Abstract
Sixty-two first and second year psychology students at Coventry University took part in an exploratory study to determine the relationships between self-report attitudes towards sex and expressions of spirituality. Overall, findings suggest that the relationship between sex and spirituality for the ordinary Western man or woman is a very loose and weak one. Nevertheless, certain sex differences were apparent in the strength of relationship between spirituality and attitudes towards sex. For males, high spiritual beliefs correlated with higher endorsement of sex as an act of mergence or communion with one’s partner, although this was not the case for females. For both sexes, higher spirituality was correlated, with lower levels of sexual permissiveness (casual sex and promiscuity) and sexual practice (in terms of shared birth control, masturbation and use of sex toys). These findings are discussed and possible suggested explanations for them offered in terms of concepts familiar in the transpersonal literature. Criticisms of the study are then ooiaed, focusing on problems of measuring spirituality by questionnaire. Finally, I suggest ways in which future research on the topic of sex and spirituality might proceed.
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