Religiosity, Sexual Shame and Purity Beliefs between Early and Late Adult Women

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.196921852

Saranya Srivastava and Seema Rani Sarraf (Amity Institute of Behaviour and Allied Science (AIBAS), Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow Campus, Uttar Pradesh)

The present study examines the relation between religiosity and sexual shame, with the mediating effect of purity beliefs, through a correlational analysis in adult women of an urban setting. The study further comprises a comparative analysis, assessing age differences in the measure of religiosity, sexual shame and purity beliefs between early adult women (<30 years) and later adult women (>30 years). The sample consisted of 120 urban women, collected through convenience sampling. Religiosity was measured by the Centrality of Religiosity scale (Huber & Huber, 2012), purity beliefs were measured through the Purity Culture Beliefs Scale (Ortiz, 2018) and sexual shame was measured by the Sexual Shame Inventory (Seebeck, 2021). Pearson correlational analysis showcased that religiosity was significantly positively associated with purity values, and purity values were significantly positively related to sexual shame. Though religiosity was revealed to have an insignificant negative correlation with sexual shame. These findings indicate an indirect relation between religiosity and sexual shame through the internalization of purity beliefs regarding women sexuality. Further, One-way ANOVA revealed that later adult women showcased significantly higher levels of religiosity and purity beliefs than early adult women, but an insignificant difference was found in terms of sexual shame, suggesting feeling of sexual shame in women may go beyond the interaction of purity beliefs with religiosity.