From Neurotic to Erotic: The Neuroscience of Sexual Repression & How the Brain Moves Through It

Introduction

The journey from neurotic to erotic describes something real and well documented in the research on sexual shame and repression: the movement from a nervous system organised around anxiety, vigilance, and self-protection, toward one capable of genuine arousal, presence, and pleasure. This article examines what sexual shame and repression do at a psychological level, what the research says about how desire is restored, and how this connects to the practice of erotic hypnosis. 

What Sexual Shame Does to Desire and Functioning

Sexual shame is a deeply internalised response to learned beliefs that sexual desire or behaviour is wrong, dangerous, or unacceptable. A theoretical review by Graziani and Chivers, reported in coverage of recent sexuality research, proposes a model describing how sexual shame undermines sexual functioning, associating it with suppressed desire, anxiety about intimacy, and dissociation during sexual encounters (reviewed in PsyPost, 2025). 

A 2023 study by Sævik and colleagues, published in Scientific Reports, measured sexual shame, emotion regulation strategies, and sexual desire in 218 Norwegian participants. The study found that cognitive reappraisal, the reinterpretation of a situation to change its emotional impact, significantly predicted higher sexual desire. Notably, sexual shame itself and expressive suppression were not directly correlated with sexual desire once emotion regulation strategies were measured (Sævik et al., 2023). This is a more precise finding than is often assumed: it suggests that how a person processes their experience of shame, through cognitive reappraisal specifically, may matter more for desire than the simple presence or absence of shame. 

How the Nervous System Moves From Repression to Presence

If sexual shame is best addressed through emotion regulation rather than its mere absence, then movement toward erotic aliveness likely involves building the capacity for reappraisal: the ability to reinterpret one's own experience rather than suppress it. 

This connects to the territory hypnosis works in directly. Jiang and colleagues (2017) at Stanford demonstrated that the hypnotic trance state reduces activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, a region associated with vigilance and self-monitoring, while increasing connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the insula, deepening bodily awareness and presence (Jiang et al., 2017). A nervous system in this state, with reduced vigilance and increased somatic awareness, may be better positioned to engage in the kind of cognitive reappraisal that the Sævik research associates with greater sexual desire. 

This connection between hypnosis and cognitive reappraisal specifically has not been directly tested in controlled research; it is presented here as a plausible mechanism grounded in two separate, well-verified bodies of research rather than as an established finding in its own right. 

Why This Is a Process, Not a Single Event

The journey from neurotic to erotic is rarely instantaneous. Sexual shame is often built over years through repeated cultural, familial, or religious conditioning. A 2025 literature review in Sexuality and Culture examining sexual shame rooted in religious socialisation found that habitual self-surveillance and guilt, developed over a person's psychosexual development, produce an enduring association between sexual desire and danger that requires deliberate, repeated work to unlearn (reviewed in Sexuality and Culture, 2025). 

Hypnotic work, when used to address sexual shame, typically operates as a process rather than a single transformative session. Each session works with the nervous system's existing patterns, gradually building new capacity for reappraisal and presence. This is consistent with how neuroplasticity works more broadly: change accumulates through repeated experience, not through a single insight. 

Conclusion

The movement from neurotic to erotic describes a real psychological transition, supported by research on sexual shame and emotion regulation. The Sævik (2023) findings suggest the key variable is not shame's presence but how a person relates to it, and hypnosis offers a state in which that relational shift may become more accessible. This is not about willpower. It is about building the nervous system's capacity for safety and reappraisal, until what was once a threat response becomes capacity for presence and pleasure. 

Begin Your Own Process 

If sexual shame or repression has shaped your relationship with pleasure, a one-to-one session with David offers a grounded, consent-based space to begin working through it. The process is gradual, and it starts with a conversation. 

Book a session at davidmarius.com

References 

Sævik, K. W., Konijnenberg, C., et al. (2023). The effects of sexual shame, emotion regulation and gender on sexual desire.. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 4042. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10006235/ 

Jiang, H., White, M. P., Greicius, M. D., Waelde, L. C., & Spiegel, D. (2017). Brain activity and functional connectivity associated with hypnosis.. Cerebral Cortex, 27(8), 4083-4093. https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/27/8/4083/3056452 

Graziani, C., & Chivers, M. L. (2025). Sexual shame: a hidden barrier to women's intimacy and fulfillment (theoretical model reviewed).. Sexes (reviewed in PsyPost). https://www.psypost.org/sexual-shame-a-hidden-barrier-to-womens-intimacy-and-fulfillment/