Hello again! It’s time for our second book recommendation: Shameless: A Sexual Reformation.

February is all about love: romantic love for partners, bonding love for family, caring love for friends, and hopeful love for the world around us. In all of this love talk, how often do we also have challenging, curious, and healthy conversations about sex? And how many of us feel comfortable talking about sex in therapy?

Raise your hand if you grew up hearing messages about sex that felt untrue or isolating. Raise your hand if you have ever been told your sexual identity, behavior, or preferences are wrong. Raise your hand if you have ever felt sexually shamed. Raise your hand if you have ever felt uncomfortable talking about sex. Raise your hand if you’ve ever questioned why you enjoy the type or amount of sex you have. Raise your hand if anyone has ever tried to control or regulate your body. Is everyone’s hand raised?

Shameless examines sexuality from the lens of acceptance and love.

The author, Nadia Bolz-Weber, is a progressive Christian minister who tells the stories she has heard countless times from her parishioners about their sexually shaming experiences: people who were told their desires were wrong, people who were expected to uphold “purity,” people who felt isolated and misunderstood for something they could not change. Sexual judgment and shame don’t just exist in religion; they exist in popular culture, media, and government. Such experiences of pain and suffering show up in our emotional lives in other ways, not just related to sex.

I grew up in a world where sex was never talked about and understood to only be between a married male and female couple. Any discussion focused purely on the anatomical mechanics, and even then only in limited terminology. Talking about sex certainly didn’t include conversation about intimacy, trust, and vulnerability, which are important elements of a fulfilling sex life.

What if the message around sex was different?

What would happen if we all grew up knowing exactly how our bodies work and heard messages about sexuality that were more inclusive? I suspect that we’d experience shame and humiliation far less often, feel comfortable with ourselves and our partners, and have more fulfilling sex lives.

I must admit, I contemplated and even doubted if I should offer this book for recommendation. Is it off-putting to suggest reading a book with religious tones? Will this book feel isolating to people whose beliefs are vastly different? Can we talk about sex from a place of acceptance and loving-kindness? Is this topic too taboo to write about on a therapy blog?

Admittedly it can feel awkward to talk about sexuality and sexual practice in therapy, but it’s a great place to start. You don’t have to be in “sex therapy” to explore these topics with your therapist. Let’s have these conversations together, instead of wondering about them alone.

The message of Shameless is that sex is a human experience, one that should be free of guilt, judgment and oppression. If we explore the foundational messages we were taught about sex, how these lessons impacted our emotional well-being, and where we might change our beliefs about ourselves, we can find acceptance and love instead of alienation and fear.