Purity Culture Trauma: How Religious Sexual Shame Affects LDS Adults

Many LDS adults carry wounds they can’t quite name — a persistent shame about their bodies, deep anxiety around sexual intimacy in marriage, an inability to experience pleasure without guilt. These experiences often trace back to what researchers and therapists now call “purity culture” — a set of religious teachings about sexuality that, while intended to protect, can leave lasting psychological harm.

What Is Purity Culture?

Purity culture refers to a religious framework that treats sexual purity — typically meaning abstinence before marriage and strict avoidance of anything considered sexually impure — as central to moral worth, spiritual standing, and relationship with God. In LDS culture, this framework is reinforced through law of chastity teachings, worthiness interviews, and cultural messaging about modesty and sexual purity that can begin in childhood.

When these teachings communicate that sexual feelings are inherently dangerous, that impurity contaminates you spiritually, or that your value as a person is tied to your sexual behavior, the result can be what mental health researchers now recognize as religious trauma — specifically purity culture trauma.

Signs of Purity Culture Trauma in LDS Adults

Purity culture trauma shows up in many ways. In marriage, it often appears as difficulty transitioning from “sex is forbidden” to “sex is now sacred and expected,” leading to sexual aversion, low desire, or inability to be present during intimacy. Many LDS adults describe feeling like they’re “bad at sex” or that something is wrong with them, when the reality is they were never taught that sexuality could be healthy, pleasurable, and spiritually consistent.

Common signs of purity culture trauma include: chronic sexual shame even in marriage, inability to experience arousal without guilt, body image problems specifically related to perceived sexual sinfulness, hypervigilance around sexual triggers, sexual pain disorders rooted in psychological fear, difficulty communicating about sexual needs, and deep shame about natural sexual thoughts or fantasies.

The Impact on LDS Marriages

Purity culture trauma is one of the leading contributors to sexless marriages and sexual dissatisfaction among LDS couples. When one or both partners carry deep shame about sexuality, the marital bed becomes a place of anxiety rather than connection. Often, neither partner understands why intimacy feels so difficult — they married within the faith, they “did everything right,” and yet their sexual relationship is either nonexistent or deeply unsatisfying.

This is also one of the primary drivers of pornography use within LDS marriages — when natural sexual desires have no healthy outlet because sexuality itself feels shameful, pornography can become a way to experience sexuality without the guilt of involving a real partner. Understanding purity culture trauma helps explain patterns that might otherwise seem inexplicable.

Healing from Purity Culture Trauma While Keeping Your Faith

Healing from purity culture trauma doesn’t require leaving your faith. Many LDS individuals and couples find that working through purity culture wounds actually deepens their spiritual lives and strengthens their marriages — because they’re finally able to experience intimacy as the sacred gift their faith says it is, rather than as something fundamentally dangerous.

Effective therapy for purity culture trauma involves: gently examining the specific messages internalized about sexuality, separating cultural shame from genuine faith values, rebuilding a positive relationship with your own body and sexual feelings, and — for couples — learning to communicate about intimacy in ways that feel safe and connected rather than shameful.

Daniel Burgess, LMFT specializes in working with LDS individuals and couples healing from purity culture trauma. Using a sex-positive, faith-informed approach, therapy creates a space where you can examine these wounds honestly — without having to choose between your faith and your healing. Schedule a free consultation to learn more.