Sexual Formation
The other day, while I was driving home, a newly-married lady of 11 months called into the counseling radio show. She told a depressing tale of how her husband says he is not attracted to her because she has gained 6 lbs (!) since being married. The hosts rightly pointed out that this man has serious misconceptions about family, marriage, sex, and what is attractive. They tried to convince the caller that her husband was acting like an child and his attitude was one of immaturity.If that is immaturity then is our mass market media, whether TV, movies, music, art, and fashion functionally immature as well? Some recently released polling about whether viewing porn is considered morally acceptible would seem to support this view. Their polling show the percentage of those who feel porn is not morally acceptable ramps from 51% in the 30s to 90% in the 60s. I don’t hold this view. I don’t think we should wait and see if all the newest influx of porn, delivered by internet directly into your video iPod makes an impact and that folks grow out of it. I know the impact that viewing pornography can have on young people, their later relationships with the opposite sex, and ultimately the consequence on their marriage relationship. Is a wonder that the “acceptance†of viewing pornography coincides with higher divorce rates? Do you think the caller’s husband of 11 months has false expectations driven by our sex-crazed media? When it comes to sexual “development†there is an ideal. We have the example of Christ and the Church. While the Church is often adulterous, Christ’s love for her persists. For husbands the role model of Christ are big shoes to fill. And Christ molds us into his shoes. We don’t make the sex roles or family planning decisions outside His reality. No, he forms us to his mold through his commandments, his Word, and his death for all on the cross of Calvary. This is not sexual development, this is sexual formation. This formation cannot come from a sex-crazed society. Christians are responsible for to teach their young people not just the artificial reality of the world but the truth of Christ’s love as our model. The consequences of us abdicating the truth of this ideal reality and relying on the world to provide “sex education†is obvious. Witness one such example in this discussion of teacher-student sexual relations. The lady caller on the radio show would not hang up until the hosts reassured her that people in their +40s and older not only are still attracted to each other but that they still had sex. They tried to sidestep but she was relentless. She wanted to know that marriages work. Whose message of marriage and sex was she hearing and listening to? I expect this situation is not dissimilar from what I’m in store for in the parish. God have mercy and use my mouth to proclaim his reality for marriage.
