Sex Guilt Research Articles

884 – Comparative evaluation of sexual attitude and function of normal and dysmenorrhea patients with the QSAF 2009

Dysmenorrhea causes much morbidity in high percentage of the population and despite its uniform molecular pathogenesis exhibits wide range of symptoms. Many patients attribute menstrual symptoms to sex while others attribute it to an intra-abdominal organic disease. To evaluate whether dysmenorrhea patients have peculiar notion about sex We evaluated 60 normal and 60 dysmenorrhea patients with QSAF-2009. The latter group used routinely drugs for dysmenorrhea in a PRN basis. Dysmenorrhea was not graded according to severity and stress was laid on personal view about the matter (major concern versus no concern). Patients without dysmenorrhea were sexually more self conscious, became sexually active earlier in their life, had lower scores in most sexual dysfunction scales, had higher scores in experimentation, sensational, erotic, extramarital relationship, sex addiction and lower scales in couple problems while women with dysmenorrhea showed higher scores in couple problems, sexual pain syndromes, vaginism and a series of psychodynamic syndromes (0.04>p>0.07). Curiously, these people showed higher scores in homo- bisexuality scales. They showed high rates of sexual guilt feeling and the overall validity of their test was questioned. They showed increased reluctance to answer the questions, regarded their problems as personal secrets and reported fewer visits to gynecologists. They preferred female gynecologists, and had never been visited by midwives. Most of them preferred cesarean delivery under general anesthesia. We conclude that dysmenorrhea patients are categorically distinct from normal persons in regard to their sexual attitude and function.

Sex Guilt Mediates the Relationship Between Religiosity and Sexual Desire in East Asian and Euro-Canadian College-Aged Women

Research has examined the relationship between religiosity and sexuality but few studies have explored the mechanisms by which sexual variables are influenced by religiosity. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of sex guilt in the relationship between religiosity and sexual desire in women. Euro-Canadian (n = 178) and East Asian (n = 361) female university students completed a battery of questionnaires. Higher levels of religious fundamentalism, intrinsic religiosity and spirituality were associated with higher levels of sex guilt in both ethnic groups. Paranormal belief was not associated with sex guilt in either ethnic group. The Euro-Canadian women reported significantly higher levels of sexual desire and significantly less sex guilt than the East Asian women. Among the Euro-Canadian women, sex guilt mediated the relationships between spirituality and sexual desire, and fundamentalism and sexual desire; among the East Asian women, sex guilt mediated the relationships between spirituality and sexual desire, fundamentalism and sexual desire, and intrinsic religiosity and sexual desire. These findings suggest that sex guilt may be one mechanism by which religiosity affects sexual desire among women.

Differences in Sexual Guilt and Desire in East Asian and Euro-Canadian Men

Differences in sexual desire between individuals of East Asian and European descent are well-documented, with East Asian individuals reporting lower sexual desire. The mechanisms that underlie this disparity have received little empirical attention. Recent research has found that sex guilt, “a generalized expectancy for self-mediated punishment for violating or for anticipating violating standards of proper sexual conduct” (Mosher & Cross, 1971, p. 27), mediates the relationship between culture and sexual desire in East Asian and Euro-Canadian women. The goal of this study was to explore this role of sex guilt in men. Male Euro-Canadian (n = 38) and East Asian (n = 45) university students completed online questionnaires. The East Asian men reported significantly lower sexual desire and significantly higher sex guilt. Sex guilt was a significant mediator of the relationship between ethnicity and sexual desire, as well as a significant mediator between mainstream acculturation and sexual desire. Among the East Asian men, mainstream acculturation was significantly and negatively correlated with sex guilt such that increasing mainstream acculturation was associated with less sex guilt. The diagnostic and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

The relationship of sex guilt, age and marital duration with sexual desire among Iranian women

The relationship of sex guilt, age and marital duration with sexual desire among Iranian women

The relationship between sex guilt, age and marital duration with marital satisfaction among Iranian women

The relationship between sex guilt, age and marital duration with marital satisfaction among Iranian women

Sexual satisfaction and sexual health among university students in the United States.

