can finally be a place of safety and exploration, but it also breaks my heart because our valid fear of judgment and shame has caused so many of us to be isolated for so long. So I’ll share some of the common threads of questions around sexuality here, because knowing you’re not the only one can feel like a relief for certain parts of us:
I’ve never kissed someone else - what if I’m not good at it?
I know what a penis looks like from science diagrams, but I’m scared of seeing one in real life - what if I don’t know what to do with it?
I don’t feel great watching movies with sex scenes, but I feel tingly when I read romance books - is that weird?
I’ve never been physically attracted to any man as a woman - what will I do if I find out I’m gay?
I avoid seeing or touching anything “down there” - does that mean I’m asexual?
I’m not a virgin, and I’ve never had an orgasm - am I broken?
I experienced sexual trauma at a young age, and my body can’t tell the difference between arousal and feeling ‘wrong ’-is there hope for me?
Sex, shame, and our bodies
Through books like Sex, God and the Conservative Church or Come As You Are, a grounding thought that has helped me unravel the uncomfortability around the topic of sex and sexuality is this: sex is an embodied process.
Sex is not just a conceptual thought in our heads - sex is experienced in our bodies. Sex is not just a one-time act - it’s an ongoing conversation that is filled with curiosity and surprises. Sex is as human as we get - after all, we are formed by sex, literally.
Just like how our bodies never exist in a vacuum, sex always exists within contexts. Macrocontexts like the questionable theology built on Plato’s dualism, or the toxic misogyny that subjugates women (and also harms men), or the rampant homophobia in religious circles that exiles anyone who questions, or the recent doubling down of extreme puritanism in churches against the wave of hypersexuality in the ‘secular’. And then there are personal experiences that happened to your body, or beliefs about bodies passed down within your family or your specific culture, and those stories live in your body.
Sex is a way for adults to play - where make-believe is celebrated, where risk and rules co-exist for excitement and safety under mutual agreement, where anything can happen, and your mind lets go and allows your instincts to be free. I wonder how so many of us have lost the art of play because we thought we had to grow up a certain way, or risk punishment and shame for being different. I wonder what life, including sex and relationships, could look like if we allowed ourselves to embody a spirit of play once more.
Moving toward curiosity and compassion
So where do we go from here? I believe curiosity is a great place to start. Curiosity doesn't guarantee we'll find the ‘right’ answers, but it’s a wonderful practice to explore the unknown and sit with uncertainty. One way to build your curiosity towards yourself around sex and sexuality is to check in with yourself and your body as you read my post. What feelings or body sensations showed up as you read? When did they show up? If I felt seen or understood at any point in the post, what did it feel like in my body?
When you’re ready, bring your curiosities to a trusted partner, friend, or therapist. Shame thrives in the dark corners of our soul, exiled so no one can ever see your secrets and hurt you. And since sexual shame is an embodied experience of shame, the shame stemming from sex and sexuality can be so deeply embedded in our beings that we don’t just think, but believe there is no way of getting out of that dark corner.
Start working with an IFS religious trauma and sexual shame therapist
In IFS, we believe all parts have good intentions, even the shaming and shamed parts. Shameful parts are no longer exiled; you are welcome here. Exiles deserve to have their questions asked, their stories heard, and their feelings witnessed. And it’s so easy for society to exile our curiosity around sex, for our critical parts to quieten parts of us that feel shame around our sexuality. And I look forward to the day that they feel a lightness and levity to experience sex as a part of life, and sexuality as a part of who you are.
If this resonates, reach out to schedule a free consultation.
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Grace Chan is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (#142670), supervised by Phillip Chang, LCSW #92156. She is trained in Brainspotting and Prepare/Enrich Premarital Counseling. She integrates Internal Family Systems (IFS) with creative arts therapies to help individuals and couples deepen their connection to themselves and each other. Reach out to learn more about our experienced therapists.