Does God stuff get you off? Do you find nuns, rabbis, or Sufi dancers strangely erotic? Is “Holy fuck!” the last thing you screamed before you came?
Does it surprise you that there is a fetish for that? It’s called hierophilia, sometimes called theophilia.
If certain sacred objects leave you breathless, or the sound of swelling pipe organs cause your own pipe organ to swell, you’re not alone!
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What Is Hierophilia?
Hierophilia basically means “religious fetish.”
When someone experiences sexual arousal and physical and psychological pleasure from religious objects, rituals, aesthetics, situations, ceremonies, costumes, or believers, this is hierophilia.
As with most kinks and fetishes, hierophilia can be broad in scope but is more often very specific. For example, someone may find sacred stuff arousing in general, whether ancient Hindu statues or contemporary Pentecostal worship services.
More often, religious fetishists are attracted by a certain religion, or by specific aspects of that religion, such as nuns, Buddhist monks, or the atmosphere of incense and flickering candlelight.
Why do people experience hierophilia? At first glimpse, religion and sex or religion and kink make strange bedfellows. But do they?
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While we frequently lament that religion imposes unnatural and ridiculous moral ideals, and uses shame and punishment to enforce them, digging deeper it is easy to see many reasons why hierophilia is a common kink.
Some fetish lovers already know the origin of their word, and others may be surprised to discover that the word fetish itself is religious in nature. The term is from anthropology and refers to sacred objects that were believed to hold power or hold spells over their users. A fetish (fetiche, to be precise) is a magic religious object! It is like an amulet or talisman.
Because of the spell or hold that certain objects or body parts had over people who depended on those items sexually, the object was understood in sexual psychology to “substitute” for “real” sex, and it was called a fetish. In other words, a high heel shoe or leather were understood to be like objects of magical power.
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Religion and sex are both powerful emotional, social, and personal experiences. They are both transcendent, where we feel we connect with others intimately, and sometimes with something much larger.
Many BDSM lovers describe their sexual practices as spiritual. Many sexual connections in general feel spiritual—they exist beyond ourselves, for something connected and greater.
Sex and Religion Have Ecstasy Experiences
A lot of that ecstasy is emotional, from the beauty of art or music. But a lot is about pain. Saints or religious minority figures were oppressed or persecuted, or tortured. To survive, they experienced that pain as something transcendent or even pleasurable.
Many religious practices aim for pain, either to emulate a holy leader, or to purge one’s own sins. Whipping, bleeding, crushing, and isolation are extreme practices. Mild ones include fasting, sitting still, meditating in uncomfortable positions, and chanting. Ascetic practices and pain and punishment rituals mimic BDSM and amount to bondage, breath play, and punishment administered by a dominant.
Read: Sexual Punishments for Your BDSM Submissive
For religions that impose guilt on believers for various sexual feelings, that powerful guilt, pain, connection, belief, and ecstasy can naturally combine for a heady brew of hierophilia!
Things that are forbidden or hidden or taboo of course become more exciting, so the whole virginity cult in Catholicism has spawned a so-common-it’s-almost-banal or vanilla kink for the Catholic school girl uniform.
Read: Uniform Fetish: 4 Role Plays for Uniform Lovers
Finally, not all religions are opposed to sex. Some are about sex! Ancient Hindu temples are covered in “pornographic” sculptures, beautiful works of graphic eroticism.
So for some people, religious kink may be about working through personal religious traumas or shame baggage. For others, it’s about the forbidden fruit being most appealing. It can be about blasphemy—sticking it to those who try to have power over your personal freedom and desire.
Others happened to experience their sexual awakenings inside their cultural community space—perhaps they were always undressing the hotties beside them during Friday prayers. For others, the emotional intensity and transcendent powers of connection happen to stir them up. Others just find religious objects beautiful enough to inspire their religious fetish.
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5 Kinky Ideas for Religion Fetishists
1. Sex in Religious Settings
Anyone who made out like a bandit in the baptismal room knows how hot it can be to simply get frisky where you aren’t supposed to!
You can go into a beautiful church, temple, mosque, or synagogue and surround yourself with sacred tiles, artwork, icons, statues, candles, and other religious paraphernalia. Fantasize away while everyone assumes you are praying. This is solo hierophilia, and it’s safe and you won’t offend anyone.
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You can take more risks by making out or making love with a partner. Doing it in the pine grove behind an empty church is a safer risk than getting it on while morning prayers are fully populated, but you can find ways to at least steal a few feels in relative safety.
You can create a religious setting in your bedroom or playroom too.
Read: 9 Public Sexual Roleplay Ideas
2. Religion-Themed Sex Toys
There are dildos shaped like crosses and rabbis, holy water lube, and costumes for priests and nuns and other religious figures. These can be used for solo play or lovers who share or are willing to indulge your fetish.
Read: How to Explore Kink and BDSM in Private
3. Exorcism Porn
Create your own exorcism porn or just watch your favorites. Exorcism is a classic horror film theme with a darker vibe, to say the least, but it’s no surprise that some find it erotic. People with spectral or possession kinks may find the idea of being overtaken by an evil (free?) spirit extremely arousing.
Read: Supernatural Fetishes and Fantasies
4. Agalmatophilia with Hierophilia
Those who have a fetish for dolls or statues as well as enjoying hierophilia are truly in paradise. If you have a thing for statues, you can worship religious statues and no one will be the wiser!
You can visit religious sites around the world or museums while travelling to meet religious statues of every stripe, or you can invest in your own model and have it at home to play out your wildest fantasies.
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5. Religious Sexual Roleplay
Hierophilia offers all kinds of incredible role play opportunities because of the different kinds of power exchange relationships, different characters, and the naughty possibilities of all of it.
Role play ideas include two nuns, a priest and a nun, a priest and parishioner in a confession booth, seducing a Buddhist monk, being seduced by a beautiful girl into the Kama Sutra ways, playing out the crucifixion scene with whipping and bondage, being seduced on Rosh Hashana by your mother in law, playing a favorite saint and reliving his or her persecution and punishment routines, offering yourself to temple goddesses in re-enactment of ancient worship rituals, playing out an exorcism, acting out taboo Old Testament scenes such as Lot getting drunk and having sex with his daughters, pregnancy kinks while playing the Virgin Mary, inquisition and interrogation scenes with BDSM, or making a music video such as Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.”
Read: Sexual Roleplay: A Guide for Roleplay Beginners
Do you have a religious fetish? How does it manifest? Dare to share!
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