The sexual shame test provided by PsycTest Quiz was evaluated using the Professional Kely Sexual Shame Scale (KISS-9). Understand how sexual shame affects your self-awareness and relationships. Join the test now and start your journey of self-exploration!
Are you feeling unspeakable ashamed of your thoughts, behaviors or experiences related to sex? Do you often blame yourself deep down and feel that you are 'not good enough' in terms of sex? Sexual shame is a complex and universal emotional experience that can deeply affect our self-awareness, relationships, and even mental health. PsycTest Quiz (psychtest.cn) provides you with a professional KISS-9 online test of sexual shame scale to help you gain insight into yourself and explore the roots of sexual shame so that you can better accept yourself.
What is sexual shame?
Sexual shame refers to the emotion in which an individual feels ashamed of his or her own thoughts, behaviors, or experiences related to sexuality. This sense of shame is often accompanied by strong self-blame and negative evaluation, and feels that you are flawed and not worthy of acceptance and recognition. Sexual shame may stem from a variety of factors, including negative sexual experiences, unhealthy sexual perceptions, and sociocultural pressures.
Here are some factors that can lead to sexual shame:
- Negative sexual experiences: for example, sexual abuse in childhood, unhealthy sex education, involuntary sexual behavior.
- Self-reproach: often blame yourself for sexual thoughts or behaviors.
- Body humiliation: disgust and disacceptance to one's own body.
- Uncertainty of sexual identity: Confused and upset about one's sexual orientation or gender identity.
- Cultural influence: Social and cultural attitudes towards sex will affect individuals’ experience of sexual shame. In Chinese culture, sexual shame is often closely linked to sexual morality.
Sexual Shame and Guilt: What is the difference between the two?
In daily life, we may confuse shame and guilt. Although both are negative emotions, their nature and effects differ significantly:
- Guilt: It is the feeling of 'what I did' and the focus is on the behavior itself. Guilt can often prompt an individual to apologize or seek correction.
- Shame: It is a feeling of 'who am I?' that directly points to the self. Shame is more painful than guilt because it involves a negative overall evaluation of the self. Shame is more likely to lead to retreat and escape behavior.
Related tests: Guilt and Shame tendency test
KISS-9 Scale: Scientific Assessment of Your Level of Sexual Shame
To more accurately assess individual sexual shame, psychologists have developed the Kely Sexual Shame Scale (KISS, full name Kely Inventory of Sexual Shame). This test uses the revised KISS-9 scale, which is streamlined after rigorous psychometric test based on the original 20-question KISS scale. This scale can effectively assess individuals’ sense of sexual shame.
The revised KISS-9 scale contains nine entries that effectively assess individuals’ sense of sexual shame. The KISS-9 scale uses a 6-level Likert scale, ranging from 'strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree'. The higher the total score, the stronger the sexual shame.
Origin and revision of the KISS-9 scale
The original KISS scale consists of 20 entries developed by Kyle in 2013. However, studies have shown that some items in this scale may not be well suited for understanding sexual shame in the Chinese context. To better apply to Chinese populations, the researchers revised the KISS scale.
During the revision process, the researchers deleted 11 problematic entries and retained 9 entries through exploratory factor analysis. These deleted entries include:
- “I feel ashamed of having sex with people when I’m involuntarily.”
- “I’m ashamed of a sexual act that I didn’t completely voluntarily.”
- “I am ashamed of having an affair/infaithful/sexual promiscuity.”
- “I’m ashamed of being attractive to homosexuals.”
The revised KISS-9 scale improves the reliability and validity of the scale while retaining the single-dimensional structure of the original scale.
KISS-9 is more in line with Chinese culture. If you want to participate in the KISS full version scale (20 questions) test, you can click the Kely Sexual Shame Scale (KISS) full version online test to participate in the test.
Reliability of KISS-9 Scale
Research shows that the revised KISS-9 scale has good reliability and validity and is suitable for the measurement of sexual shame in Chinese adults. The internal consistency reliability of this scale is 0.896, indicating that it has high reliability. The validity of the KISS-9 scale was also confirmed by conducting a calibration validity test with the scales of moral opposition and facial views on pornographic materials.
Specifically, the study found that sexual shame scores were moderately positively correlated with moral opposition to pornographic materials, meaning that a stronger experience of sexual shame was associated with higher moral disagreement with pornographic materials. In addition, the score of sexual shame is also moderately positively correlated with the dimensions of 'wanting face' and 'afraid of losing face', which suggests that a stronger experience of sexual shame is related to the idea of being more afraid of losing face and more eager to get face.
The impact of sexual shame: Mental health issues that cannot be ignored
Sexual shame can have many negative effects on an individual's physical and mental health and interpersonal relationships:
- Mental health: Sexual shame is closely related to psychological problems such as low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety.
- Interpersonal relationships: Sexual shame can lead to interpersonal communication disorders and make it difficult to establish intimate relationships.
- Sexual life: Sexual shame can affect sexual satisfaction, leading to problems such as sexual dysfunction and sexual avoidance.
- Self-evaluation: Sexual shame can cause individuals to negatively evaluate their bodies and sexual identities, affecting their sense of self-identity.
- Behavior pattern: Behavior pattern in which sexual shame may lead to evasion or excessive compensation.
PsycTest Quiz: Understand your level of sexual shame
PsycTest Quiz (psychtest.cn) is committed to providing users with professional and scientific psychological assessment tools. Through this test, you can get a preliminary understanding of your level of shame in sexuality.
Shame is described as a 'extremely painful, contagious emotion.' It is different from feeling bad or uneasy about an act because it involves how you feel about yourself as a person. You can notice that you want to hide certain aspects of yourself, and sometimes even want to isolate others. Here are some statements related to sexual shame that may depict how you feel right now (or maybe not). There are 6 evaluation scales for the options, please give the answer you most agree with in each statement.
The test results will be presented in the form of a total score and corresponding analysis and suggestions will be given. Please note that this test is only used as a preliminary assessment and does not constitute a professional psychological diagnosis. If you are confused after the test or need further assistance, it is recommended to consult a professional psychological counselor.
How to interpret the test results
The test results divide your sexual shame levels into the following levels:
- Low sexual shame: It indicates that you may have a healthy level of self-awareness and acceptance in terms of sexuality.
- Medium Sexual Shame: Indicates that you may occasionally feel the shame associated with sexuality.
- High Sexual Shame: Indicates that you may often feel a strong sense of sexual shame.
Each level has corresponding detailed analysis to help you gain insight into your situation.
Important tip: Remember that sexual shame can be understood and overcome. Through self-exploration and professional help, we can establish healthier sexual concepts and accept our true selves.
Click the 'Start Test' button below to start the KISS-9 Sexual Shame Scale Test to understand your level of sexual shame. PsycTest Quiz (psychtest.cn) explores the mysteries of the soul with you and promotes personal growth.
