Sexual Mores within Religiosity: A Brief Report

Abstract

A serendipitous discovery from our previous study spawned this report. Runkel (1998) suggests that Christian enmity of sexuality and asceticism, reminiscent of Victorian England, contributes to Freudian anxiety via sexual repression, resulting in Manichean dilemmas or "ecclesiogenic neuroses," which may manifest a likelihood of problematic sexual behaviors. Via Gorsuch and McPherson’s (1989) Intrinsic/Extrinsic-Revised scale of religiosity, we identified 60 consenting participants as either Pro Religious, Spiritually Religious, Organized Religious, or Non Religious prior to completing Hudson, Murphy, and Nurius’ (1983) Sexual Attitude Scale (SAS). Non Religious individuals scored significantly more liberal than their counterparts, F(3, 56) = 7.39, p < .0003. Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficients were respectable. Our purpose is to make a modest contribution to the literature concerning the relationship between religion and sexuality.