The Sexual Shame of American Christians

I’ve been a follower of Christ since I was 15. And since I was 13 I’ve had an issue with the repressive view of sex American Christians have.

From what I’ve seen growing up most American Christians have a hard time talking about sex. Some can’t even say the word sex. For most American Christians, the subject of sex is a taboo that is to be discussed in secret, something to keep hidden from their children.

And because most American Christians are so ashamed of sex and their own sexuality they wind up stuck in a dysfunctional life paradigm that cripples them.

Yes, fornication is a sin mentioned in the Word of God. However, God did not make sex to be the bad thing most American Christians believe it to be. He made it to be part of marriage so husbands and wives could share their love for each other and produce healthy functional families where children have a clear understanding of who their mothers and fathers were.

God created human beings to be sexual. And those sexual feelings and desires we have are a natural part of who we are. They are nothing to be ashamed of. To deny those feelings is to deny a part of ourselves.

However many in organized religions such as Catholicism and American Christianity teach men and women to be ashamed of their natural sexuality. To suppress and in some cases deny their natural sexual feelings and desires.

In American Christian homes men and women are taught not to talk about sex. To keep sex a secret from their children. They tell their children to be ashamed of their bodies and to be ashamed of the natural sexual ways they function as human beings. Most American Christian families fear that if they teach their children about sex at an early age they’ll go out and have sex with each other.

That’s a ridiculous and irrational fear. One I believe most Americans need to face.

Personally, I don’t believe teaching children about sex when they’re young will lead to them having sex at an early age. If anything, teaching children about sex and how their bodies function sexually will help them grow up to be adults who make responsible choices when it’s time for them to become sexually active.

Thanks to this sexual shame they’re taught in the home, many American Christian kids grow up learning sexual perversion instead of healthy sexual expression. Because their parents don’t teach them about their bodies and how to express their sexuality in a healthy way, Madison Avenue advertisers and Hollywood Movie studios teach them about sex from the day they are born. And the way they learn about sex from that media teaches them dysfunctional values and ideologies that impact them for the rest of their lives.

In America sex sells. And the main reason it sells is because most American Christians believe sex is some unspoken taboo to be acted out in secret instead of a natural part of life to be done out in the open. That perception of American sexuality allows big business to exploit the American masses and sell products to them like books, movies, clothes and even everyday items such as soap and dish detergent.

Thanks to this sexual shame, most Americans see the picture of a nude or half-dressed body and automatically think sex. It’s this perception of sexual shame that makes many think that sex is some sort of social currency. Something that will increase someone’s social value and social status, not something people do as part of a healthy relationship.

Many Christian boys growing up learning from Madison Avenue advertisers if they have sex with a woman they are more valuable as human beings. And if they want to get sex from women to increase their social value with their peers, they have to put themselves in a subservient and submissive position under women in the hopes of winning them over.

Basically learning how to become a SIMP instead of being the leader and head of the family God intended him to be. Part of being that leader and head of the family is coming to understand his sexuality and healthy appropriate ways of how to express it.

American Christians taught sexual shame at an early age they wind up learning sexual perversion as the natural way to express themselves sexually. When they see the distorted images of nude men and nude women or men and women in lingerie from Madison Avenue advertisers and Hollywood movie studios they think sex.

Worse, because they see these images of celebrities undressed, they start believing that sex is something that will make them popular. Attractive. Desirable. That sexual intercourse has more valuable than their personal intangibles such as dignity, self-respect and self-worth.

And worse than that, they start believing the distorted images in that Madison Avenue ad campaigns or that the sex scenes in Hollywood movies are the standard they should aspire for. That their bodies must be just like the bodies in the media they watch in order to be considered sexually attractive and desirable to others.

Because most American Christian parents are so ashamed of their bodies and their own sexuality, their first reaction is to hide sexualized media from their kids instead of sitting down and explaining to them why the images in that media are not realistic or healthy expressions of sex. In most cases these images are only there to sell a movie or a product and are used to get the attention of people by pandering to the lowest common denominator.

The silence American Christian parents have about sex leaves their children curious about their bodies and themselves. Some even wind up anxious and confused because there is no parental guidance to show them healthy ways to express themselves sexually. Since their parents won’t talk to them about sex openly, they’re forced to go in secret to learn about sex from perverted media like pornography.

