Sexual Shame: What It Is And How It Shows Up

Source: LifestyleVisuals / Getty

Are we encouraging shame?

Even if we don’t live with sexual shame, there’s a possibility you could be perpetuating ideas that feed into it in others. We are all products of our society in many ways, so we can unknowingly communicate ideas that we don’t realize were implanted in us from outside voices. “Check your impulse to slut-shame. Check your whorephobia. Check your biases. Interrogate your impulses to pass judgment on others whose sexuality or sexual expressions don’t look like your own or for those you feel ‘shouldn’t’ be sexual,” Whitney urges. “Check the ‘shoulds’ you place on your own self about your sexuality—as in, ‘As a mother, daughter, person in their 30s, my sexuality ‘should’ look this way.’ Allow people to exist as the sexual beings they are, with their unique desires and nuances, particularly if they are engaging in sexual expressions that are safe, consensual, and do no harm to anyone.”