Religion And SEX - Navigating Sex, Shame, and Religion

Okay.

So last week, we talked about our decision to not have kids, which is a pretty sensitive subject.

Yeah.

And now we are talking about something just as sensitive.

Oh, yeah.

We might be gluttons for being extra vulnerable.

Yeah.

But today we are going to talk about sex and religion. We are going there. So, hi, we are Vanessa and Xander Marin. We are married, and we've been together since 2007.

Yeah.

And our mission is to equip you with the tools that you need to create an extraordinary relationship. Inside the bedroom and out. So I am a licensed psychotherapist, and I specialize in sex and relationship therapy. And I've spent the last 15 years working with thousands of people and have served as a featured expert for the New York Times. Oh, the Oprah magazine. Real simple and very many more.

And I'm her husband. I used to work a pretty normal job in the corporate world, but I started seeing how much of an impact Vanessa was making with her work, and I decided to join her so that we could reach even more people. Plus, being married to a sex therapist has its perks. I've picked up some pretty good insight into what does and doesn't make relationships work. And I really enjoy sharing real life stories from our own relationship that that can be applicable to you and help you in your own relationships.

So in this video, we are going to explore the very tricky relationship between religion and sex and talk about why a religious upbringing can sometimes be really problematic when you're working on your sex life. And we're gonna walk you through this specific process that you can put to use right away to start dismantling any embarrassment, shame, or guilt that your religion may have taught you.

So just to give a little bit of context, neither one of us was really raised to be religious. We're both half Jewish, but technically on the wrong side, meaning we're not Jewish. I was raised ever so slightly culturally Jewish. We celebrate a few holidays with family a few times a year, but that was about it. So you could basically say Judaism in general didn't play much of a role in my upbringing.

And as for me, my dad is Jewish. So that's what we mean about being Jewish on the wrong side, because technically, you're supposed to have your mom Jewish. And so we were sort of similar to what Xander's describing. You know, we lit candles for Hanukkah. My siblings actually went to Hebrew school. But it was always a lot more about keeping the cultural traditions of Judaism alive and so much less about the actual religion itself. But my mom, on the other hand, had an extremely negative experience growing up in a very, very strict Catholic environment. It was so bad for her that she was really adamant about raising her kids without religion. So my mom's mom, who is very deeply Catholic, was shunned from her family when my mom was very young because she made the really tough decision to get a divorce from her alcoholic, abusive husband, and her family considered it a serious sin, regardless of the consequences. So my mom said that she would grow up with family members saying things like, the devil lives on the block of the divorced woman and her daughter are going to turn into prostitutes. Wow. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty intense. And the only time that sex was discussed in my mom's family, it was in the context of being a sin against God. But no one actually even talked about what sex even was. So my mom remembers hearing about sex on the playground at school, and not.

Always a good place to hear about anything for the first time. Yeah.

And she remembers asking her parents if just that simple description of what she heard was correct. And her parents told her, no, that's not true. Even though that was what sex was?

Yeah, well, they might have been. Right. But they just didn't tell her what it really was, because I don't really trust kids on the playground to know.

No, it was an accurate description. I remember her telling me what she thought it was because I definitely had weird ideas of what sex was when I was young.

Hey, good for her classmates.

Another crazy story is that when my great aunt got married, she was still a teenager and nobody told her what was going to happen on her wedding night. No one talked to her about sex, even though it was, you know, this expectation that she had waited till marriage and on her wedding night, she'd be losing her virginity. So the next morning, she told her sister, my grandma, that she felt like she had been assaulted because it was just something she didn't know what to expect. She didn't know what was coming, and it had been this horrible trauma for her.

Yeah, that sounds like a scene out of Game of Thrones, honestly.

It does, actually. So now I understand that not everyone's religious upbringing is this intense. My mom's side of the family is definitely very int. And I also fully respect that. Many people have beautiful relationships with their faith. But at the end of the day, religion does play a really powerful role in how we relate to our sexuality. I end up talking about religion with the vast majority of my clients, whether they still consider themselves religious or completely or not religious. These kinds of teachings that we get you know, from such a young age and from these positions of authority, they really get in deep. So that's why we wanted to make a video to talk about this. Now, I just want to say I've been asked to speak about religion before. Usually I just talk about it with my clients, but I got asked a lot to talk about it on social media or on our email list. And I've always been a little hesitant to go there because I never thought that it was my place to tell people what their relationship with their higher power should be like. And I still don't think that that's my place.

