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Overcoming Sexual Guilt

The Flourishing Hedonists
5 min read3 days ago

Creative Commons Public Domain

One of the first steps to following a life of pleasure is overcoming guilt, especially sexual guilt. When Anna and I began following our desires and living a life of pleasure we certainly had our fair share of guilt being directed toward us.

An article titled 3 Ways to Unlearn Sexual Guilt by Christina Antonyan, co-founder of ConfidentLover.com is terrific; so terrific in fact that we just had to share it with our readers!

Here is an adapted version:

Sexual guilt is a struggle, which takes place within ourselves — self-imposed in our own minds. Sexual guilt holds us back from open, spontaneous, and authentic expressions because we hide inside a self-evaluating shell. It keeps us from expressing our sexual desires, and feeds on our pleasures by turning them into something that we perceive as unclean.

The emotion of sexual guilt steals intimacy from lovemaking and makes sex impersonal, repetitious, and mechanical. It can make a man lose his erection and a passionate woman lose her desires. We can’t feel sexy if we feel guilty. The sexual guilt we carry with us is directly proportional to the pleasure we don’t feel.

But where does the emotion of sexual guilt come from?

None of us were born with the emotion of sexual guilt. As children, we all began as sexually innocent adventurers touching our genitals with no sense of shame or embarrassment. For us, it was a journey of discovery, wonder, and a feeling of pleasure.

Until one day, an adult made us feel guilty or embarrassed about what we were doing by saying silly things such as:

  • Touching yourself will make you go blind (my mother’s favorite. I am happy to report that I am in my early 30s and not only am I NOT blind, but I am not even wearing glasses.) 😊
  • Stop touching your wee-wee, it’s embarrassing.
  • Shame, shame, shame.
  • Nice girls don’t do that.
  • It’s a sin to touch yourself.
  • If I catch you doing that again, you will stand in the corner until you realize what you’ve done wrong (I’ve spent hours staring at a boring wall.)

From these naïve but consequential comments and punishments, we gradually (or suddenly)…

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The Flourishing Hedonists

Written by The Flourishing Hedonists

We're Anna and Daniel, the Flourishing Hedonists. We write about our great loves — hedonism (pleasure), adventure, and living life past ordinary

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Agree. Good work.