Religion\u27s Impact on Sexual Experiences and Attitudes Among Women: Exploring Sexual Satisfaction and Sex Guilt

Sexual satisfaction has been linked to higher self-esteem, marital stability, and general relationship satisfaction. The combination of religious values, sex attitudes, and experiences of sex guilt have been shown to significantly impact women’s sexual satisfaction. Two theories of religious values have been defined: identification, a religious perspective which considers sexuality to be a valuable and sacred experience, as well as introjection, which views sexuality as inherently sinful and a symptom of human weakness. This study included 85 female participants; they completed a survey on their experiences of sexual satisfaction, sex guilt, religion (identification or introjection), and sex values. The findings of this study demonstrated that lacking permissiveness was predictive of sex guilt. In addition, women who reported greater religiosity (both religious identification and religious introjection), also reported less permissiveness