Reddit reviews Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality

Short answer: if you can control someone's access to sex, you can control everything about them.

Long answer: Read "Sex and God" by Darrel Ray https://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543/ref=nodl_

Religion kinda forces people to by hypocrites. Not always and in every case, but often. It encourages people to feel ashamed (and thus lie) about their sexual desires and sex lives, among other things. Religious people masturbate and have premarital sex and do all the same things nonreligious people do; they just lie about it to themselves and their children and their friends etc.

If you've never read Darrel's Ray "Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality," I highly recommend it:

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

Yo. 40yo male here, but I had very similar problems. Therapy helped me considerably. I like books a lot so I'll mention that Leaving the Fold may be very helpful, Sex & God helped me personally on this very issue, and Mind Over Mood is a phenomenally useful guide to dealing with anxiety and deprogramming yourself.

You need to learn to dissociate porn and masturbation. Masturbation is a perfectly natural and healthy expression of sexuality, whereas porn can be problematic. Try doing whatever you want to do, just without the porn.

You didn’t mention whether you’re from a religious background, but the repression and shame you’re experiencing are very common within the religious community. Either way, this book might help you: https://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543/ref=nodl_

The nofap movement is toxic. Please stay away from it.

See here. Short book, decent read. Not super scholarly, but some good arguments.

I've lurked here a long time without posting, but this topic really hits a nerve for me.

I think the sexuality chapters in that book caused me more psychological trauma than all of the other JW indoctrination combined. I get so angry and so sick when I think about what they've taken from me, when I was too young to defend myself. Sexual pleasure is so basic....

Assuming you're actually asking, to answer your question, "What exactly is wrong with fapping?" Nothing. Absolutely nothing and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

It's taken me literally years of therapy, untold hours of really hard work, and meeting my partner, one of the most patient men I've ever met in my life, to see even a little bit of progress in undoing the damage done to me as a child by the constant conditioning that sex is shameful, that what I was feeling, and how my body and thoughts were changing as a normal growing child was shameful, that even my curiosity was bad.

To answer your other questions about why they teach these things? The answer is so simple: Control. They want it, in as many aspects of your life as they can manage. (Everything from who you see and how you deal with social interactions, to what kind of health treatment you get, to how you behave when you're alone.) If they can remove (or prevent) your feelings of worthiness and connection, prevent you from embracing your vulnerability, and replace these feelings with shame and loneliness and ignorance of your own body and mind, they create a dependence on their own organization.


This book tackles religion and sex, and is a pretty good read so far: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

Here's a cool TED talk about vulnerability (in general, not as it relates to sex and religion): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o


Making this post made me cry. But at least I can talk about it now.

> Sex is another obvious example. Premarital sex is a common thing in Hollywood shows. And not in the "it happens because people are sexual creatures" kind of way but in a "it's just normal to have sex on a third date" kind of way.

It might surprise you to know that premarital sex is common in roughly the same quantities across the political spectrum, and perhaps more importantly, regardless of religious belief.

Social conservatives like to think that premarital sex is some sort of liberal thing, or that proper Christians don't do it, but they could not possibly be more wrong. Statistics don't bear that out.

Having come from a very religious background this book helped immensely!

https://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

>The one area of my life I cant seem to break free from the grip of evangelical ideology is sex and relationships....

I agree with others, you might best want to talk to a therapist about these issues.

I also recommend this book Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality , it explains how religion controls people by controlling their sex drive to follow the religion (using shame and guilt). Might help explain why you feel the way you do.

The author also has a podcast called "Secular Sexuality with Dr. Darrel Ray", that is worth checking out, it deals with topics about sex after leaving religion.

my bad. I can't know the whole situation so should not have made a snap judgment. It's just that I have little patience with the hypocrisy of doing everything but vaginal sex because of religious reasons. but I imagine it can't be easy to be her, raised that way. Perhaps she should read http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0970950543?pc_redir=1404660602&robot_redir=1:

the guilt kept me from going all the way with her. (I was probably better off NOT being in a relationship with her, for unrelated reasons.) But right now, I THINK that I feel comfortable with my sexuality at this point, still a virgin though. I hope this helps... remember, sex is natural, christianity and the guilt/shame is not. Christianity taught me to NEVER give into my emotions, but I have learned that the EXACT opposite is the healthy choice, when you remember that the rational thing is to not let guilt control you, THEN you should think about your desires are, if you still do not want to go all the way that's perfectly okay. It could just be a kiss and a cuddle, or just nothing at all... simply being together. I recommend checking out http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

haven't gotten around to reading it yet but it's been widely recommended to me too when it comes to sex and religion.

