HUMAN SEXUALITY

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “sex?”

Realities Affecting Human Sexuality

 “Commerce” of sex (brought about by media) has led to a wrong notion of sex and has led to corruption of morals.
 Being conservative and being liberal.
 Sex and violence in AD.
 The most degrading use of sex is related to the abuse of another person to fulfill one’s private needs.

“Sexual Revolution” By Alfred Kinsey:

- recraft American girls sexually

- not as made in the image of God, but rather as “lower mammalian, primitive, lower level…

His Grand Scheme in sex education and sexology literature:

1. Encourage gay-activist movements and establish homosexuality as a normal sexual orientation.
2. Declare pedophilia a sexual orientation and add adult-child sex to the agenda.
3. Promote widespread promiscuity to create sexual anarchy.
4. Attack religion to undermine the Judeo-Christian concept of sin and eliminate the distinction between right and wrong.
5. Attack psychoanalysis to eliminate psychoanalytical concepts that associate unusual sexual behaviors with mental illness. Dissociate sex from
pathology.
6. Lobby the judicial system to reform sex laws so that unusual sexual behavior is not considered criminal. Legalize unusual sex acts to eliminate
punishment for sex crimes.
7. Promote hostility between sexes. Align feminists with gay activists in a campaign against heterosexuality per se.
8. Exploit childhood rebellion to alienate children from parents. Separate children from protective traditional family structure.
9. Redefine Family to break heterosexual model of a nuclear family with a mother and a father.

Fruits of Sexual Revolution:

1. Increased violence including rape
2. Destruction of marriages
3. Increased promiscuity
4. Increased illegitimacy
5. Exploding rates of venereal diseases
6. Teenage pregnancy
7. Abortion
8. Homosexual practices

The Victims of the Sexual Revolution

(Sexual Wisdom: A Guide for Parents, Young Adults, Educators and Physicians, Dr. Richard Wetzel)

Women
1. illegitimate pregnancies
2. sexually transmitted diseases
3. side effects of contraceptives
4. psychological suffering

Children
1. parental abandonment due to pre-marital sex
2. broken families due to divorce
3. psychological and health problems
4. sexually transmitted diseases
5. child abuse due to unwanted pregnancies

Grandparents
1. rearing children abandoned by their parents
2. deprivation of retirement freedom to assume risks in raising two or more generations

Homosexuals
1. sexually transmitted diseases
2. psychological and emotional distress

WHAT IS HUMAN SEXUALITY?

- God wants us to seek and discover all He has given us through our bodies.
1. Our bodies are sacraments or symbols of our humanity.
2. Our bodies remind us of our limitations, but they also point to the “image of God” in us.
- God invites us to love others through our bodies.
 1. The meaning of our body is not separate from the meaning of our sexuality.
2. Our bodies possess a potential, by virtue of our male or female, to serve the supreme self-giving and to transmit life.
- God calls us to follow Him and serve others through our bodies.
1. We glorify God through our bodies. Any form of abuse done against the body desecrates the “temple of the Holy Spirit.”
- Our bodies manifest an expression of our deeper selves, our memories, our dreams and aspirations. Our bodies can talk, feel and remember.
- Our bodies need integral growth and healing: physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual.

The Moisture of Life

By Jose Hobday
As a Native American (my mother was a Seneca), I also drew upon the tribal traditions in my reflections on water. Many tribes’ traditions what they call the
“moistures of life.” These moistures do not refer to water as you find it in nature, such as a lake or a river, but to water in us, in our bodies. Thus, the use of the term
“moistures.”
There are four main ones, the first is tears. It’s big one, because it’s the moisture of compassion. In reflecting on this moisture, I became increasingly aware
of the importance of compassion in our relationships with each other. And most of all, I saw that without God’s compassion we would be dead, as dead as land without
water.

The second moisture in the tribal traditions is sweat. This is the moisture of working, of suffering, and of serving. In my reflections on sweat, I begin to see
it a symbol of laying down our lives for each other and of sharing the gifts that God has given us.

