The Impact of Religious Commitment on Women’s Sexual Self-Esteem

Dena M Abbott,Debra Mollen,Jeff E Harris

doi:10.1007/s12119-016-9374-x

Abstract

Religious commitment is associated with decreased sexual activity, poor sexual satisfaction, and sexual guilt, particularly among women. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how religious commitment is related to sexual self-esteem among women. Participants included 196 female undergraduate students, 87 % of whom identified as Christian. Participants completed the Sexual Self-Esteem Inventory for Women (SSEI-W), Religious Commitment Inventory-10, Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale, Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale, and a measure of their perception of God’s view of sex. Results suggested that women with high religious commitment held more conservative sexual attitudes. Significant relationships between religious commitment and two subscales (moral judgment and attractiveness) of the SSEI-W revealed that women with high religious commitment were less likely to perceive sex as congruent with their moral values and simultaneously reported significantly greater confidence in their sexual attractiveness. A significant relationship between religious commitment and overall sexual self-esteem was found for women whose religion of origin was Catholicism, such that those with higher religious commitment reported lower sexual self-esteem. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that high religious commitment and perception that God viewed sex negatively independently predicted lower sexual self-esteem, as related to moral judgment. Implications of the findings are provided.

Highlights

Because sexual messages are often communicated through religious institutions or religious authorities (Hunt and Jung 2009), religious commitment may have an impact on the manner in which people perceive themselves sexually
The second hypothesis predicted that women with higher religious commitment would have lower overall sexual self-esteem compared to women with less religious commitment
While some religious variables negatively impact the ways in which women perceive themselves sexually, such as in their evaluation of their moral judgment related to sex, others appear to strengthen their sexual selfevaluations, as in the case of sexual attractiveness

Summary

Introduction

Because sexual messages are often communicated through religious institutions or religious authorities (Hunt and Jung 2009), religious commitment may have an impact on the manner in which people perceive themselves sexually. As messages about sex and sexuality vary greatly within and between faiths (Browning et al 2006), these sexual self-perceptions likely differ based on the religion with which one was raised and/or currently identifies, as well as the degree of religious commitment to which one adheres. The current study sought to explore how and to what degree religious commitment impacted sexual self-esteem in a sample of undergraduate women

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Discussion

Conclusion