Despite the World Health Organization's definition of sexual health as a state of well-being, virtually no public health research has examined sexual well-being outcomes, including sexual satisfaction. Emerging evidence suggests that sexual well-being indicators are associated with more classic measures of healthy sexual behaviors. We surveyed 2168 university students in the United States and asked them to rate their physiological and psychological satisfaction with their current sexual lives. Many respondents reported that they were either satisfied (approximately half) or very satisfied (approximately one third). In multivariate analyses, significant (P < .05) correlates of both physiological and psychological satisfaction included sexual guilt, sexual self-comfort, self-esteem (especially among men), relationship status, and sexual frequency. To enhance sexual well-being, public health practitioners should work to improve sexual self-comfort, alleviate sexual guilt, and promote longer term relationships.

The Revised Mosher Sex-Guilt Scale: Its Psychometric Properties and a Proposed Ten-Item Version

Mosher introduced his Forced-Choice Guilt Inventory some 40 years ago and, over the following decades, his subscale measuring sex guilt has been the most widely used measure of this construct. Mosher revised his instrument in 1998, but he did not provide data regarding the reliability of the scale, its construct validity, or its overlap with the original scale. In this study, a sample of 272 undergraduate college students (95 men and 177 women) were administered both the original Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Inventory and the Revised Mosher Sex-Guilt Scale, a Non-Acceptance of Sexuality Scale, and several items regarding their sexual experiences. Results of this study provide support for the psychometric soundness of the 50-item Revised Mosher Sex-Guilt Scale. Results also revealed that the 50-item scale had a high degree of overlap with the original forced-choice version, and that it had statistically significant correlations in the predicted directions with the sexual experiences items. This study also proposes a brief 10-item version of Mosher's 50-item scale, which has similar psychometric characteristics and could serve as an efficient substitute for the longer scale.

Self-defining as sexually abused and adult sexual risk behavior: Results from a cross-sectional survey of women attending an STD clinic

Objective Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with increased sexual risk behavior in adulthood, and this association may be mediated by traumagenic dynamics constructs (i.e., traumatic sexualization, trust, guilt, and powerlessness). However, few studies have investigated whether such relationships hold for women who do not identify as having experienced CSA despite meeting objective criteria that CSA occurred. This study sought to determine whether individuals who met research criteria for CSA and who self-defined as sexually abused differed on traumagenic dynamics constructs and current sexual risk behavior from individuals who met research criteria for CSA and who did not self-define as sexually abused. Methods Participants were 481 women recruited from a publicly funded STD clinic. Participants completed a computerized survey assessing childhood sexual experiences and adult sexual risk behavior. Results Of the total sample, 206 (43%) met research criteria for CSA. Of the women meeting research criteria for CSA, 142 (69%) self-defined as sexually abused. Women who met research criteria for CSA reported more traumatic sexualization, more trust of a partner, more powerlessness, less sexual guilt, more episodes of unprotected sex, more sex partners, and greater likelihood of sex trading, compared to women who did not meet research criteria for CSA. Among women meeting research criteria, those who self-defined as sexually abused did not differ from those who did not self-define on any of the traumagenic dynamics constructs or on current sexual risk behavior, controlling for CSA characteristics. Conclusions Individuals who were sexually abused as children by behavioral research criteria are at risk for engaging in sexual risk behavior as adults, regardless of whether or not they perceive the experience to be CSA. Future research is needed to understand how non-definers perceive these childhood sexual experiences.

