As I mentioned in the opening, evangelical young people are the most likely religious grouping to expect that having sex will upset their mother and cause their partner to lose respect for them. Evangelicals are also among the least likely to expect sex to be pleasurable, and among the most likely to anticipate having sex will make them feel guilty.2 And yet evangelical young people are basically just as likely to have sex as their peers are.3 In other words, most evangelical youth are a lot like I was in the years after I left the church—sexual, and ashamed of it.
