Let’s Teach Our Children that Sex is a Gift

In a document titled, “The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality,” the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, formerly The Pontifical Council for the Family (and Pontifical Council for the Laity), makes an important point. It explains that, in the past, basic moral principles about sexuality were so deeply ingrained in society that almost every aspect of society promoted a kind of implicit “sex education” that reinforced solid moral principles. 

Our current society, on the other hand, is so influenced by an “eclipse of truth,” that practically every institution, whether implicitly or explicitly, teaches and reinforces a set of moral principles that are diametrically opposed to the Christian moral worldview. 

The words “sex education” can ring alarm bells in the minds of many Christian parents. And not without reason. Most of what passes for “sex education” is nothing more than sex miseducation. Sometimes, indeed, it is difficult to interpret what is taught in sex education classes in any other light than that the lessons were written by perverts who take a troubling pleasure in violating the innocence of children. 

However, just because what passes for “sex education” in many schools is corrupt, does not mean that we do not have a responsibility to provide sex education to our children. As the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life makes clear, parents’ responsibility to provide a true sex education is all the more grave at a time when the broader culture actively undermines Christian moral principles. 

To put it bluntly: If you do not provide sex education for your children, then the culture will. It will provide that education in a thousand different ways, many of which you will not even be aware of. The covers of magazines, the conversation of strangers on the bus, even the storylines of children’s movies, and—yes—the pornography that your children may be exposed to even despite your best efforts, will all educate your children about sex. 

In such a situation, the only responsible path forward is to provide your children with the weapons they need to resist the assaults of the enemies of purity. That means teaching them the truth about sexuality and the human person.

The True Purpose of Human Sexuality

This does not, of course, mean that you must load your children with detailed information about every aspect of sex. 

A certain amount of factual information is certainly necessary and should be delivered with appropriate modesty. But parents should be careful to not have unnecessary shame or embarrassment that would risk suggesting that sexuality is somehow intrinsically a bad thing. After all, as the Dicastery notes, “Human sexuality is thus a good, part of that created gift which God saw as being ‘very good’, when he created the human person in his image and likeness, and ‘male and female he created them’ (Genesis 1:27).”  

In many ways, the most egregious thing about contemporary sex education is not what it does contain (that is bad enough), but what it does not contain. What it almost universally fails to do is provide any solid understanding of what, precisely, sexuality is for.  

As such, remedying this lack is where Christian parents must especially focus their attentions. Doing so is not a matter of providing biological information, but rather of imparting a rich and holistic anthropological context in which the deep meaning of sexuality is imparted to children.

The Nature of True Love

“As the image of God, man is created for love,” explains the Dicastery in the first sentence of the first major section of the document. As such, every aspect of human nature is oriented towards and finds its ultimate fulfillment in love. This is true also of our sexuality. And as such, this is the context in which all discussions of sexuality must take place. 

Unfortunately, our culture also has a profoundly distorted understanding of love, which makes our task all the more difficult. Nowhere else is this clearer than in the area of sex. The result is that our society describes practically every manifestation of sexual appetite as an instance of “love,” no matter how degraded or distorted, even predatory, it may be. 

The first order of business, therefore, is to establish a clear understanding of what authentic love is and to apply this understanding to sexuality.  

At its core, explains the Vatican document, love is when “one desires the good of the other because he or she is recognized as worthy of being loved.” Such a love “generates communion between persons, because each considers the good of the other as his or her own good.” 

In other words, love isn’t just a “feeling” or some vague pleasure in the company of the other person. It is a deep commitment to pursuing the authentic good of the other, even over and above one’s own good. Obviously, given such an understanding of love, there can be no room for any kind of sexual expression that uses one’s sexual partner merely as a means to one’s own pleasure.  

Something much, much deeper must be at play.

Love is Fruitful

There are two important implications of this understanding of love that are applied to sexuality. Both of them can be arrived at by understanding the phrase that love is “self-giving.” 

In the case of sexuality, this aspect of self-giving is manifested in an especially powerful and unique way. In sex, two people (husband and wife), by cooperating with God’s creativity, may give the very gift of life to another human being. And in so doing, they embark upon a journey in which they will spend the rest of their lives living within and developing a communion of love with this third person, their child.  

Unfortunately, in much contemporary sex education, the fruit of sexual intercourse (a human child) is either ignored completely or treated as a wholly unwanted consequence to be frustrated using whatever means are available. In Christian sex education, however, the intrinsic connection between sexuality and procreation takes center stage. For the Christian, the creative potential of sex is not some unfortunate effect. Rather, it is an intrinsic component of God’s plan, as well as one of the most magnificent of the ordinary miracles with which we are surrounded. 

By separating sex from procreation, much modern sex education inevitably produces the impression that sex is, at its very heart, nothing more than a sort of past-time that people may choose to engage in with one another. At times, it may serve the admirable purpose of increasing the level of bonding between two people. But if it amounts to little more than a mutually-agreed-upon exchange of “benefits,” this too is acceptable. 