The Relationship between Sex Guilt and Sexual Desire in a Community Sample of Chinese and Euro-Canadian Women

Many studies have documented significant differences in sexual desire between individuals of European and Chinese descent, but few have examined the mechanisms that underlie these differences. A recent study of university students found that sex guilt is one mechanism by which culture influences sexual desire among Chinese and Euro-Canadian women. The goal of this study was to examine whether sex guilt also mediates the relationship between ethnicity and sexual desire in a sample that is more representative of women in the general population. Euro-Canadian (n = 78; mean age = 42.1 years) and Chinese (n = 87; mean age = 42.8 years) women were recruited from the community. Euro-Canadian women reported greater sexual desire and less sex guilt. In the entire sample, sex guilt mediated the relationship between ethnicity and sexual desire such that the Chinese women reported greater sex guilt, which, in turn, was associated with lower sexual desire. Among the Chinese women, sex guilt mediated the relationship between mainstream acculturation (degree of Westernization) and sexual desire such that more Westernized Chinese women reported less sex guilt, which, in turn, was associated with greater sexual desire. These results support recent findings and further suggest that sex guilt may be one mechanism by which ethnicity affects sexual desire.

The Relationship Between Attachment Styles and Sex Guilt Among Iranian Women

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between sex guilt and attachment styles. The data presented here were obtained from a total of 192 married Iranian women who were selected via a multi-cluster sampling method from three universities in Tehran. The subjects’ socio-demographic data, attachment styles (Adult Attachment Styles Index), and sex guilt (Mosher Revised Sex-Guilt Inventory) was gathered. Findings showed significant relationships between sex guilt and secure attachment style (r=−0.265, p<0.01), Insecure-ambivalent attachment style (r=0.241, p<0.01) and insecure-avoidant attachment style (r=0.257, p<0.01). Also there were significant relationships between sex guilt and age (r=0.438, p<0.01) and marital duration (r=0.345, p<0.01). Age, insecure-ambivalent and insecure-avoidant attachment styles were able to predict 25.1 percent of the variance of sex guilt. In conclusion, higher scores in secure attachment styles in women are associated with lower scores of sex guilt and higher scores in insecure-ambivalent and insecure-avoidant attachment styles are associated with higher levels of sex guilt among women. Also, age and marital duration are positively correlated with sex guilt in women.

Instinctual impulses in obsessive compulsive disorder: A neuropsychological and psychoanalytic interface

Psychopathology of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) that has been characterized by a conflict between the ego and superego on one hand, and aggressive and sexual impulses emerging from the id on the other, and employment of characteristic defenses to combat intense conflicts being connected with ones’ biological disposition from the psychoanalytic school of thought now gets empirical foundation from neuroimaging research. The findings disregard the psychological construct, exclusively establishing the neurobiology of the disorder. With the objective to study the impact of sexual and aggressive impulses on the executive functions and processing speed in the patient group, 20 OCD patients (11 males, 9 females) and 20 normal control subjects, matched for all relevant variables including age, sex, educational level and handedness were studied. Sexual impulse and guilt was assessed on the Sex Guilt Rating Scale (SGRS), aggressive impulses were tested using State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI), the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) was used to assess symptom severity, executive functions were assessed through Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and processing speed was assessed by employing the Processing Speed Index (PSI) – from WAIS III. It was found that the OCD group differed significantly from the controls, attaining significantly lower percentiles on Processing Speed Index and for all variables of WCST under consideration, namely, perseverative response, perseverative error, non-perseverative error, conceptual level response and number of categories completed. They reported higher scores on subscales of STAXI, specifically related to trait anger and lower scores on anger expression. On the items of SGRS, the OCD group significantly differed with the controls, expressing greater sexual inhibition. In conclusion, we propose an explanation of psychopathology of OCD, which addresses instinctual impulses, executive functions and neural substrates. Our findings contribute to understanding instinctual impulses from the neuropsychological perspective. The findings have implications for better eclectic understanding of the pathogenesis of OCD.

Sex Guilt and Culture-Linked Barriers to Testicular Examinations

ABSTRACT This study explored the role of sex guilt in the relationship between culture and testicular self-examination (TSE) and physician testicular examination (PTE) in Euro-Canadian and Chinese men. Euro-Canadian (n = 42) and Chinese (n = 77) male university students completed online questionnaires. Euro-Canadian men were more likely to have had TSE and PTE than Chinese men. Sex guilt was higher in Chinese men. Sex guilt mediated the relationship between ethnicity and PTE but not the relationship between ethnicity and TSE. Among the Chinese men, sex guilt mediated the relationship between Westernization and PTE but not between Westernization and TSE.

