The beauty of human sexuality

 Among the many difficulties that parents encounter today, while taking due account of 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.

The reasons for this difficulty, which is not entirely new, are several. 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 depersonalised, playful, often pessimistic information on the various 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. Mons. Claudio Giuliodori describes the authentic and deepest meaning of this dimension of the human person, also presenting a courageous provocation, or 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 that recognizes the supernatural end to which man is called, his tendency to good and the difficulty that is encountered 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, therefore, understand why many sexual disorders (decreased libido, unsatisfactory relationships, masturbation, pornography) have causal factors coming simultaneously from all dimensions of the person. 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 from each other. Affectivity is the emotional reaction, in the form of feelings, emotions and passions, which arises in every person when he interacts with the world, with himself and with others. It has a very important function: it provides information about the pleasantness or unpleasantness of something and, consequently, leads to the action of seeking or avoidance. Affectivity also reflects the unity between body, mind and spirit because emotions, feelings and passions often provoke 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 intelligence and will to manage emotions, affections and passions, according to their 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 many inclinations, which are - at times - contradictory. This is the role of Prudence called "Auriga virtutum" ("charioteer of virtues"). We also have another higher instance, conscience, which has the task of regulating the moral dimension of each 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 their 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 tiring search helps to: become aware of oneself, 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 they grow up. In the family, children learn to develop affectivity in the daily life of love relationships interwoven with esteem, mutual respect, encouragement, gratification. In this unique climate for each family reality, 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.