So we just want to be really clear that today's video is for people who are grappling with their religions, teaching about sex, and want to something different about sex, or have a feeling that they would like to try to think differently about it. If you're religious and you're perfectly content with your religious beliefs, we are not going to try to get you to change your mind. This is not for you.

No, this is not the point of this video. Not trying to convince anyone to change their religion. Just trying to address if you want to have a different kind of relationship with sex than you were taught to believe by your religion. So we're actually going to talk about two different situations. The first one is if you're religious, but you're conflicted about the things that your religion taught you about sex. And then the second is if you no longer consider yourself religious, but you were raised religious, but those teachings are still blocking you in some way. Now, regardless of which of these two situations you fall under, we're going to start in the same place. And that is with this. What did your religion teach you to believe about sex?

Because then, sure, it taught you something.

Oh, yeah. Every single religion has some sort of teachings about sex. So this first step that you're gonna take is to sit down, take out a pen and a piece of paper, or do this on the computer, but write down what your religion has taught you about sex. And you really want to take your time here. Write down every single belief that comes to mind, whether it was something that you were directly told or taught or maybe just something that was kind of implied.

Yeah, and like, go. Go all the way back, too. Because you've probably been getting messages about stuff like this from a pretty young age, too. It's not just like, oh, when I was 16, they mentioned a few things about this or that. Like, stuff that happens a long time ago gets, you know, buried really deep inside of you. And it's hard to let go of.

Yeah. So, you know, as you're writing this list, I just want to note that you may not believe in these teachings 100%, but the goal is just to jot down anything that could have shaped your perspective or influen you in some way. So, for example, maybe you were taught to believe that you should wait until you're married to have sex, but you ended up losing your virginity at 16 long before marriage. So even if you don't believe that everyone needs to wait until marriage, maybe you still have a lot of guilt about losing your virginity because you were told over and over and over again that you should wait. So you're definitely going to write on your list, wait until marriage to have sex. So again, you're just writing down any beliefs that. That your religion taught you to believe about sex and try to come up with as many as you can.

Yeah. So next you're going to separate those beliefs into two categories. So the first one are beliefs that are serving you in having a healthy and pleasurable sex life. And then the second one are beliefs that are blocking you from having a healthy or pleasurable sex life.

Yeah, because religions don't only teach negative things about sex. Sometimes there are positive messages or, you know, beliefs or values that you do identify with.

Yeah, definitely. So, for example, maybe your religion taught you to believe that your body is a temple and you should worship it. That's awesome. There's nothing to do there. Put that in that first category. But maybe you were also taught to believe that masturbation is a sin and that's prevented you from exploring your own capacity to feel pleasure.

That's a big one that I know.

So, yeah, put that in the second column. So go through that list of all your beliefs and mark the ones that are turning into blockages for you, because those are the beliefs that we're going to want to work on next.

Okay, so once you have that list of beliefs that are getting in the way of you having a happy and healthy sex life, now we're going to go back to those two different situations that we mentioned just a couple minutes ago. So we're going to start with the first one. If you're religious, but you're conflicted about the things your religion taught you about sex, so you're going to think about this. What is the relationship that I want to have with my religion or higher power when it comes to beliefs about sex? Sex. So, yes, you were taught to believe certain things about sex, but you're an Adult now. And you get to decide what you want to believe, what morals and values you want to uphold. So let me just say I know that a lot of people don't think that you can just pick and choose which specific beliefs you're going to follow within a religion. I totally understand that. And at the same time, I believe that religion is such a personal experience that it's worth at least examining how we fit into it as individuals. And the reality is that most people have their own takes on religion. There are very few people who follow religious teachings completely, literally. Like, everything by the book.

Oh, yeah. If you open up the Bible and start reading through, you're gonna find there's a lot of things that probably you definitely don't do. And so, yeah, if that helps you kind of get around to that, that might be a nice little exercise to do. Just, you know, open up to some random areas and see, hey, are we actually doing this 100%. That might help you feel better about the fact that. Okay, yeah, we are definitely able to make some decisions. Or there's some wiggle room here.

Yeah. So if you can be a Christian and still eat shellfish, or you can be Jewish and still get a tattoo, then maybe there's some space for you to be religious and have a different kind of relationship with sex. So I know that this question of what do you want to believe? It sounds like a very simple question, but it's actually incredibly powerful to think. Think about the kind of relationship you want to have with sex. It really helps you realize that regardless of what you were taught to believe, you get to be the ultimate authority in your own life. And even though it is a simple question, it's actually something that very few people take the time to think about.

