The Beauty of Human Sexuality

 Among the many difficulties that parents encounter today, while taking due account of the different cultural contexts, there is certainly that of being able to offer their children an adequate preparation for adult life, especially with regard to education in the true meaning of sexuality.

There are several reasons for this difficulty, which is not entirely new. Parents found themselves unprepared to give adequate answers. This new context is then aggravated by a general tendency towards the trivialization of sex. We are faced with a culture in which society and the mass media usually offer depersonalized, playful, often pessimistic information in this regard, regardless of the different stages of formation and development of children and young people, under the influence of a distorted individualistic concept of freedom and in a context devoid of values based on life. on human love and the family.

The clip proposes a reflection on human sexuality as "good news", wanting to highlight its intrinsic beauty. H.E. Msgr. Claudio Giuliodori describes the authentic and deepest meaning of this dimension of the human person, also presenting a courageous provocation, that is, the challenge in wanting to seek this "beauty" with determination, in recovering it in personal life reaching, through concrete and measurable objectives, a harmonious and serene growth, a mature personality on a psychological level, biological, cerebral and therefore to happiness.

In recalling the TRUTH of the human being, he starts from: 1) Christian anthropology, which recognizes the supernatural end to which man is called, his tendency to the good, and the difficulty he encounters in recognizing and realizing it because of wounded human nature. In this conflict, the help of God's grace to progress towards holiness intervenes according to the well-known expression of St. Thomas Aquinas: "Grace does not destroy nature, but rather perfects it"; 2) The concept of "person" which recognizes the unity of the human person as a unity of three dimensions: intellectual, spiritual, and human. Sexuality is an expression of all three dimensions, even if the dimension of corporeality prevails. We can thus understand why many sexual disorders (decreased libido, unsatisfactory relationships, masturbation, pornography) have causal factors coming from all dimensions of the person at the same time. Therefore, sexual issues are often the tip of the iceberg of deeper situations that need to be addressed: they are a wake-up call to understand that something is wrong in other areas of life as well.

Sexuality and affectivity are inseparable. Affectivity is the emotional reaction, in the form of feelings, emotions and passions, that arises in every person when they interact with the world, with themselves and with others. It has a very important function: it provides information about the pleasantness or unpleasantness of something and, as a result, leads to the action of seeking or avoiding. Affectivity also reflects the unity between body, mind and spirit because emotions, feelings and passions often cause somatic reactions, such as tachycardia, sweating, pallor, headache or back pain, etc. The integration of sexuality into the totality of the person is an important part of the formation of affectivity. Everyone has the task of forming their own affectivity with the aim of helping their intelligence and will to manage their emotions, affections and passions, according to their own nature.  Affectivity must be "listened to" critically because it also has some limits: its components, in fact, are individualistic and each goes its own way. A guide is needed to put in order so many inclinations, which are - at times - contradictory. It is the role of Prudence called "Auriga virtutum" ("coachman of virtues"). We also have another higher instance, conscience, which has the task of regulating the moral dimension of each one of us.

Sexuality in its biological-bodily dimension characterizes the human being in the duality of male and female. At the time of fertilization, the individual chromosomal patrimony and sex are determined in the zygote: 44 XY male, 44 XX female. This heritage will be present in all the cells of the new organism and will determine its development, growth and primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Sexual maturation will then take place, at the time of puberty, at different times between males and females. But sexuality in its totality is also the search for harmony and beauty among all the dimensions that make up the human person. This strenuous search helps to: become aware of oneself, to discover the value of sexuality and its meaning in one's life, to give meaning to one's existence.

Being able to live sexuality and Love in their full, healthy and mature meaning requires a long journey in which parents have an important role through their example and teaching, but also the school and the environment in which one grows up. In the family, children learn to develop affectivity in the daily life of loving relationships interwoven with esteem, mutual respect, encouragement and gratification. In this unique climate for each family, it is possible for children to open up to interests that go beyond what is purely material. This path of knowledge and formation of affectivity and sexuality can help parents, teachers and young people to discover and be amazed by the beauty of the love relationship also aimed at the generation of a new creature.