The third and fourth moistures may be a bit delicate for many of us Christians, for we have to a large extent, I’m afraid, separated our bodies from
spirituality. Native Americans didn’t do that in their traditions and so they are more bodily, more earthly. I think I would say they were more real, too.

In any event, the third moisture in the tribal tradition is that of relieving the body. In a word, urine. To me, it became an important symbol of purification,
not only of the body, but of my whole being. In time I made this a symbol of purification I another way – by considering what I took into my body as well as what I
eliminated from it, thereby making a connection with fasting.

The fourth moisture in this tradition is sexual, both male and female. These moistures, of course, make possible the expressions of love and the procreation
of life. In my reflections, this lead me to such rich notions as our role as co-creators with God and, further, that we are, in our sexuality, created in the image and
likeness of God.

There’s also fifth moisture in the tribal traditions, though it’s of somewhat lesser rank than others. It is spit. Spit fits in this way: It is necessary to have
moisture in the mouth in order to speak. In other words, breath by itself is not enough to form words. It also takes moisture to speak a spoken word.

It occurred to me this very biblical. The imagery in Genesis’ opening chapter seems to suggest that breath and water help form God’s word. It says, in verse
two, that “a mighty wind swept over the waters,” and then goes on to say that God spoke the words of creation.

These are just some of the ways that water has been a cleansing and refreshing fountain of prayer for me. I think you will find it will satisfy your thirst as
well. I urge you to pass it up.

God’s Design for Human Sexuality

 Maleness and Femaleness

1. Gen. 1:27 -28 - “God created in his image …male and female, he created them, He blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’
2. Following principles can be derived from the said Scriptural passages:
a. In creating “male and female,” God gave man and woman an equal personal dignity (FC 22) vs. exploitation of women. Man and woman
constitute two modes of imaging God (CFC 1071).
b. Man and woman are different and yet complementary (oriented toward the good of the spouse and the good of the children).
c. Maleness and femaleness affect all aspects of the human person.
 Original Solitude
1. Gen. 2: 18-20 – “It is not good that a man should be alone, I will make him a helpmate…”
2. From this “original solitude” the Pope John Paul II himself makes some important observations.
a. Man becomes conscious of who he is in discovering who he is not.
b. Man discovers that he is alone in having an exclusive relationship with God.
c. In all the beauty of creation, he experiences that something is seriously missing.
d. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator’s generosity and fecundity.
 The Creation of woman and the discovery of a “Communion of Persons.”
1. Gen. 2: 21-24 - “This at last is bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh! This is to be called woman, for this was taken from man.”
2. Man and woman are made for an intimate communion of persons in the reciprocity of the gift that each one makes to the other.

Fully Man, Fully Woman (Human Sexuality)

1. Man is a sexual being. To be sexual means everything that makes a man, man and a woman, woman. Everything a man or woman does is sexual.

“The human person is so profoundly affected by sexuality that this must be considered as one of the factors which give to each individual’s life the principal
traits that distinguish it.” (Vatican Declaration on Some Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics)

2. Human sexuality refers to the totality of one’s personality, physical, spiritual, emotional or psychological that makes a man distinct from a woman and
a woman from a man.
 “Sexuality signifies the essential dimension of the whole person.” - NCDP 287

3. It is a mode of relating to other human beings and to the world.

“As an incarnate spirit, that is a soul which expresses itself in a body and body informed by an Immortal spirit, man is called to love in his unified totality.
Love includes the human body, and the body is made sharer in spiritual love.” (Familiaris Consortio, JP II, #11)

4. Sex is not a shameful thing; it is a divine gift, ordained to life, to love and to fruitfulness (FC, 1981).
5. It is indeed good , beautiful and holy, but only at the service of and for the sake of eternal values.
6. Sexual maturity is the capacity to form a stable relationship with the opposite sex.
7. The affective life proper to each sex expresses itself in different states in life, namely:
a. Conjugal union for married persons,
b. Consecrated celibacy chosen freely for the sake of the kingdom of God,
c. Christian youth before choosing marriage or celibacy, and
d. Single blessedness chosen by lay faithful

Each one is called to a life of love which channels the gifts of sexuality and its energies into Positive, supporting relationships to build up a wholesome community
wherein all persons are called and helped to express their personal uniqueness through their sexuality (CFC 1075).