The Role of Sex Guilt in the Relationship Between Culture and Women’s Sexual Desire

A large body of literature demonstrates that East Asian women report lower sexual desire than Caucasian women. Although most studies have explained these differences by referring to general culture-linked differences in sexual conservatism, none have examined the potential role of specific constructs such as sex guilt. The goals of the current study were to examine the supposition that sexual conservatism mediates the relationship between culture and sexual desire, and to explore the potential mediating role of sex guilt in the link between culture and sexual desire. Caucasian (n=105) and East Asian (n=137) female university students completed questionnaires online. Caucasian women reported significantly higher levels of sexual desire, significantly lower levels of sexual conservatism, and significantly less sex guilt. In the entire sample, sexual conservatism and sex guilt separately mediated the relationship between ethnicity and sexual desire such that women with more sex guilt and those who were more sexually conservative reported lower sexual desire. Among the East Asian women, sex guilt, but not sexual conservatism, mediated the relationship between mainstream acculturation (degree of westernization) and sexual desire such that women with more sex guilt reported lower sexual desire. These findings suggest that sex guilt may be one mechanism by which ethnic groups differ in sexual desire.

Virginal Facades

Charged with personal, societal and legal significance, the hymen, as a fold of flesh, has the power to rule the sexual identities of unmarried women in Turkey. This article examines the forms and associated meanings of contemporary challenges to virginity rules among educationally advantaged, upwardly mobile young women. The article demonstrates that in the process of negotiating often contradictory expectations of their sexual behavior, young women cultivate purposefully ambiguous identities related to their state of virginhood. The author calls these identities ` virginal facades' and explores their complex and contradictory implications. The author highlights an important normative shift from a focus on the physical reality of virginity to a focus on the moral expression of virginity, and emphasizes the intricate connection between social class and women's sexuality experienced by some young women as sexual guilt.

Time and Sexual Love in The Winter's Tale

The identification of women with sexual temptation, the ready analogy to Eve in the garden, became a commonplace in early modem culture. It reflects a conception of women's nature deeply rooted in Shakespeare's society. That society is, of course, masculine, with male and female roles, in general, conventionally defined. Because men rule, the masculine values are power, law, and reason. Weakness is womanish, as are those elements of the men's own nature that they deny or repress. With some encouragement from Aristotle, St. Paul, and the Christian fathers, male smugness can shade off easily into fear and even abhorrence of sexuality and then of women. Sexual guilt can be displaced by blaming women as tempters; Eve's seduction of Adam is an archetypal expression of such attitudes. At the other extreme, women can be idealized by Neoplatonic philosophers and courtly lovers, adored as repositories of those ideal qualities not accommodated in the real world of men. To Leontes' dark vision Shakespeare opposes the ideal qualities represented in the play by the three women, Hermione, Paulina, and Perdita, who suggest the subversive and creative power of love, art, and nature. In The Winter's Tale they triumph totally over Leontes' reality. Life in the final scene clearly means life as it exists in a moving world, in a world ruled by time. It is Shakespeare's considerable achievement in The Winter's Tale that he can bring us to accept the view of time as constantly moving forward and hence as eroding and destructive and to accept it not with resignation or depression but with equanimity, confidence, and even enthusiasm. And it is primarily his picture of life in a pastoral setting and the attitude toward life expressed by Perdita, as representative of the country, which enable us to do so.

