Sexuality nourished by culture

The story of sexuality is as ancient as the origin of humankind. Sexuality is portrayed as art, science as well as culture in the literature. In human beings, the significance of sexuality is not limited to procreation; it solves the purpose of recreation and strengthening relations (Kar and Tripathi, 2018). Sexuality evolves across the lifetime. During different phases of life, culture influences the development of sexuality significantly (Kar et al., 2015). Culture nurtures human beliefs, experiences, values, practices, behavior, language, and knowledge (Agocha et al., 2014). Culture helps in providing common knowledge and experiences to shape human behavior, including sexuality (Agocha et al., 2014). Cultures give a direction of sexual practices and behavior. Sexual practices like - masturbation, homosexuality, sexual activities during menstruation, contraceptive measures, celibacy, the consummation of marriage, polygamy, polyandry, sexually transmitted diseases, and many other aspects of sexuality are significantly colored by the cultural beliefs about sexuality. Religion plays an important role in controlling the sexual behavior of people. Religions condemn certain sexual practices while allowing certain other practices. The moral values set by society also regulate sexual behaviors and practices. Several cultures have a unique set of beliefs about sexuality, which becomes pathological at times and results in the development of significant psychological distress among individuals who harbor such beliefs. A classic example of this is dhat syndrome (Mishra and Roy, 2018), commonly reported in South-East Asia. Individuals with dhat syndrome often express their worries related to loss of genital secretion like - semen (in males) and physiological vaginal discharge (in females) (Kar and Sarkar, 2015). The sexual myths in patients with that syndrome are centered around the ancient beliefs about semen in Ayurveda and the religious literatures of several other religions (Sahu, 2018).