8. Redeemed Sexuality (CFC 1080)

a. By the word and example of Jesus, he revealed the true nature of our human sexuality and of marriage.
b. Through his resurrection, Jesus redeemed our whole persons with all our instincts, power and relationships including our sexuality.

“In the light of the mystery of Christ, sexuality appears to us as a vocation to realize that love which the Holy Spirit instill in the hearts of the redeemed.” -
EGHL (Educational Guidance on Human Love – Instruction Issued by the Sacred Congregation for Christian Education, 1983) # 30

Male and Female Differences

(Based on the predominant traits found in each)
QUALITIES MAN WOMAN
Of Mind and Heart - more logical, - -more intuitive
- less emotional, - -more emotional, get easily upset and
- are often insensitive show it more readily
- tend to be loners (often keep things to themselves), go to caves - -are more sympathetic and caring
and solve problems alone - -want company and like to talk
- are more realistic - -are more idealistic
- direct to the point - -tend to beat around the bush
- Feel the desire for strength and personal courage - -feel the desire for self surrender
- fulfillment not only in marriage but also in work - -centered more on their marriage and
- ability to achieve results family
- are motivated when they feel needed - -feelings and quality relationship
- want space in close interpersonal relationship - -are motivated when they feel cherished
- -want understanding
Of the Spirit - -less religious - -more religious,
- -less patient, and though physically strong, their endurance is - -more patient, can endure and persevere
less longer
Sexual - -Men’s sexual repertory is limited. - -are capable of conception, child-bearing,
- -learn to love through sex, inclined to physical relationship and breast- feeding which make them
sexually superior to men
- -learn sex through love, inclined to the
psychological aspects of relationship.

Male-Female Differences:

1. To make us understand and accept the ways of the opposite sex.

2. There is no such thing as a one-hundred percent male or a one- hundred percent female. Maleness or femaleness therefore is a matter of the predominance of
attributes.
3. To make us realize that these differences also reveal God’s plan for marriage.
a. We are made to complement one another through the sharing of love and the giving of life to build the great family of God.
b. Human sexuality therefore for man and woman should always be in the service of love and life.

Male and female complement each other and for this reason there exists a natural attraction between them.

Kinds of Sexual Attraction:

1. General Sex Attraction

- an intriguing interest in the opposite sex ( Boys are attracted to the beauty and fragile grace of girls, while girls are drawn to the calm deliberation and
muscular build of the boys.)
2. Personal Sex Attraction
- plays a role in God’s plan for marriage.
a. Being exclusive where the presence of a third party is resented
 b. Oneness which manifests itself in the desire for togetherness.
 Sexual desire not only leads to the formation of a special relationship between a couples, it also contributes to the growth of their love.
 Married couple’s sexuality plays a major role in the happiness they discover in each other and in their marriage.

What does the virtue of chastity do? (CFC 1129)

a. puts order into our use of sexuality
b. channels our sexual energies toward positive service of love
c. seeks the proper limits within which our passions can be reasonably directed toward an authentic joy and peace
d. demands that we develop the needed self-control for married as well as single persons.

What does “growing up” to maturity mean? (CFC 1130)

Growing up toward authentic integration of our sexuality entails:

a. freeing ourselves from our natural self-centeredness to realize our intrinsic need for others
b. learning to respect and nourish positive attitudes towards others
c. discerning when to say NO and the difference between an authentic love and counterfeit imitations

What does “education for chastity” involve? ( CFC 1131)

a. developing a strong motivation through positive focus on the authentic values of our sexuality
b. the importance of our imagination and the family context

“Education in love as self-giving is the indispensable premise for parents called to give their children a clear and delicate sex education. Faced with a culture that
largely reduces human sexuality…” – FC 37

c. integration of the biological, affective, social and spiritual elements of sexuality

Sex education for the Church is not complete unless it is an education for love. For love is the core and center of the Christian teaching.