Sexual Guilt Quotes & Sayings

Sexual exploitation within professional relationships sometimes has been referred to as "professional incest." (...) the consequences to victims are remarkably similar to the effects observed in incest survivors. Women who are abused by someone whom they know and trust demonstrate distinct symptoms which usually are not present in victims of violence who did not know the offenders. They usually view their own participation as voluntary and therefore are likely to experience feelings of shame and guilt about having consented to the sexual conduct. They may feel anger at the perpetrator, but the anger is also turned inward to themselves, often leading to self-doubt and depression. As a result, they frequently demonstrate severely lowered self-esteem, social isolation, and sometimes self-destructive behavior, including suicide. — Joel Friedman

The corniest movie ever made about the white man's need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt. — Armond White

Since middle-class Western women can best be weakened psychologically now that we are stronger materially, the beauty myth, as it has resurfaced in the last generation, has had to draw on more technological sophistication and reactionary fervor than ever before. The modern arsenal of the myth is a dissemination of millions of images of the current ideal; although this barrage is generally seen as a collective sexual fantasy, there is in fact little that is sexual about it. It is summoned out of political fear on the part of male-dominated institutions threatened by women's freedom, and it exploits female guilt and apprehension about our own liberation
latent fears that we might be going too far. — Naomi Wolf

We believe this sharing behavior extended to sex as well. A great deal of research from primatology, anthropology, anatomy, and psychology points to the same fundamental conclusion: human beings and our hominid ancestors have spent almost all of the past few million years or so in small, intimate bands in which most adults had several sexual relationships at any given time. This approach to sexuality probably persisted until the rise of agriculture and private property no more than ten thousand years ago. In addition to voluminous scientific evidence, many explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists support this view, having penned accounts rich with tales of orgiastic rituals, unflinching mate sharing, and an open sexuality unencumbered by guilt or shame. — Christopher Ryan

The town was more than ready to accept the window dressing that hid the ugly truth of Joe's guilt. Some shared the secrets and kept the silence. Others would not have believed if they had been told. They would not have wanted to know. As those who saw and ignored the smoke from the crematoria of Hitler's Germany, they did not want to know that their world was not as it seemed. — Judith Spencer

Humans love sex. Both men and women are wired to be sexually responsive. Sex is the social glue of the human species. It takes heavy-handed training or trauma to kill a human's sex drive.
Religion has that power. Sexual training in guilt, shame, and fear begins virtually at birth by sexualizing nudity. The religious signal is that nudity is always sexual and the body must be covered for modesty. The Adam and Eve story is taught to young children even though they have no way to know what it means. — Darrel Ray

The younger a religious person is when she gets married, the less she understands and knows about her sexuality. Add to this the incredible fear of talking about sexual fantasies, masturbation, experimentation and pornography, and a young adult enters a marriage with a serious handicap that can inhibit sexual development for life.
Such people have no template for communication except through their guilt-based training. — Darrel Ray

Each human being has his own sexual identity and should live according to that identity without guilt, provided that he does not oblige others to share it. — Paulo Coelho

This idealization of motherhood is essentially a means of keeping women from developing a sexual consciousness and from breaking through the barriers of sexual repression, of keeping alive their sexual anxieties and guilt feelings. The very existence of woman as a sexual being would threaten authoritarian ideology; her recognition and social affirmation would mean its collapse. — Wilhelm Reich

Americans who think they are white regard us - something sexual and obscene. We were not enslaved in France. We are not their particular "problem," nor their national guilt. We are not their niggers. If there is any comfort in this, it is not the kind that I would encourage you to indulge. Remember your name. Remember that you and I are brothers, are the children of trans-Atlantic rape. Remember the broader consciousness that comes with that. Remember that this consciousness can never ultimately be racial; it must be cosmic. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The hostility and venomous response the topic of sexual trauma and rape in the military brings up, especially with men from my Era, is revealing. This opposition speaks to their guilt and toward the truth that stays hidden. — Diane Chamberlain

The sexual map we acquire in youth includes body image, masturbatory guilt, sexual preferences and more. From what turns us on to what turns us off. From attitudes about menstruation to the right of women to wear certain clothing. But using this guilt- and shame-ridden map as a guide to sexuality is like using a map of an ancient city sewer system to locate the fiber optic network. What if the only map we had of a city was made 2,000 years ago? How useful would it be today? My city was an open prairie 2,000 years ago with no roads and maybe a few animal paths. A map of that reality would be of little use today. — Darrel Ray

Many deeply hidden memories have come flooding back. The important message here though is that it is possible to heal and survive. Everyone has survived their own kind of emotional or mental trauma. We all have our inner fears and misreplaced feelings of guilt. — Lynette Gould

