Letting Go of Catholic Shame Around Sex
By Sofia Marie
One of the most significant challenges that I’ve faced in life is having a high sex drive. This may not seem like such a terrible thing; why was it such a challenge, you may ask. Well, I was raised Catholic.
From a young age, I was interested in sex. I remember that I would be happy when I woke up with a nice feeling between my legs – the same nice feeling that I would get when I saw Brad Pitt’s bum on Troy. Cute! Unfortunately, these early flutterings of female sexuality were scuppered by a pretty mighty enemy: the Catholic church (even Brad Pitt’s bum can’t keep you feeling good when you’re faced with an elderly man in a white cloak saying ‘purity’ and ‘virgin’ for an hour a week).
My parents never spoke to me directly about sex, but from their reactions to it whenever it was mentioned or alluded to, I gathered that it was a horrific thing. Despite them having five kids, of course…
When we were offered a cervical cancer vaccine at school, it threw my parents into a frenzy. ‘It encourages promiscuity,’ my dad said, as though I’d have the jab and suddenly try and shag the teacher. This wasn’t the only case of ‘purity’ seeming obscene, though. I remember attending a whole church sermon on why it was awful if women showed their shoulders in church ... I kid you not. Naturally, this gave me a cripplingly conflicted view of sexuality, and therefore of myself. I wanted to orgasm, but I also wanted to follow authority and to be loved by my family and the world.
By day, I pushed my sexual urges down and tried to be sweet and virgin-like. But by night (aided by a bottle of wine), my sexual self would emerge in full force; no man was safe. When I did have sex, it always felt so good, so natural: I was my truest self. I loved the feeling of skin on skin, of seeing my body – pale, slim and curvy – alongside a man’s hairier and more muscular one. I knew what to do without thinking about it. I followed what felt right, what felt good. But the next day, I would feel so ashamed. I would want to get away from my partner as quickly as possible.
As you might imagine, this made dating hard. I was so ashamed of my high sex drive and kinky appetite that I would find it very difficult to form sexual or emotional relationships with men. My love life diverged into two extremes: wild, orgasmic kinky flings and cutesy coffee dates with lovely men whom I would not even come close to touching.
I can’t only blame the Catholic Church for that. My other sexual teacher as a teenager had been the TV show Skins. Whilst Skins did feature a lot of sex, being sexy was unanimously tied with smoky black eyes and fishnet tights. It still reinforced the idea that somehow being sexual made you bad or gritty.
My entire sense of self became conflicted. If I wasn’t feeling sexual, then I was Maria from The Sound of Music, sweet and kind. But if I was feeling sexual, I was Effy from Skins, strutting around with smokey black eyes and looking up men on the tube. Eventually, as I got older, I realised that it wasn’t my sexual urges that were the problem: it was what I’d been taught to make of them.
Through mindfulness, I began to observe my thoughts when that familiar feeling rose up between my legs. I could see that when I did feel horny, I was in a rush to quickly masturbate and get rid of it, as though I was afraid of it – which, admittedly, I was.
Something had to change, and I decided to do the exact opposite of what I had done previously. Rather than quickly masturbating under my duvet, I decided to try and enjoy the feeling for as long as possible when arousal arose. To make a sensuous occasion of it. I started to have long baths. I had massages. I treated myself to sexy underwear. I touched my nipples. Rather than squashing my sexual self down, I welcomed her into my life with open arms. I celebrated her. I gave her the love the Catholic Church had denied her.
In the past, I’d thought that letting go of shame around sex would involve strutting down the street naked (aside from nipple tassels). But through mindfulness, I realised that I didn’t have to fight or shock anyone to let go of my shame around sex. The Catholic Church, Skins, and your parents can think what they want. The only opinion that really matters is the one that we have of ourselves.