Because if you take the time to think about the kind of relationship that you want to have with your religion or with your higher power, some nuances might arise. For example, you might think, I'd like to believe that my higher power would want me to experience joy and pleasure with a partner so long as I'm honoring myself by choosing loving and respectful partners. Or I would like to think that my higher power would want me to love my body exactly as it is. Or I want to believe that my higher power would forgive me for the mistakes that I've made with my sex life in the past and would want me to move forward without shame.

Yeah, there can actually be some really beautiful things that emerge out of doing this exploration. And I also want to point out that there are a lot of Very brave people within religious communities that are opening up conversations about reconsidering the relationship between religion and sex. So you can just try googling the name of your religion plus the words, alternative views about sex. And even just reading about the ways that other people are navigating their own beliefs can be really, really powerful.

All right, so let's talk about that other scenario now. So this is if you are no longer considering yourself religious, but the religious teachings you grew up with still feel like they're blocking you. And this is super common. If you find yourself in this category, you are not alone. I think Vanessa sees a lot of clients about issues like this. So just like Vanessa described with people who are still religious, it's really important for you to get clear on what you want to believe about sexual Remind yourself that you're an adult. You get to choose what beliefs you want to have and why you want to have those beliefs.

I also highly recommend checking out my Take this Back technique, which we will include a detailed link to in the description box. It's a simple, straightforward exercise, but it can be a super powerful way for you to let go of religious teachings that are no longer serving you. So just to give you a sneak peek, the basic idea behind the Take this Back technique is that you're energetically giving back your blockages to the people or the entities that gave them to you in the first place. So definitely go check it out.

That sounds pretty good. It can also be helpful to think through the lens of what you would want a younger generation to believe, whether they're your kids, your nieces or nephews, or just younger people in general. What would you want to teach a child about their body, about pleasure, sexuality, and relationship relationships? Sometimes stepping outside of ourselves can make this murky issue just way more clear.

Yeah, so this is definitely a tactic that worked well for my mom. Like I said, she was raised in this intensely strict Catholic family, but she said she always felt conscious about not wanting to instill that same guilt, fear, and shame that she felt into her kids. So my mom had her own struggles educating me about sex, but as a child, I definitely had much, much healthier views about sexual than she had when she was a child. After all, I ended up deciding to make it my life's mission to help people realize that sex is perfectly normal, natural, and healthy. So give yourself plenty of time to sort through what you were taught to believe and what you want to believe. Don't just dial it in. You have to go deep here. And once you've identified the beliefs that you want to have about sex, the key is going to be repetition.

Oh, yeah.

So you probably spent your entire childhood being taught to believe certain beliefs about sex. You're gonna need some time to fully internalize these new beliefs that you wanna have. So something super simple and practical that you can do is every time you notice yourself thinking about a religious belief or teaching, take a moment to stop and remind yourself what you want to believe. What is that new belief that you're trying to instill in yourself? And you can kind of talk yourself through it in the moment, like, okay, that's what my religion taught me. But that's not really serving me me. I want to remind myself that XYZ is the new belief that I actually want for my own life.

Yeah, I think it's important to have some patience there because if you think about how many years and how many repetitions of certain beliefs were kind of given to you or said to you or you read about, you know, it's going to take a long time or that, you know, you have to repeat to yourself a lot that you want to change it. You can't just say, okay, I'm ready.

To change, and then belief's gone.

Yeah, that would be nice.

It would be nice. If I ever figure out the secret to that, we will definitely make a video.

Yeah. So, yeah, that wraps up our tips for navigating the complicated relationship between religion and sex. Until we figure out how to just erase belief, then we'll be back. But yeah, if you like this video, please give it a like. And better yet, leave us a comment down below. If this information helped you, we would to, like, love to know how religion impacted your relationship with sex. And if you're liking these videos, definitely subscribe to our channel so you can keep getting more free resources and more videos as we drop them.

And we also have a little gift for you. If you are new to talking about sex openly, which so many people are, you are definitely going to want to download my free guide, how to start talking about sex with your partner, even if you never have before. So it includes a step by step process, my two favorite conversation openers, and bonus tips for making sure that that conversation is a success. Click on the link in the description box below to download.

All right, see you next time.

Thanks for watching. Pleasure with my partner. My partner.

Wow.