Sexual shame refers to are all the ways we come to feel that who we are as sexual beings (including how we think about sex, our sexual beliefs and values, our sexual desires, and our sexual behaviors) are wrong, broken, fundamentally bad, or even evil. People experience sexual shame in response to many things, including:

• who we feel sexual desire for
• who we want to have sex with
• the kinds of sex we want to have
• our sexual thoughts and fantasies
• the ways that we see ourselves as sexual (which often includes how we understand our gender)