How Christianity Messed Up My Sex Life

I grew up Roman Catholic. It never felt like a big deal. Every Sunday my parents would force my brother and me to get up and go to church. We’d stand, kneel, stand, sit, kneel, and at the end we’d buy coffee and doughnuts for 50 cents each. Pretty boring. Pretty standard.

By Jess

What I didn’t realize was that I was being brainwashed about sex.

I grew up in a liberal household, but that didn’t stop the subconscious warnings of the Catholic church from snaking inside my head and making me feel strange about sexuality. I could never place it when I was young, but there was always something. Something in the back of my mind that told me being sexual—with myself or others—wasn’t a good thing.

Maybe it was the idea that God was always watching. The priest would continuously tell us that He saw everything, leaning on the everything and seemingly staring straight at me. Week after week I would hear about being pure, being good, and what the consequences would be if I wasn’t. God wouldn’t kick me out, He’d just be very, very disappointed.

Because of this strange, subconscious guilt, I was always slightly ashamed of what I looked like under my clothes and even when I began dating. By the time I went out with my first boyfriend, I was no longer a part of the church, but I was still caught up in the thinking. I told people I wasn’t religious, that I was done with being Catholic, but when you’re urged to think a certain way for fifteen years, it’s easier to shake the label than it is the thought process.

These days, I’m much more at peace with my sexuality and God. I no longer feel he’s watching me buy a vibrator and shaking his head up in heaven, or tsk-tsking me every time I hook up with someone I don’t plan on making my husband. But to say I’m completely alleviated of all guilt would be lying.

Every once and a while I can still see that priest, leaning on his pulpit and staring into the crowd, pointing at someone who might be me, and urging us all to keep our minds and hearts pure, because God is always watching.