Real Talk: Sex & Shame

Shame. I feel like everywhere I go I hear the term. Thanks to Brene Brown, we probably all have a better sense of what shame is and where it grows from. Merriam-Webster defines it as, “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety.” Whew, that one hits home. Shortcomings. The place where we find ourselves failing in a world where we seeeveryone else, “getting it right.”

Shame, it’s the “ick” that sits low in your stomach, that voice that tells you that you’ve failed, that thing you push down so low you wonder if you’ll ever acknowledge it. Shame plays a large role in every area of our life. If you’re a parent, you know it well. If you’re a friend, you’veprobably encountered it a time or two. If you come to therapy, it’s the thing you mentioned last in your session because it’s too hard to unpack today.

Sex. I’m hoping if you are reading this, I don’t need to use Merriam-Webster here. It’s something I discuss daily with my clients. It’s a topic that comes up, time and time again and it’s most often connected to shame. I see women who feel shameful because they want more sex, but their partner doesn’t. I see women who want no part in intimacy and are feeling pressure from their partners. Women come in angry, hurt, and resentful, quite often asking, “What’s wrong with me.” These women frequently shrink into a place of pain because the story their shame tells them is, “I’m the problem.”

Culture plays a role in how we see intimacy. Women are frequently told that they will be the ones pursued, that they will have to push away men and truly, that being sexualized is a guarantee. Religion might tell them that their body is for their husband and this is an area of connection; if we aren’t having sex, is he not connected to me? Story after story illuminates the fact that women should be sexually pursued and if they’re not, there’s a problem. Thus, shame steps in to make her silent.

I have other clients who find sex painful. Whether this is a result of trauma, childbirth, both or neither, they don’t desire sex because of the physical and emotional pain. These women have had their sexual identities changed for them and there’s shame in the place of feeling guilty or unsure of who they are now. They engage in sex knowing that it won’t be pleasant or deny themselves intimacy because of fear. Either way, shame often holds them captive.

So how do we change our relationship to sex and the shame that finds its way in? Challenging shame often requires individuals to explore and redefine their relationship with sexuality. Questions like: What do I want? How important is this to me? And what do I need regarding my relationships are all important to explore. People must sit with what they want for themselves and identify what they need to make that happen. They must find their voice in illuminating the importance or lack thereof of sex in their personal life. They need a partner that will listen and a space that they can trust. Sex shame grows best like all shame, in dark places.

Allowing ourselves to shine the light on the place of pain will enable us to heal the wound.