Sex shame and pleasure

This project explores the negative impact of shameful sexuality on sexual pleasure and functioning. Shameful sexual socialization is enforced by the tabooed macro and micro cultural systems of the United States today. This includes religious influence, governmental policies involving spending, censorship, and abstinence-only-education programs, and parental upbringing. Such influences synthesize to create a conservative, sexually repressive mentality for many individuals. This suppression of sexuality is evident in the low rates of female pleasure as measurable through the prevalence of female orgasmic disorders. An alternative mentality is modeled by the therapeutic treatment of sexual dysfunctions in which pleasure is increased through exposing participants to the antidote to shame: sharing and empathy. The Sexy Talk Project website brings together the influences of group therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and psycho-sexual-education. The Sexy Talk Project is a comedic pop-culture outlet and an effective forum for people to begin sharing their secret sexual selves in order to experience acceptance.