Parents, get in the game: Teach the true meaning of human sexuality
Image via WikipediaMuch of society is confused about the true meaning of human sexuality. Terribly confused.
Teaching the meaning of sexual feelings, desires and behaviors tends to be a free for all. It’s much like that game adolescent boys enjoy playing – we all know what it is called – that basically involves a mob trying to tackle the boy with the ball.
He may whirl it in the air before being tackled, or he may zigzag and try to fight his way through the crowd. That is really the extent of the rules: run with the ball as long as possible without being tackled. This chaotic game is exhilarating for boys, who earn bragging rights as they juke the other players or possess the ball the longest. Unfortunately, such a maelstrom is alarming and harmful when society acts like this about the meaning of human sexuality.
Here’s what I mean. In our pluralistic society numerous organizations and groups try to influence how everyone else understands the meaning of human sexuality. Much like the game, these organizations are as unique as the many boys running around on the playing field. Each has their opinion about what should be considered “normal” expressions of sexuality. Unfortunately, what these groups advocate are often at odds with a Christian understanding of human sexuality.
Society’s understanding of human sexuality can be likened to the ball itself. Each organization is fighting to get the ball and run with it. They want their turn in the spotlight. They want a shot at redefining the meaning of human sexuality. Bragging rights are claimed when they successfully sway public opinion or zigzag through the judicial system changing laws.
In recent history, the ball has changed hands repeatedly, as various groups have done violence to the meaning of human sexuality.
In the 1960s young adults carried the ball as they vied for sexual freedom, rebelling against social mores that honored relationships and marital commitment. In 1970 the “no fault” divorce law took effect in California, leading to an easier dissolution of marital commitments. By 2010 this became the law in all fifty states.
Homosexual activists have also run with the ball. A push to normalize homosexual behaviors had its first victory when the American Psychological Association (APA) removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973. The mental health profession has since viewed homosexuality as a normal variation within the experience of human sexuality. This agenda has clearly continued into today: Earlier this year, New York became the sixth state to legalize “same-sex marriage.”
Other groups have added to the confused frenzy. The 1990s introduced the term “LGBT” to define a growing sub-community of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons. Common variants of the acronym add a Q for “queer” or “questioning,” or I for “intersex.”
The APA now staffs a Concerns Office for LGBT issues, which “works to advance psychology as a means of improving the health and well-being of LGBT people, as a means of increasing understanding of gender identity and sexual
Image via Wikipediaorientation as aspects of human diversity, and as a means of reducing stigma, prejudice, discrimination and violence toward LGBT people.”
So who will catch and run with the ball next? Who will push society’s understanding of sexuality in even newer and more unpredictable and destructive directions?
Today, it’s an organization called B4U-ACT, which consists of mental health professionals who are sympathetic to pedophilia and “minor-attracted persons.” The organization held a symposium in Baltimore, MD, on August 17th to explore how they can impact the upcoming revisions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. B4U-ACT recognizes that “minor-attracted persons” need to “live within the law,” and the organization wants them to have access to mental health services.
However, what’s most concerning is that they do not recognize the intrinsic disorder of sexual attraction toward prepubescent children. When answering the question of whether attraction to minors is a sickness, their website states, “No…We are not advocating treatment to change sexual feelings.” Is this the newest push to normalize an aberrant sexual attraction? Will this group add to the slippery slope that has redefined, time and time ag
Image via Wikipediaain, the meaning of human sexuality as understood by our society?
The game of tackling the man with the ball often ends when someone gets hurt. It is up to parents to intervene, to oversee the playing field and to protect their children when the frenzy gets out of control.
In the struggle to define marriage and sexuality, we need all parents to get in the game.
Parents are faced with the challenge of educating their children in “the true meaning of human sexuality,” but they should not be discouraged. In 1996, the Pontifical Council for the Family, stated in The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality:
In fact it is worth recalling that Christians have had to face up to similar challenges of materialistic hedonism from the time of the first evangelization. Moreover, “This kind of critical reflection should lead our society, which certainly contains many positive aspects on the material and cultural level, to realize that, from various points of view, it is a society which is sick and is creating profound distortions in man. Why is this happening? The reason is that our society has broken away from the full truth about man, from the truth about what man and woman really are as persons. Thus it cannot adequately comprehend the real meaning of the gift of persons in marriage, responsible love at the service of fatherhood and motherhood, and the true grandeur of procreation and education.”
If you are a mom or dad, grandma or grandpa, aunt or uncle, godparent—in other words, if you have any relationship with children—you will benefit from reading The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality. Sit down with another adult caregiver and read it together.
Maybe you could read a few paragraphs each night. This will surely help you meet the challenges of educating children.
The children in your life shouldn’t be left to fend for themselves in the frenzy of constant attacks on healthy sexuality. Get in the game and catch the ball. Your beloved little ones will be edified as you teach them, over time, the true meaning of their sexuality.
Christopher J. Stravitsch is a fellow of HLI America, an educational initiative of Human Life International. This article was originally published on HLI America’s Truth and Charity Forum.
