Religious commitment is associated with decreased sexual activity, poor sexual satisfaction, and sexual guilt, particularly among women. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how religious commitment is related to sexual self-esteem among women. Results suggested that women with high religious commitment held more conservative sexual attitudes. Significant relationships between religious commitment and two subscales moral judgment and attractiveness of the SSEI-W revealed that women with high religious commitment were less likely to perceive sex as congruent with their moral values and simultaneously reported significantly greater confidence in their sexual attractiveness. A significant relationship between religious commitment and overall sexual self-esteem was found for women whose religion of origin was Catholicism, such that those with higher religious commitment reported lower sexual self-esteem. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that high religious commitment and perception that God viewed sex negatively independently predicted lower sexual self-esteem, as related to moral judgment.

In the last twenty years, the history of women in ancient Christianity has been almost completely revised. As women historians entered the field in record numbers, they brought with them new questions, developed new methods, and sought for evidence of women's presence in neglected texts and exciting new findings. For example, only a few names of women were widely known: Mary, the mother of Jesus ; Mary Magdalene, his disciple and the first witness to the resurrection; Mary and Martha, the sisters who offered him hospitality in Bethany. Now we are learning more of the many women who contributed to the formation of Christianity in its earliest years. Perhaps most surprising, however, is that the stories of women we thought we knew well are changing in dramatic ways. Chief among these is Mary Magdalene, a woman infamous in Western Christianity as an adulteress and repentant whore. Discoveries of new texts from the dry sands of Egypt, along with sharpened critical insight, have now proven that this portrait of Mary is entirely inaccurate.

They might seem like strange bedfellows, but sex—the source of human life—is at the core of religious teachings, with sexual activity outside of conventional marriage forbidden by traditional faiths. But with recent cultural shifts have come changes in the attitudes and behaviors of many believers. This loosening of restrictions on sexual activity, and a greater acceptance of a variety of sexual expressions, means churches—and publishers—must respond. One of the most divisive changes, for Christianity in particular, has been acceptance of same-sex relationships. The battle over this issue has sent landmark cases to the U.

The views of religions and religious believers range widely, from giving sex and sexuality a rather negative connotation to believing that sex is the highest expression of the divine. Some religions distinguish between sexual activities that are practised for biological reproduction sometimes allowed only when in formal marital status and at a certain age and those practised only for sexual pleasure in evaluating relative morality. Sexual morality has varied greatly over time and between cultures.