Indeed, under his splenetic exterior Maclintick harboured all kind of violent, imperfectly integrated sentiments. Moreland, for example, impressed him, perhaps rightly, as a young man of matchless talent, ill equipped to face a materialistic world. At the same time, Maclintick's own hag-ridden temperament also punished him for indulging in what he regarded as sentimentality. His tremendous disapproval of sexual inversion, encountered intermittently in circles he chose to frequent, was compensation for his own sense of guilt at this hero-worshipping of Moreland; his severity with Gossage, another effort to right the balance. — Anthony Powell

The reality is, no matter what you were told, whatever happened to you as a child was not legally or morally your fault. Abused children are instilled with guilt regarding their "participation." It's an especially complex issue if the abuser is a family member. The child is told and believes that by his word his family will disintegrate, or harm may descend upon other loved ones. He fears he will lose more by telling than not. — Sarah E. Olson

The hallmarks of the noir style are fear, guilt and loneliness, breakdown and despair, sexual obsession and social corruption, a sense that the world is controlled by, malignant forces preying on us, a rejection of happy endings and a preference for resolutions heavy with doom, but always redeemed by a breathtakingly vivid poetry of word (if the work was a novel or story) or image (if it was a movie). ("Introduction") — Francis M. Nevins Jr.

As a species we're pathetic in that way: imperfectly monogamous. If we could only pair-bond for life, like gibbons, or else opt for total guilt-free promiscuity, there'd be no more sexual torment. — Margaret Atwood

When we first begin to take power more directly, after long having kept our relationship to it underground...it is natural that we experience anxiety, even guilt, at putting ourselves first. These feeling let us know we are taking action; they do not need to stop us. — Maureen Brady

Sexual repression is conduct unbecoming a Celt." I shrugged. "Better that than having to deal with guilt ferrets. — Kevin Hearne

Finally, I want to come to the question of sex. If anything proves that religion is not just man-made but masculine-made, it is the incessant repetition of rules and taboos governing the sexual life. The disease is pervasive, from the weird obsession with virginity and the one-way birth canal through which prophets are "delivered," through the horror of menstrual blood, all the way to the fascinated disgust with homosexuality and the pretended concern with children (who suffer worse at the hands of the faithful than any other group). Male and female genital mutilation; the terrifying of infants with hideous fictions about guilt and hell; the wild prohibition of masturbation: religion will never be able to live down the shame with which it has stained itself for generations in this regard, anymore than it can purge its own guilt for the ruining of formative periods of precious life. — Christopher Hitchens

For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious
or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution. — Naomi Wolf

You may experience waves of disbelief after each memory you retrieve. Whether as a phase or waves, the disbelief is usually accompanied by massive self-hate and guilt. 'How can I even think such a thing? I must really be warped,' you tell yourself. — Renee Fredrickson

A Lesbian who consents to guilt for her sexual preference is her own worst oppressor. She accepts and internalizes prejudices and uses them against herself. — Sidney Abbott

Each human being has his own sexual profile, and should exercise it without guilt - provided he does not oblige others to exercise it with him. — Paulo Coelho

Wherever sexually restrictive religions invade, they bring the tools of repression with them - fear of punishment, shame if caught, guilt that the deity watches and terror of punishment. Islam, Christianity and Judaism, with their patriarchal, asexual god, have systemically overcome local sexual ideas throughout the world and infected cultures with sex-negative practices. — Darrel Ray

What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge
he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil
he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor
he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire
he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy
all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is desired to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was
that robot of the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love
he was not man. — Ayn Rand

He stepped close to her; she could feel his breath on her neck. "Eve, you make me not want to die."
She turned to see his face. "I didn't want to be this, and now it's all I am."
He put his hands on her cheeks. The look on his face did her in. He was kind, caring, and mourning her losses. Tears wet his cheeks. Eve felt a very deep sob choke her. If he was mourning, so could she.
He pulled her into his arms. "Cry. It's okay. Cry."
Eve felt her knees give. He caught her and carried her to his couch. He petted her hair and let her empty her pain and guilt onto his chest. He kissed the top of her head. For the first time, his actions toward her seemed to have no sexual intent whatsoever.
Eve let go of a rope she'd clung to for too long. And she fell. She fell right into him. Wrong or right, she gave up judging. Her lips found his, and he kissed her gently, not demanding any more than she was willing to offer. — Debra Anastasia

