“Am I Allowed to Want This?”: Sex, Religious Trauma, and the Lingering Weight of Shame

Updated: Jul 27

Religious trauma doesn’t end when you leave the church. It lingers in the body—in the bedroom—in the questions you’re afraid to ask. But healing is possible.

Have you left the idea of "original sin" and religious dogma behind but somehow find that religious messaging continues to mess with your sex life? You're not alone.

Many people arrive in therapy years—even decades—after leaving religious environments, but still find themselves freezing during intimacy, struggling to ask for what they want, or feeling ashamed of their own pleasure. These aren’t just personal hang-ups. They’re symptoms of what psychologist Daryl R. Van Tongeren calls religious residue —the lingering psychological effects of faith-based systems, even after someone has walked away.

And when it comes to sex, that residue can run deep.

(If you're new to the concept of religious trauma, check out our post: Understanding Religious Trauma)

What Is Religious Residue?

Religious residue refers to the emotional and cognitive patterns that remain long after someone has left a faith tradition—especially high-control, purity-focused, or authoritarian ones. You may no longer go to church or believe in the doctrine, but your nervous system hasn’t let go of all the old programming. Instead, it clings to early messages about worthiness, obedience, and sin, especially in areas as charged as sexuality.

This isn’t about blaming spirituality or religion in general. It’s about naming the harm that occurs when a person’s body, identity, or basic curiosity is met with fear, shame, or rejection in the name of God.

Some Signs You Might Be Dealing with Religious Residue Around Sex:

Feeling guilty after masturbating or engaging in consensual sex
Struggling to communicate your desires, even in a safe relationship
Shutting down or dissociating during intimacy
Believing that wanting sex makes you “bad” or “broken”
Avoiding sex altogether—not because you’re asexual, but because it feels unsafe or wrong
Feeling like certain acts, orientations, or identities are “dirty” even if you affirm them intellectually

How Religious Trauma Shapes Our Relationship to Sexuality

In many fundamentalist, evangelical, or purity-centered religions, sex isn’t just taboo—it’s framed as dangerous. Messaging like “your body is a temple,” “flee temptation,” or “true love waits” isn't just about behavior; it's about identity and morality. These messages often begin before someone is even developmentally ready to understand them.

When sexual exploration is only discussed in terms of sin and consequence, natural developmental processes—like curiosity, arousal, and experimentation—become fused with shame. You learn not just that certain actions are “wrong,” but that you are wrong for even thinking about them.

For some, the harm is clear and conscious: maybe they remember being shamed, excluded, or coerced. For others, the trauma lives in the body without a clear narrative. This is where the concept of implicit vs. explicit memory comes in.

Explicit memory includes the things you can consciously recall: a purity pledge ceremony, a shaming youth group talk, a breakup framed as spiritual warfare.
Implicit memory, by contrast, is what your nervous system holds onto even when your conscious mind has moved on. These are the body’s responses—dissociation, fear, freeze, self-silencing—that can surface during intimacy or exploration without any clear "why."

The following are fictionalized examples based on common patterns we see in therapy:

A Few Examples:

Taylor (they/them) is a queer, nonbinary person who’s been out for years and in a loving relationship with their girlfriend. Intellectually, they’re sex-positive and affirming—but when intimacy starts, Taylor often feels numb, like they’re floating outside their body. They can’t access desire easily, and sometimes their mind just checks out entirely. They haven’t had any specific traumatic sexual experiences, but in therapy, they’re beginning to explore how years of hearing that queer attraction was “unnatural” or “a test of faith” shaped the way they relate to their own body. The harm isn’t in their memory—it’s in their muscles, their breath, their autonomic response.

This is religious trauma as implicit memory —when your body flinches even though your mind says you’re safe. Healing in these cases isn’t about “remembering more”—it’s about reconnecting with the self and building safety in the body.

Marcus and Jenna are a married cis/hetero couple navigating a major shift: Marcus wants to open their relationship. He frames it as a journey of personal growth, a way to expand beyond the constraints he’s internalized. But he also insists that Jenna remain monogamous—because, in his words, “she’s my wife, and the mother of our kids.” He feels conflicted: part of him wants sexual autonomy, but another part clings tightly to a traditional image of family roles. He’s not sure where these feelings come from, but they feel right, even though they’re causing pain in the relationship.

And Jenna? She’s curious too. She’s spent years wondering who she might’ve become outside of the roles she was taught to fill—dutiful wife, stable caregiver, quiet supporter. The idea of exploring her own sexuality outside their marriage is both thrilling and terrifying. She worries about destabilizing the life they’ve built, but there’s also a quiet grief in always being the one who sacrifices.

In therapy, Marcus begins to unpack how he was raised to believe that men are the decision-makers, that wives “submit,” and that a “good” family requires him to be in control. Jenna, meanwhile, starts naming her own desires—not just for sexual freedom, but for mutual respect, shared risk, and the ability to define her life beyond someone else’s blueprint. Even though neither of them identifies as religious anymore, those early teachings are still shaping their relational dynamics, like invisible hands tugging at the edges of their choices.

What Healing Can Look Like

There’s no one path, but here are some places we often start when untangling the impact of religious residue on sexuality:

1. Getting Curious Without Judgment

Noticing what comes up during or around sex—without trying to force yourself to “get over it”—can be deeply healing. For Taylor, this meant gently tracking moments of dissociation during intimacy: When do I feel myself go numb? What does my body need right now? What might this part of me be trying to protect?

Instead of pushing through or shutting down, they practiced curiosity. Over time, they learned to ground themselves in sensation, name when they were checking out, and reconnect to the moment—not by “fixing” their response, but by building trust with their own nervous system.

2. Reclaiming Consent and Desire

Consent isn’t just about saying yes or no—it’s about knowing what you want and trusting yourself enough to voice it. For those raised in religious environments where desire was taboo or tightly controlled, this can feel unfamiliar or even unsafe.

Jenna, for example, began therapy thinking of herself as the "anchor" in the relationship—the one who keeps things grounded while Marcus explores. But she eventually realized she had questions and curiosities of her own. Part of healing for her wasn’t just allowing Marcus his freedom; it was allowing herself the right to explore what her body and heart had been quietly wanting for years.

3. Exploring Values-Based Sexuality

Instead of swinging from rigid dogma to “do whatever you want,” ACT—Acceptance and Commitment Therapy—invites us to ask: What actually matters to me? What kind of partner, lover, or parent do I want to be?

Marcus wrestled with this deeply. His desire to open the relationship wasn’t wrong—but his expectation that Jenna stay monogamous was rooted in a belief system he’d never examined. With support, he began exploring whether his values included equity, mutuality, and honesty—or simply preserving control. The more he reflected, the more he realized: what he actually wanted was freedom that didn’t come at someone else’s expense.

4. Working with a Therapist Who Gets It

You shouldn’t have to explain what purity culture is—or defend your right to explore your sexuality. Whether you’re queer, neurodivergent, polyamorous, monogamous, religious, secular, or somewhere in between, you deserve therapy that respects your complexity and honors your lived experience.

Religious trauma often disconnects us from our own wisdom. Healing reconnects us—with our bodies, with our values, and with the people we choose to build intimacy with.

Curious about how therapy can support healing from religious trauma? We offer values-based, affirming support for folks across Virginia untangling shame and reclaiming joy. Schedule a free 15-minute consult with a therapist who gets it.

Helen Dempsey-Henofer LCSW, ADHD-CCSP

Founder & Psychotherapist at Divergent Path Wellness