Abstract
This paper explores five published articles that report on research conducted over the effects of religion on adolescents and young adult’s sexuality. The articles examine religion in adolescence or young adulthood and how it has shaped the individual’s perspective on sexual experiences. A general conclusion is that when an individual has a higher degree of religiosity and participates in premarital sexual experiences or same-sex sexual experiences, then the individual is highly likely to feel guilt and or fear. The findings from these articles also conclude that religious individuals who engage in premarital sexual experiences or same-sex sexual experiences tend to pull away from organized religion. Moreover, the articles also find that young adults tend to be more permissive in sexual attitudes than older adults.
Keywords: sexuality, young adults, religiosity, spirituality, sexual experiences
Sexuality and Purity: How Religion Shapes Sexuality in Adolescents and Young Adults
There is a large number of articles written about correlations between religiosity and spirituality of young adults and how that affects their perception sexual experiences or sexuality. Mostly, correlations are discovered through questionnaires from participants which poses the problem that results are formed from participant’s own attitude of their degree of religiosity or the sexual experience in question (Garceau and Ronis, 2017). This paper hopes to address multiple facets of the correlation that exists between religiosity and sexuality.
Literature review
The percentage of adolescents or young adults who engage in premarital sexual experiences varies from 19% out of a sample of about 5000 teenagers (Meier, 2003, p. 1038) to 43% out of a survey of 520 (Garceau and Ronis, 2017, p. 143), and these are only two controlled samples taken from school-based and college centered population pools. Garceau and Ronis’ study examined how an adolescent’s religiosity affects their perception on sexual experiences (2017). It had previously been known that the higher the level of religiosity of an individual, the less permissive, or more conservative, their views on premarital sex were (Garceau and Ronis, 2017, p. 138). The study was conducted to understand perceptions on sexual behavior. Fifty randomly selected individuals who had engaged in premarital sex were selected to participate in qualitative interviews in which they were asked to evaluate their own level of religiosity, answer open-ended questions about sexual experiences they had had, and examine their perceptions about said sexual experiences (2017, p. 144). Garceau and Ronis found that the positive or negative perception of a sexual experience did not matter in terms of whether or not an individual with some degree of religiosity experienced guilt or fear afterwards (2017, p. 145). Individuals were aware that their actions were “in contrast to what they believed they had been taught” (2017, p. 145). Guilt arose because of going against religious teachings or against teachings from parents, summarily put as disobeying religious higher authority figures. Participants also felt fear of punishment or reprimand for their actions, especially those who engaged in same-sex sexual experiences.
It is intuitive to think that premarital sexual experiences would lessen an individual’s religiosity and spirituality. Premarital sex goes against many religious doctrines, and religious individuals often feel guilt after they engage in such acts (Garceau and Ronis, 2017). Through their qualitative interviews, Garceau and Ronis found that some individuals left their religion because they resented the guilt they felt from “what they considered healthy and natural sexual experimentation” (2017, p. 146). In 2003, Meier studied the effects of first sex on adolescent’s religiosity and found contradictory results to those of Garceau and Ronis. Meier reported that there was actually “no significant effect on religiosity” after experiencing first sex, for both males and females (2003, p. 1046). Rigo, Uzarevic, and Saroglou conducted three experiments where they had participants recall a sexual experience specific to them. These three experiments conclusively found that sexual experiences, even just recall, diminishes religiosity or spiritual intentions (2016, p. 29). Additionally, they found that the “negative association between sexuality and religion” is common among believers and nonbelievers (2016, p. 30). However, contradictory to their own statements, Rigo et al. also stated that the data collected from their experiments supported that there is no reason to suspect that “negative or uncommon” sexual experiences diminish spiritual interest, but that positive experiences increase spiritual interest (2016, p. 35).
Liberal perspectives across the board are generally associated with younger generations. Farrell, in his article about the liberalization of young evangelicals, speculated that one reason why young adults have more permissive attitudes is because of the interactions they consistently have with diverse people, “eroding” the traditional belief systems they were likely raised upon (2011, p. 520). Through interviews, Farrell found that young evangelicals, ages 18 through 29, are more likely to be accepting of the use of pornography, cohabitation, premarital sex, and same sex marriage (2011, p. 526). Meier reported that the effect of having first sex on adolescents is that they become more permissive in their attitudes about sex (2016, p. 1046). Le Gall, Mullet, and Shafighi found from their study that the younger participants, ages 18 to 25, were “more permissive than older ones,” and specifically that young believers were more permissive than older believers (2002, p. 211). Le Gall et al. had participants agree or disagree with statements such as, “it is okay to have ongoing sexual relationships with more than one person at a time,” and “casual sex is acceptable,” to measure permissiveness (2002, p. 210).
Discussion
It is clear to see that religion has an effect on sexuality, and vice versa. Garceau and Ronis conclusively reported that religious individuals who engage in premarital sexual experiences feel some degree of guilt or fear (2017, p. 145). The idea that premarital sexual experiences would lessen religiosity seems intuitive, but is rather fairly complex. Across the articles from Garceau and Ronis, Meier, and Rigo et al., there were not any agreeing statements in all three of them. Each study presented different findings on the topic of lessening religiosity, from leaving religion altogether, to having no effect, to even increasing religiosity in some. Religion is also shown to have a significant effect on permissiveness in young adults. Farrell, Meier and Le Gall et al. discussed this topic and all came to the result that religious young adults are more permissive in their attitudes about sexual experiences and sexuality than older adults.
Limitations of These Studies
Each of these studies presented detailed findings from their experiments and research, though they all had limitations. Garceau and Ronis’ study was conducted through qualitative interviews which left room for accidental distortions of events (2017, p. 149). Their participants were also chosen from a fairly homogeneous pool of candidates, and degree of religiosity was not ever explicitly asked of the participants. Rigo et al. also conducted interviews of their participants, who mostly lived in Europe and were of Catholic traditions. Farrell’s study was conducted through interviews, though the pool of participants was much larger than some of the other studies. Meier’s interviews were very specific to adolescent virgins from age 15 to 18, this limiting her study vastly in terms of diversity of participants. Lastly, Le Gall et al. conducted interviews of 800 French individuals aged 18 to 87. While this provided a large range of ages and possibly a large range of perspectives, the study was conducted exclusively in France.
Conclusions and Future Study
The articles examined do not hold many specific conclusions but it can be stated that they prove evidence of a relationship between sexuality and sexual experiences and religion and spirituality. Future studies examining this relationship should look to measure the effect without interference of participant’s perspectives. All the articles examined had the same limitation of participant’s perspective not being guaranteed to be the truth of the sexual experience reported.