Sex guilt paradoxically correlates with both low sexual behavior and sexual aggression

Evidence

These trends were replicated by Walker, Rowe, and Quinsey (1993). RWA scores correlated . with admitted acts of sexual aggression on the Sexual Experiences Survey among 59 students, and . among 75 nonstudents. High RWA men were also more likely, at .53, to report experiencing sex guilt (Mosher, 1988), which usually predicts low levels of sexual behavior. But sex guilt also correlated positively (.23) with sexual aggression in this study. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 389

Categorization

• QUESTION: The sex-guilt paradox is genuinely strange: the same trait predicts shyness and aggression. What mechanism links guilt to entitlement toward coercion? Worth digging into the literature on.
• XREF: Parallels the Milgrom/Shapiro material on how shared norms (here, guilt) can operate as both social glue and a license to punish norm-breakers. — connects to: Adult punishment of childhood sex play can trigger lasting somatic symptoms; Moral inhibition and early disappointment create a vicious cycle blocking female pleasure. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 988; Repressing childhood sexuality produces neuroses more harmful than sexual play itself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1977