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

With religion I denied my sexuality, felt guilty about any sexual thoughts/feelings I had,and felt horrible masturbating, I felt bad bad BAD all around. Without religion I am ok with the notion of sex without marriage, and I am not nearly as uptight about sex and sexuality as I used to be.
you should totally read this book its called Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality It talks about how religion influences you about your views of sex whether you are religious or not.

Religion tells you that it's bad. It's not and neither is sex or fantasizing about it. It's natural and it is part of being human. As long as it is consensual, then there is no reason to feel guilty or shameful about sex.

There's a book that helped me understand why this is so and why religion gets involved in the sex lives of people.

Here

I think it's up to people what type of commitment they want out of a relationship. I think that everyone should decide what they want, without relying on social norms to define their relationship.

The book Sex and God is a good read on the subject of sexualtiy and religion: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

The author also has some good talks on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfYmdBNRxRY

Do you or your partners have any lingering religious guilt about sex? I can relate to some of what you're saying and eliminating the religious anxiety will help. If this is the case read Sex and God by Darrel Ray

Talk to a secular therapist. You can also look into (probably online) support groups as you are far from alone in feeling the way you do because of religion.

As others have mentioned explore why you think that way, take apart the mystery, understand what the church has been doing there.

Darrel Ray is a counselor and psychologist (and atheist) who specializes in religion and religion and sex. He wrote a book called Sex & God: How religion distorts sexuality which explores the roots and structures. Can't say whether it offers solutions but just understanding can be helpful to some to get at the roots of your ingrained thought process which has been distorted by religion.

Besides these things you can try self-intervention techniques like when you feel ashamed at a sex scene in a movie, stop, remind yourself it isn't to be ashamed of, remind yourself it's natural and healthy. I can actually sympathize deeply with this. For years I would be ashamed and embarrassed by sex scenes in movies (I would actually find myself flustered and blushing sometimes) yet I could watch porn just fine, in my case it was partly learned behavior from seeing my father so upset, disturbed, uncomfortable with such things. Even though I rationally knew it was silly I still felt that way because I had been raised and socialized to see that as the proper reaction. It's important to try to interrupt those thoughts, to calm yourself down, take a deep breath and watch it. If viewing porn helps desensitize you to such anxiety and normalize viewing sexuality that's another option you could explore.

As to feeling guilt about sex acts, practice will help, and by that I mean normalizing it to yourself. Remind yourself that your sexuality is healthy and normal, that is a beautiful thing and one of the best parts of the human experience. Remind yourself that you won't allow others, your old religion, the men in it to control you and dictate your thoughts. Be assertive, do uncomfortable things (doesn't have to be with someone else, just walk yourself mentally through the ideas).

The only way out is through as someone else said.

It may not be easy but you can beat it, many, many people have and have gone on to have normal (or even very kinky) sex lives after struggling with self doubt, self hate, shame, etc caused by religion.

Darrel Ray also has (had?) a podcast called "secular sexuality" where among other things he talked with people who overcame religious sexual shame. You can find it by googling and again it may be helpful.

Best of luck in relearning about yourself.

This book might help: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

If your father was raised to believe that sex is "dirty" then he may still be infected by the religion virus - though not conscious of it. Read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

The author spoke at the American Atheist convention a couple weeks ago.

Just curious, have you heard of Darrel Ray's book Sex and God? It goes into why religion is so hung up on sex, both being overly repressive and overly permissive (ie: cover ups)

Sex and God is a decent read. I've met the author a few times and he's a great guy, really down to earth and easy to get along with. It's probably a completely different view than you are used to, but it is well researched and makes you think.

Check out Dr. Darrel Ray, his secular books on sex and his youtube talks on the subject.

He deals primarily with the feelings off guilt associated with sex and ridding yourself of them. He's been instrumental to helping me understand and accept my sexuality. Hang in there and get to know yourself!

I enjoyed this book which goes into detail on the subject.

This might help: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-God-Religion-Distorts-Sexuality/dp/0970950543

Terrific book, written by a former church goer.