Sara Ruddick's Theory of Maternal Thinking Applied To Traditional Irish Mothering

This paper uses Sara Ruddick's theory of maternal thinking to explain patterns of Irish mothering that developed in Ireland following the Great Famine of 1845-1852. Ruddick's central thesis, that maternal thinking develops strategies for preserving the life of the child, fostering the child's growth, and shaping an acceptable child, is applied to the intersecting influences of famine memory, religion, education, and emigration in post-famine Ireland. The strict, moralistic, and highly inhibiting features of Irish culture that dominated the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are traceable to patterns of mothering that developed after the famine. While Irish mothers are often blamed for instilling values that stressed sexual repression and guilt, other cultural factors influenced maternal thinking. Mothers did foster highly repressive moral values that encouraged permanent celibacy and delayed marriage. This paper examines the larger cultural features that derived from political oppression and the famine as they imprinted these values.

A Sex Education Program for Mothers: Effects, Parent Characteristics, and Practice Insights

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to measure outcomes of a group program designed to help mothers become involved in their child's sex education. Innovations included: a quasi-experimental design, use of standardized measures, and measures of mothers' personal characteristics. The design included volunteer participants, a control and experimental group, and pre- and post-measures. Initially, the 9 mothers attending the program had more sexual guilt and discomfort with sexual topics than the 28 controls (not attending); but five months later, the workshop mothers had removed these original differences; they also decreased on restrictive sexual beliefs but still remained higher than controls. The mothers who chose to attend the group were initially less involved in their child's sex education; but at post-testing both groups were similar on sex education efforts. The results indicate a relationship between parents' personal characteristics and the program effects. The discussion notes the limitations of the study, the need for further research, and recommendations for programs aimed at increasing effective parent-child talks about sex.

Genital self-mutilation in nonpsychotic heterosexual males: Case report of two cases.

Genital self-mutilation is a rare event that is commonly associated with psychotic disorders. However such injuries have also been reported from nonpsychotic patients as a result either from bizarre autoerotic acts, attempts at crude sex change operation by transsexuals or secondary to complex religious beliefs and delusions regarding sexual guilt. We report two cases of genital self-mutilation in nonpsychotic married heterosexual males as a result of conflict and frustration.

What Turns Women On?

Gender differences in sexual arousal to stimuli are well established; less is known about sexual arousal among women from different ethnicities. Heterosexual Black and White college women reported their subjective sexual arousal to erotic videos portraying White actors or Black actors. Black women were more aroused by the Black video than the White video. White women found both videos similarly arousing. Sex guilt and the male actor's attractiveness predicted White women's arousal to the White video; willingness to have sex with someone of another race and the male actor's attractiveness predicted their arousal to the Black video. None of the variables predicted Black women's arousal to the White video; however, their arousal to the Black video was predicted by the male actor's attractiveness. Suggestions for further research on the sexual arousal of diverse groups of women are discussed.

Gender differences in the symptoms of depression and anxiety. A comparison of interview and self-assessment data

BackgroundThe prevalence rates of depression and generalised anxiety disorders (GAD) have consistently been found to be higher in women than men. The question is whether this is a true difference or an artefact of definition.MethodsIn the Zurich study, a young adult sample representative of a geographic area was investigated by six interviews from age 20/21 to 40/41. Major depressive episodes (MDE) were diagnosed by DSM-III-R and GAD by DSM-III criteria. 27 symptoms of depression and 21 symptoms of anxiety were assessed; in addition eight self-assessments were carried out with the Symptom-Checklist 90-R including the depression sub-scale (13 items) and the anxiety scale (10 items).Results192 subjects suffered from MDE (72 males, 120 females) and 105 from GAD (43 males, 62 females). Up to the age of 40/41 the cumulative incidence rates for MDE were 22.8% (16.9% males, 28.6% females) and for GAD 14% (12.2% males, 15.6% females).In both diagnostic groups women suffered more often than men from work impairment, social impairment and distress; they also reported more symptoms than men in the interviews and self-assessments. The greatest gender differences were found in the following symptoms of depression: worse in the morning, fearful, fear of bad luck, lack of sexual desire, low self-esteem, guilt, hopelessness, crying easily, muscle tension, tiredness, increased appetite, weight gain and loss, and symptoms of anxiety: easily startled, dizziness and frequent urination,.ConclusionCompared to men, women suffer more often and more severely from both major depression and generalised anxiety disorder.