Mainstream religions generally prescribe a code of sexual conduct. This often discourages sex outside marriage, bans homosexuality, forbids prostitution, and demonizes pornography. Given the weight of religious prohibitions against non marital sexuality, many people assume that persons of faith must be more moral in their sexual conduct. What does the scientific evidence say?
Do religious values determine sexual behavior?
The sexual behavior of the faithful is not always consistent with religious teachings. The Vatican ban on contraception is one case of selective nonconformity among Catholics. American Catholics have ignored the ban, resulting in a steep decline in family size towards national averages. European Catholics are similarly easygoing in their behavior so that fertility has declined to astonishingly low levels indicative of widespread contraceptive use. In Latin America, the Vatican has drawn a line in the sand on the contraception issue resulting in the mass defection of Brazilian Catholics to churches more accepting of their sexual lifestyles (1). Religion may promote belief in marriage but the desire to marry is not a good predictor of sexual behavior either.
Single parenthood
Research conducted about 15 years ago found that African American women were just as strongly supportive of marriage as the rest of the population despite the fact that they were twice as likely to have a child before marriage. A large body of research shows that the primary determinant of single parenthood is not permissive sexual attitudes but economics. In the U.S., for example, the rise in single parenthood during the second half of the twentieth century was almost entirely a phenomenon of poor women (1). Belief in marriage, however strong, cannot produce marriageable men. Moreover, countries with more religious inhabitants have higher teen parenthood ratios - and a higher incidence of venereal disease (2). Religious people are more likely to marry, however.
Homosexuality
Most scientists today accept that sexual orientation is largely determined by biology but religious codes devised in earlier centuries condemn it as a sinful life choice. It is hardly surprising that sexual orientation does not fall into line with religious dogma either for the clergy or the laity. One priest, Father Cozzens, estimates that about 40 percent of Catholic priests are gay (3).
Pornography
Pornographic media involve the fantasy fulfillment of sexual desires and might thus appeal to the sexually repressed. A recent study finds that religious states pay more per capita for online pornography (4). The study did show some evidence of religious restraint on pornographic consumption, however, because use went down on Sunday.
The Larry Craig Effect
Ostensibly heterosexual men who seek oral sex in public restrooms are more likely to be religious conservatives with a flag on the wall and a bible on the mantelpiece according to sociologist Laud Humphreys who published a monograph on this offbeat topic (5). Humphreys felt that the elaborate pretence of respectability in such cases acts as a defense against criticism. Prominent family values enthusiasts have been found to indulge in every manner of sexual excess in a contemporary parade of hypocrisy worthy of Dickens or Mark Twain. The cast includes preachers and televangelists, such as Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, and Jim Baker, and politicians as diverse as Gary Hart, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and Mark Foley.
Religious victimization of children
In a world of priestly pedophile scandals, it is hard to maintain that religious belief is a perfect recipe for restraining harmful sexual behavior. Indeed this example suggests that unnatural repression of sexuality for religious motives is damaging to the priests as well as their many victims. Students of history will also be aware that there is nothing specifically modern about such crimes and that powerful religious figures preyed upon vulnerable individuals to satisfy their lusts, such as Pope John XII who is said to have turned the Vatican into a brothel (6).
Subscribing to religious beliefs or family values is no guarantee of sexual restraint. If anything, religious attempts to repress sexual impulses can backfire rather badly as sexually repressed groups are also sexually obsessed.
1. Barber, N. (2008). The myth of culture: Why we need a genuine natural science of societies. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
2. Paul, G. S. (2005). Cross-national correlations of quantifiable societal health with popular religiosity and secularism in prosperous democracies: A first look. The Journal of Religion and Society, vol. 7.
3. Cozzens, D. B. (2000). The changing face of the priesthood. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.
4. Humphreys, Laud (1970). Tearoom trade: Impersonal sex in public places. Chicago, Aldine.
5. Edelman, Benjamin (2009). Red light states: Who buys online adult entertainment? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 23, 209-220.
6. Betzig, L. (1995). Medieval monogamy. Journal of Family History, 20, 181-216.