Growing up in a religious environment, children learn what not to do sexually. They learn that some practices or ideas, such as homosexuality, lust, masturbation, and pornography are sinful. These ideas are embedded in the minds of children years before they are ready for marriage, so it's no surprise that many religious people have little or no experience with sex and know little about their sexuality.
The guilt cycle that results from this training creates a form of self-censorship. Because so many sex acts and ideas are liable to lead to eternal damnation, people have a strong incentive to avoid expressing or discussing secretly held ideas and interests. Fear leads to hidden thoughts and activities and prevents normal, appropriately channeled sexual expression. — Darrel Ray

So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad. It was the fault & responsibility of the adult. I was - and am - innocent. The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis — Ellen Bass

Religion is evolving to survive but is losing the battle in many regions, largely because of the Internet. Sexual information is far more available now, which interferes with religion's ability to use sexual guilt to perpetuate. — Darrel Ray

your abuser tried to map your life for you. But he does not own you, and you have the freedom and the power to overcome and transcend the (negative) associations. You deserve to be happy, to be free of any feelings of shame or guilt or fear. You have the right to a completely satisfying sexual life. You are a righteous young woman. If you can get in touch with the feelings and consciously change the awful associations, you can re-map your life. — Patti Feuereisen

I am, I must confess, suspicious of those who denounce others for having too much sex. At what point does a healthy amount become too much? There are, of course, those who suffer because their desire for sex has become compulsive; in their case the drive (loneliness, guilt) is at fault, not the activity as such. When morality is discussed I invariably discover, halfway into the conversation, that what is meant are not the great ethical questions but the rather dreary business of sexual habit, which to my mind is an aesthetic rather than an ethical issue. — Edmund White

Tied up a lot of women, have you?" He raised one eyebrow, whatever that meant. "A bit odd, are you?" She was being sarcastic, trying to taunt him into a sense of guilt. While perhaps bursting any bubble in herself of misguided, soft-hearted concern for a man with sad eyes and complicated wealth. Though his sexual inclinations were perhaps not the wisest of barbs to do either. He looked down at her, speculative.
"Difficult to say." He actually answered the question seriously. "Legally? Decidedly. But then British laws on the subject are so guilt-ridden I'm surprised we've propagated as a race." He mad a small, grim smile. "How delightful we're having this conversation. And what is it you like? — Judith Ivory

Each human being has his or her own sexual identity and should be able to exercise that identity without guilt as long as they do not force that sexual identity on others. — Paulo Coelho

These coupling certainly do not fit with the mainstream idea that genes, or at least organisms, are hell-bent on reproducing themselves. They do fit, however, with the idea of a social role for sex, and they fit with the idea that sexual reproduction is a spandrel, a by-product of some other phenomenon. If Roughgarden is on to something, she believes it could have cultural as well as scientific implications. The orthodoxy of biology has corroded our culture like battery acid, she says, In general, we play out the roles prescribed for us by that culture - aggressive male and coy female - because deviation from its "norm" results in emotional and physical violence, bigotry, personal guilt, and criminalized behaviors. If biology has been getting it wrong though, the new orthodoxy could trigger an infusion of tolerance; perhaps the anomalous prevalence of sexual reproduction will end up having deeper repercussions outside of science than within it. — Michael Brooks

In light of religious teachings on sex, unrestricted people often feel they are fundamentally flawed. They are sinful and rebellious against god for having strong urges that go against the church's teachings. If the religious belief is deep enough, a person will not be able to look at his behavior rationally. The result can be a destructive cycle beginning with some religiously prohibited sexual behavior followed by repentance and prayer for a few weeks. Soon biological urges surface again, and he goes back to the behavior, followed by repentance once more. The process keeps him focused on guilt, not on rational ways to enjoy and express sexuality. Every time he goes through the cycle, it makes him feel less worthwhile. At the same time, the only way he can get relief is by going back to his religion. — Darrel Ray

I wanted to show a normal young girl whose only difference was that she behaved in the way a boy might, without any sense of guilt on a moral or sexual level. — Roger Vadim

Rather than being able to have a healthy relationship with our own sexual imagination, we're driven into some dark corners by shame and embarrassment and guilt, and those dark corners breed all sorts of monsters. — Alan Moore

The religious guilt cycle interferes with learning and change. Rather than learning who he is as a sexual being, he measures himself against an impossible religious sexual standard and always comes up short. Absent religion, many unrestricted people can deal with their behavior in a rational manner. — Darrel Ray

Coming to terms with incest is not easy. Learning to be a survivor, not a victim, gives new meaning to life — Lynette Gould

Ravished is a nice word found in sentimental novel. Between us, Moran, the word that stuck in my mind like shit to the bottom of a shoe was fucked. — Norman Lock

In other words, the most common problem now is not social taboos on sexual activity or guilt feeling about sex in itself, but the fact that sex for so many people is an empty, mechanical and vacuous experience. — Rollo May