The guilt that guides me: religiosity, sex guilt, and the demonization of sex workers

ABSTRACT

Religiosity and sex-related attitudes are often correlated, and on occasion negatively. That is, as religiosity increases, sexual attitudes tend to become more conservative or generally more disapproving in valence. Recent research suggests that one’s own sex guilt may be the mediating influence in this relationship. A series of two studies sought to extend that research and examine the extent to which an individual’s religiosity and sex guilt influences their perspective of pornography and sex workers. A survey containing relevant measures was distributed to undergraduate participants as well as individuals from Amazon.com’s MTurk. Results indicate that individuals high in religiosity have more negative views of pornography in general, and more demonizing views toward sex workers. However, it was their own sex guilt that mediated that relationship. This study replicates and adds to our current understanding of how religiosity and disparaging views of sex are related, but also shows the importance of including sex guilt as an influential individual difference.

KEYWORDS:

• Religiosity
• sex guilt
• demonization
• sex workers
• pornography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/93KZY.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/93KZY.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Jana Hackathorn

Jana Hackathorn is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Murray State University. She received her PhD in Experimental Social Psychology from Saint Louis University in 2011. She has two main research interests: close relationship and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Her main social psychological research interests include the study of romantic relationship processes with recent projects including the constructs of sexual guilt and religiosity influences on sexual attitudes and behaviors.