However, this is an absurd reduction of the nature and power of sexuality. While modern drugs and other technologies have at times created the impression that sex and procreation can be separated, the enormous number of women seeking abortions who were using contraceptives at the time they conceived is a potent (and tragic) affirmation that human ingenuity cannot separate what God himself has united. 

By emphasizing in our sex education that sexuality and procreation are inseparably connected, we are stating the objective truth of the matter—a truth that our society has tried, in vain, to ignore.

Love is Self-Giving

That sexual intercourse, or conjugal love, can beget a new human being is only one of two key ways in which sex, used authentically, is a manifestation of a self-giving love. 

The other is that sexual self-giving can also unite a husband and wife together in a way that far transcends the kind of mutual “exchange of benefits” championed by our contemporary sex educationists. As the Vatican document makes clear, sexual intercourse expressed within an authentically loving marriage is antithetical to any such kind of sexual behavior that involves a mere “taking.” 

“Insofar as it is a way of relating and being open to others, sexuality has love as its intrinsic end, more precisely, love as donation and acceptance, love as giving and receiving,” they write. 

As such, it is antithetical to the creed of self-indulgence that is the guiding principle of much contemporary sex education. Instead, an authentically love-guided sexual ethics must have principles of virtue at its core, which are developed through the practice of self-control, with the aim of directing sexual appetite exclusively towards the good of others.

Chastity is Not Simply Rejecting Sexuality

For this reason, the Vatican document notes that any authentic sex education must place the virtue of chastity front and center. 

To contemporary sex educators, teaching about chastity within the context of a sex-ed course seems counterintuitive. After all, sex education is about, well, sex. And chastity, it would seem, is about not having sex. 

However, once one understands that authentic sex education involves educating a child about sexuality within the context of a total anthropology that treats sex as meaningful, i.e. as a means towards fostering self-giving love, then it becomes obvious that chastity must form a backbone of this education. 

The authors of The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality explain this well, writing: 

If the person is not master of self — through the virtues and, in a concrete way, through chastity — he or she lacks that self-possession which makes self-giving possible. Chastity is the spiritual power which frees love from selfishness and aggression. To the degree that a person weakens chastity, his or her love becomes more and more selfish, that is, satisfying a desire for pleasure and no longer self-giving. 

Chastity, in other words, is much richer than simply being a rejection of sexuality. As the document goes on to eloquently explain: 

Chastity is the joyous affirmation of someone who knows how to live self-giving, free from any form of self-centred slavery. This presupposes that the person has learnt how to accept other people, to relate with them, while respecting their dignity in diversity. The chaste person is not self-centered, not involved in selfish relationships with other people. Chastity makes the personality harmonious. It matures it and fills it with inner peace. 

Parents, Embrace Your Duty

The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality is a rich document, providing a deep meditation upon the meaning of sexuality, and it includes much more than I can convey here. 

However, I will conclude by re-emphasizing one point, which is at the very heart of the document: the duty of educating children about sexuality and in chastity belongs primarily to the parents and the family. As the authors write: 

The family environment is thus the normal and usual place for forming children and young people to consolidate and exercise the virtues of charity, temperance, fortitude and chastity. As the domestic church, the family is the school of the richest humanity. This is particularly true for the moral and spiritual education on such a delicate matter as chastity. … In a Christian home, parents have the strength to lead their children to a real Christian maturation of their personalities, according to the measure of Christ, in his Mystical Body, the Church. 

This does not necessarily mean that schools cannot play some role in sex education. It may be that parents select a school in part due to the fact that it teaches a Christian anthropology and understanding of sexuality at appropriate age levels. With the parents’ knowledge and permission, it can be appropriate for a school to supplement education within the home. In this case, the parents and the family are still informed and involved. 

Nevertheless, parents should never offload so much of the responsibility of this task that they think they do not need to participate. In reality, as the Vatican document repeatedly emphasizes, sex education is not something that simply involves imparting a certain amount of “information” at certain set times. Rather, sex education occurs best when a family conveys core principles, like the nature of self-sacrificial love or the importance of self-discipline, within a holistic Christian life.

Every time the parents show a modest affection for one another, or engage in the ascetical practices of the Church, or naturally turn away from immodest displays on TV or at the supermarket, or display the deep joy of marriage and family life, they are involved in the process of “sex education.” As the document states: 

The Christian family is capable of offering an atmosphere permeated with that love for God that makes an authentic reciprocal gift possible. Children who have this experience are better disposed to live according to those moral truths that they see practiced in their parents’ life. They will have confidence in them and will learn about the love that overcomes fears — and nothing moves us to love more than knowing that we are loved. In this way, the bond of mutual love, to which parents bear witness before their children, will safeguard their affective serenity. This bond will refine the intellect, the will and the emotions by rejecting everything that could degrade or devalue the gift of human sexuality. 

“[P]arents must reclaim their own task,” exhort the authors of the document. As such, they must “put into action an educational project marked by the true values of the person and Christian love and taking a clear position that surpasses ethical utilitarianism. For education to correspond to the objective needs of true love, parents should provide this education within their own autonomous responsibility.”