Why is pornography perverted? For the same reason Madison Avenue ads with allegedly “sexy” models and Hollywood movies featuring sex scenes are perverted. They are distorted images of the human bodies of men and women and distorted unrealistic expressions of sex and sexuality. All these images are actually fantasies imagined by the producers, not the healthy expressions of sexual behavior of everyday people.

The main reason why pornography is so popular in America is because so many American Christians are taught sexual shame. And the only way to express themselves sexually is in secret with pornographic materials such as magazines, movies, toys and in extreme cases interacting with strippers and prostitutes.

Hiding themselves. But not understanding that God is watching.

Ironically because American Christians are taught sex is something ugly and filthy by their parents most wind up interacting sexually with some of the most depraved and perverted people in society, and participating in sex acts considered sins in their own Bibles.

One of the biggest perverts in society is your local pastor. While they preach sexual shame to their congregations, they’re often the main ones who have illicit affairs with church members and in a lot of cases have huge secret stashes of pornographic materials in their homes.

The sexual shame most American Christians are taught is one of the reasons why pornography is a billion dollar business in America. What many don’t know is that most of the customers who buy pornography are American Christians and children of American Christians who refuse to talk about sex openly with each other. Since no one talks about sex, they head to the store to look at magazines and to the internet to learn about it.

Unfortunately, when they imbibe this perverted media they learn dysfunctional ways to express themselves sexually. They grow up believing that the distorted images in pornographic magazines are real people and the sex acts in pornographic movies are real sex acts.

And thanks to their parents’ sexual shame they never learn the truth that all of the sexual images in pornography are fake.

Worse, they pass dysfunctional values on to their children regarding sex. Teaching them to be ashamed of their bodies. To be ashamed of how their bodies function sexually. To hide their sexual behavior.

It’s this sexual shame that leads to many teenage girls being ashamed of their bodies when they become pregnant. Because they’re not educated about sex and healthy sexual expression at an early age, they wind up learning sexual shame when they become anxious and overwhelmed at the fact that sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy.

It’s this sexual shame that leads to them starting dysfunctional families when they have children out of wedlock. Dysfunctional families where they don’t teach their children about sex because they’re ashamed of it. And perpetuating a vicious cycle of secret behaviors such as consuming pornography, having sex in secret places such as staircases and bathrooms, and participating in secret abortions to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

Most American Christians will argue that Abortion kills children. But it’s fornication that creates unwanted pregnancies. And the main reason most Christian children participate in fornication as a teenager is because they aren’t taught about sex and sexuality at an early age. I believe if those Christian boys and girls were educated about their bodies and about their natural sexuality at an early age, they’d probably make better choices on when they became sexually active in their teen and adult years.

I believe it’s time for American Christians to start talking about sex openly, especially with their children. I believe if Americans started talking about sex openly like Europeans do, it would lead to a better quality of life for everyone. There would definitely be a decrease in unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases. And if American people came to an understanding about sex and sexuality at an early age, Madison Avenue advertisers and Hollywood movie studios wouldn’t be able to use sex as a tool to sell dysfunctional behaviors as social norms and destructive images to people.

Yes, I’ve read my fair share of Playboys and watched my fair share of porn like Milf Hunter. But as I’ve grown older I’ve come to understand that the main reason why I consumed that material as an adolescent is because I was miseducated in American sexual shame. And now that I’ve learned healthy ways to express myself sexually, I now understand how important it is to teach other American Christians about sex and how to express their sexual feelings and desires in a constructive manner so they don’t wind up being exploited by Madison Avenue ad campaigns, Hollywood movie studios, and San Fernando Valley pornographers.

God did not make sex to be a bad thing. It’s a natural part of life. Sex is one of the ways men and women express their feelings for each other. When men and women learn that they are naturally sexual, their bodies are designed to function in a sexual way and that sex is a natural part of life, they usually grow up learning how to have healthy sexual relationships with each other. American Christians have to stop being ashamed of sex and making it a secret. When people have open and honest discussions about sex they have open and honest sexual relationships where people become emotionally and spiritually closer to each other.