Sexuality 1: first foundations

Extra readings: some lessons on Sexuality


These readings are not to be done after the lessons on chastity as a separate topic, but together with them as a complement. They are put here as an appendix so they can be used with freedom. Reading them will help us to understand better the concepts developed above.


Genesis 1:26-27 has: "Let us create Human being at our image.... Male and female he created them". In this passage we see that both male and female are image of God so are equal.
Sexuality is the fruit of the creation of God, so everything that belongs to sexuality is good. What is sin is the wrong use of sexuality. When we use sexuality only for our pleasure and against the plan of God, then we commit sin.

The fact of being man and woman means also that the two of them are called to live as community (family) so much united through love that they become one. This means that human beings are made by nature, for relationship and must live by love.

The consequence of this love and of the life of the community is the fact that human beings are called to multiply.

Sexuality is not only the way of living, but also of relating. It is much more than the sexual organs, it gives meaning to everything in our life of relationships.

Stages of growth in sexuality.
At the moment of birth, the baby is already a boy or a girl, but he/she is not aware of it.

Until the age of more or less three months, his main preoccupation is to eat, to release, sleep or cry, and little by little to discover the world around him.

For him there is only the mother, she loves and protects him, her attitude teaches him the importance of love and security in life. Little by little the other relatives enter into the world of the baby. They too encourage him and play with him. This fact teaches the baby the importance of appreciation and support. After the age of three the boy learns how to control the urine and the faeces. This process causes some sensation of pleasure in the area of the penis and the anus. When he touches his penis, he feels something nice. Usually, when the parents see that, they scold him, and start covering him with dresses. The boy may grow with the idea that the penis is something bad, forbidden, and everything connected with it is also bad and forbidden.

From the age of 6 and until 11 the child goes to school. Now the main focus is on learning new things, and on competing with his companions. At this age the sexuality is sleeping and the children do not feel difference between boys and girls. Adults teach them what boys or girls do and do not do, how to dress, how to play, but those are the only differences between boys and girls.

Around the age of 12-14 the biggest and most radical change in the person takes place. The child grows fast, becomes strong. The boys change their voice, build up muscles, and grow moustaches; the girls develop breasts.

At this age, sexuality becomes very important and problematic. The boys see that their penis sometimes is big and hard and other times is small. They have bad dreams filled with erotic and naked figures. Sometimes, when they wake up they discover that they are wet. Sometimes they feel an inner push to do masturbation in order to release the tension. The girls start having the monthly period called menstruation during which they lose blood from the vagina. They experience headache, body pain, bad smell, tiredness. They too may have bad dreams and feel pleasure in touching their intimate parts.

This period called adolescence or teenage is very important in order to prepare the person for the union (marriage) by which the boy and the girl will eventually form a family.

The most important task of the teenagers is to know themselves and what is happening to them, and also to build up some good and healthy relationship. Boys feel attracted to girls, and girls to boys. But they are afraid to talk to each other. It is important that they find somebody mature ( a guide, a friend or a spiritual director) who can help them. Unfortunately, very often, this role of guiding is taken up by the group of peers of the same age. They are people who, like him, lack of experience, and so, problems are not solved and often leave deep scars. They have to deal with people of the opposite sex and discover that there is much more than just sexual attraction.

By the age of 18-20 they should be able to make up table relationships, make final choices for life, so in a few years they would be able to settle down in a family.