‘My dream is that I share the bed with only one man’

Perceptions and practices of premarital sex among Catholic women in Belgium

Bibliographic Data

ID19004845
AuthorsEline Huygens (0000-0001-7256-4102, Ghent University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume69
Issue1
Pages59-75
Publication date2021-10-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Compass (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-7686 • E-ISSN: 1461-7404
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00377686211049676
OpenAlexW3209391302
LanguageEN
References cited33

Drawing on qualitative research with Catholic women who are active in the Church in Belgium, this article sets out to analyse how these women negotiate and manage premarital sexuality. I map their practices, experiences, and strategies, and explore how they make sense of religious and secular norms regarding premarital sexuality. By using two notions as theoretical frameworks, namely religious agency and growth ethics, I argue that combining both can lead to a fertile approach to yielding new insights into the field of religion and sexuality. In so doing, I demonstrate that although not all my interlocutors refrain from sexual relations before marriage, they develop personal sexual ethics, which are distinctly informed by Catholic understandings

Agency (philosophy) · Dream · Field (mathematics) · Human sexuality · Negotiation · Perception · Sexual ethics · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access