Culpa Sexual e a Moral Católica: Uma Análise Comportamental das Contingências Culturais da Tradição Católica Ocidental

Abstract

This study analyzed, from the perspective of Behavior Analysis, how the Catholic moral tradition has functioned as an influential cultural contingency in the emergence of guilt associated with sexual activity. The study, qualitative and theoretical-conceptual in nature, was developed through a narrative literature review, which historically contextualized the Catholic moral tradition and grounded its interpretation in the principles of Behavior Analysis. The review was complemented by a non-systematic bibliographic survey of empirical research related to the topic. The results of the historical-behavioral analysis indicated that the Catholic moral tradition established punitive practices, coercive rules, and moral discourses that favored the internalization of guilt as part of Catholic sexual life. In parallel, empirical studies pointed to considerable correlations between religious devotion and other sexual variables, such as frequency, level of satisfaction, sexual disorders, moral conceptions, sexual guilt, among others. It is concluded that the Catholic moral tradition, together with other cultural variables, has contributed to the formation of a social structure in which sex is treated as a taboo and is also regulated by moral contingencies.