Sex Is Better When You Treat It As Sacred, New Study Confirms

Sexual sanctification has long been studied by psychologists due to the observed positive effect it has on sexual relationships and behavior. And while it may sound odd, it's simply a term used to describe how some individuals believe sex to have a special meaning or significance beyond its physicality, some going so far as to claim sex as sacred or as a means to experience the divine. For years now, researchers have observed a link between sacred sex and better sex . More enjoyment, more satisfaction, more time in the bedroom. But a recent study asked an interesting question: Why? Why does treating sex as sacred result in greater sexual satisfaction? What turns reverence into pleasure? Through a Glass, Darkly To answer this question, the researchers gathered a sample of 452 heterosexual couples that had been in a committed sexual relationship for at least two years. They had each individual rate themselves on sexual sanctification, sexual satisfaction, and the amount of passion they held for their partner. Then they measured four behaviors they believed linked sexual sanctification to sexual satisfaction: mindfulness (being present, non-judgmental, and focused during sex), sexual communication (being able to comfortably discuss sexual preferences and desires), sexual frequency, and orgasm frequency. Unsurprisingly, the results were significantly divided by gender but nonetheless fascinating. For females, those who viewed sex as a sacred act were more mindful and more communicative. They also had sex and orgasmed more frequently than their female counterparts who believed sex to be purely physical. What turns reverence into pleasure? The strongest link between sexual sanctification and sexual satisfaction for women was communication. And if we're being honest, this makes sense. It's understandable that a better sex life would flow from superior communication. Additionally, women talk about what's important to them. Viewing sex as sacred means you have to view it as important. For men, the results were different. The only aspect that was linked to sexual sanctification was having sex more often. Instead, what seemed to result in high levels of sexual satisfaction for men was maintaining good communication and involvement in an organized religious routine (such as attending a weekly church service). Finally, and perhaps most interesting, the study found that one partner's belief in the sacredness of sex did not affect the other's sexual experience. As sanctification is an internal values system, it didn't appear to transfer. The Philosophy of Sex But why is this? What is the why behind the why? Sexual sanctification results in better sex because it changes human behavior, but why? Perhaps we can answer this by examining what happens when sex is seen as ordinary. It seems that whenever sex is viewed as a simple physical act, substantial issues arise that give way to disordered conduct and ultimately, human degradation. Those who give in to their own hedonistic desires, those who seek to trample underfoot every spark of human desire, and even those who have taken the middle, more moderate path, have made the mistake of defining, and therefore treating, sex incorrectly. Today, some of the more dominant modern frameworks in the West define sex as a purely physical act. This has given way to extreme hedonism, as it maintains that sex is pleasurable, therefore sex is good. And because sex is good, everything is permissible as long as it's consented to. However, this view of sex has birthed many disturbing forms of human degradation and degeneracy such as disturbing fetishes, pedophilia, and abortion. As it turns out, consent does not determine morality. Restraint, abiding by some sort of natural order, is required. The Roman Stoic Marcus Aurelius is infamous for stating , "Sexual intercourse is the rubbing together of membranes and the ejaculation of mucus accompanied by a kind of spasm." He deliberately reduces sex to its physical components as a way to weaken its psychological hold and reinforce his own beliefs which held that pleasure during sex was a simple byproduct of the act, not its primary purpose. That sex should not influence man's behavior. And when the sex act is pursued, it should be out of duty. However, if you have to debase something so thoroughly just to get a handle on your own appetite, who is actually in control? The goal of Stoicism is to strip pleasure of its sentiment in order to achieve detachment. Things like sex, and even health, are seen as preferred neutrals. But in so doing, it feels as if Stoicism strips away certain aspects of humanity through undervaluing them. If the focus of sex becomes restraint and duty, and pleasure is only seen as a neutral at best, where is the joie de vivre ? Where is the intimate connection? Where is love? Once again, through viewing sex as a purely physical act, we have harmed man. Most views of sex degrade it because they fail to see sex for what it actually is: a sacred act with physical, relational, and spiritual consequence. Lastly, at the other end of the spectrum, we have asceticism. The Cathars, a dualist heretical movement that flourished in southern France in the 12th and 13th centuries, believed the physical realm was corrupt or evil and that sex (especially procreative sex) was gravely disordered because it imprisoned an immaterial soul inside a physical body. This view of the human person was problematic for obvious reasons: it severed the soul from the body, treated creation as a mistake, and it rejected the goodness of embodied life. For this reason, among others, the Catholic Church eventually backed the Albigensian Crusade, which violently suppressed Catharism in the region. If you were handed a tool with no explanation and no knowledge of its purpose, you might eventually figure out a crude use for it, you might even get close to using it correctly. But you'd most certainly never use it to its fullest potential. Worse, everyone who picked it up could draw their own conclusions about what it was for. Those conclusions could reflect their own desires, frustrations, needs, and expectations. But not necessarily the design of the thing itself. Without knowledge of the maker's intent, the tool would be reduced to whatever the user wanted it to be. Such is the case with sex. Most views of sex degrade it because they fail to see sex for what it actually is: a sacred act with physical, relational, and spiritual consequence. It's no surprise then, that individuals who see sex through this lens tend to treat it differently and, according to the research, often have better experiences as a result. Sacred Sex At this point, perhaps all that remains to be said is this: the fact that the sacred isn't visible doesn't mean it's unreal. We know of air's existence because we see its effects. We observe the way it moves through the world, touches matter, and alters what it passes through. In a similar way, if viewing sex as sacred changes the way people approach it, even changes the way they experience it, then perhaps that perception is not an illusion, but a clearer apprehension of what sex actually is. Perhaps reverence is not an artificial meaning imposed on the body, but a more accurate response to the nature of the act itself. Perhaps those who approach sex as sacred aren't adding something foreign to it, but perceiving more fully what was already there. And if that's true, then the question becomes difficult to avoid. Does sex, rightly ordered, point beyond itself? Does the union of man and woman offer, however briefly and imperfectly, a glimpse of a reality greater than the body alone? Is sex one of man's windows into heaven? Looking for more? Order our latest print magazine now: The Sex Issue!