Introduction to Christian Sexual Ethics

Necessity of sexual ethics

- Every human activity has an ethical dimension, including sex.

- Sexual activity runs the risk of being separated from personhood and misused.

- Sex understood as a purely biological or sociological activity is inadequate

- The ethical dimension provides an integrating and liberating framework to understand human sexuality as a deeply human and humanizing activity.

Sources of Christian sexual ethics

1. Scripture (as a norm for Christian living)

a. Scripture provides a clear woridview for a correct understanding of human sexuality. From this woridview one can discern that some forms of sexual activity are ethically correct or aberrant.

b. In relation to concrete norms on sexuality in scripture, they are normative as long as they are subjected to hermeneutical study. We need to understand the historical and cultural setting of sexual norms found in the bible and evaluate them in the light of the whole woridview of revelation.

c. Biblical moral norms can provide models for Christian sexual behavior for today and for all times as long as these models are adaptable to the needs to the present time.

2. Christian tradition

a. Christian tradition transmits the worldview of the bible and is also normative like the bible; but in case of conflict between some formulation of teaching from tradition and biblical teaching, our option should be for the biblical reading.

b. Christian tradition is subject to development of doctrine

3. Human reason

a. Reason allows the Church to draw insight from natural law and from other disciplines (psychology, sociology, spirituality, etc.) and integrate them in order to formulate sexual moral norms.

• Integration of the sources of Christian sexual ethics. Scripture and Christian tradition provide a worldview that aids human reason to formulate concrete sexual norms that at adequate for the present time.

Important principles for Christian sexual ethics

1. The principle of personalization

a. A positive dimension of Christian sexual ethics is its personalization of sexuality, which consists in integrating sexuality within the harmonious totality of the structure of the human personality

b. We center sexual ethics on the person, whole and integrated.

2. The principle of individuality

a. The principle of individuality reminds us that each person is unique and cannot be entirely understood in terms of any given pre-conceive scheme

b. Objective rules are needed but they need to be applied in consideration of the uniqueness of each person.

3. The principle of progression

a. The principle of progression reminds us that human personality necessarily undergoes a process of maturation.

Moral fault in the area of sexuality

I. Faults against sexual ethics are not reducible to the context of genital activity.

2. Sexual fault is a negation and deliberate non-realization of the personalization of a person which human sexuality should promote.

3. Since human beings, by virtue of their sexuality, are essentially oriented to love and to community, radical sexual sin consists in moral individualism or narcissism (obsession with self, seif-centeredness) in sexuality.

4. This narcissism consists in two complementary aspects:

a. Sexuality is narcissistic when it closes in human beings upon themselves in egoism and disordered self-love so that sexuality is placed exclusively at the service of individual pleasure.

b. Sexuality is narcissistic when it is not integrated in the total structure and activity of the personality, or when it undermines and fragments the personality.

5. In sexual narcissism, either sexual satisfaction is sought only within the exclusive bounds of one’s body and mind, or the sexual relationships one has are not converted into authentic interpersonal relationships.

6. Being a failing in love, Sexual sin is ultimately a sin against charity

The question of gravity of sexual sin

I. Pre-Vatican U moral theology (manual ism) asserted that there was “no parvity of matter in sexual sin.” This meant that all sexual sins involved grave matter, even if there was lack of fill knowledge or consent or that there are certain circumstances that could mitigate the moral responsibility of the person committing the sexual sin. vt çci ..

2. The manualist arguments behind this position are:

a. Any sexual pleasure short of orgasm (called in the manuals as “incomplete lust”) has a natural orientation toward orgasm (complete lust) and therefore any deliberate enjoyment of sexual pleasure, no matter how remote from actual orgasm, presumes consent to orgasm.

b. Any act that deliberately induces sexual pleasure leads one to the proximate danger of orgasm

3. Critique of the manualist arguments on the lack of parvity of matter in sexual sin:

a. The first argument lacks evidence from human physiology. A person’s consent may stay totally at the level of incomplete lust and need not proceed to complete lust.

b. The second argument does not recognize that not all acts of incomplete lust lead one to a proximate danger of a later consent to complete lust.

c. The manualist position on the gravity of sexual sin is based on a narrow idea of sex conceived almost exclusively on the level of genital expression; it does not recognize yet other dimensions of sexuality such as personal love and interpersonal donation.

4. A more accurate and integrated approach to sexual fault

a. The greater or lesser gravity of a morally wrong sexual behavior cannot be determined principally by biological aspects of sexuality. It is better determined by the disorder it causes on the entire personality of the individual concerned.

b. The consequences of such an integrated approach are:

i. We continue to consider sexual faults as having grave matter but the gravity of these faults is determined by the total effect on the personality of the individual.

ii. We cannot use a general objective measure of gravity on all sexual sins. Sexual sins may be identical in relation to the biological aspect but they may differ in terms of how they cause disorder to personal maturation or disintegrate interpersonal integration of the person in question.

Christian Sexual Ethics

Session 03

Meaning of Human Sexuality - Biological Dimension

I Biological Aspects of Sexuality (Sexuality as a Drive)

a. How is biological sex determined?

i. Chromosomal sex (genetic determination of sex) - this is determined at conception, giving rise to two distinct biological types: the masculine and the feminine.

ii. Gonadal sex (formation of the gonads, the genital passages and external genital organs) - the chromosome make-up of the individual will determine the type of gonads (primary sex organs) which an embryo will develop.

iii. Hormonal sex (emergence of secondary sexual characteristics) - With the onset of puberty, the gonads produce sexual hormones (the ovaries produce estrogen and progesterone while the testicles produce testosterone) that affect the development of secondary sexual characteristics.

b. Significance of biological aspects to the overall understanding of human sexuality

i. The biological aspects of human sexuality are an indispensable part of human sexuality. However, it would be wrong to reduce sexuality to the biological or genital as well as completely disregard the biological aspects.

ii. The biological aspects introduce three dimensions into human sexuality:

procreation, superabundance, and pleasure.

iii. Procreation

1. Human procreation is not automatically regulated by instinct but rather it ought to be responsibly regulated.

2. Human sexuality is not reducible to procreation.

3. There is a relation between the unitive and procreative ftinctions of human sexuality. The ethical criteria that regulate the relation of these functions should be based on an anthropology that is fully human.

iv. Superabundance

1. Human reproduction carries with it the aspect of superabundance of fertilizing elements, This superabundance must be taken into consideration by sexual ethics. For example, the loss or conservation of seminal fluid should not be given exaggerated importance as a factor in moral evaluation of the rightness or wrongness of certain sexual acts.

v. Pleasure

1. We should avoid two extremes: reducing sexuality to simply a source of pleasure and denial of the place of sexual pleasure in human sexuality

2. We should liberate sexual pleasure from its incorrect association with original sin, which is misunderstood by many as having rendered all human pleasure as depraved, so that pleasure came to be called concupiscence, with a pejorative meaning.

3. We should not thin k of sexual pleasure as a kind of “loving trap” that God has placed in the path of humans in order to induce them to comply with the duty to procreate.

4. We should not think of sexual pleasure as radically separated from procreation, which is one of the dimensions of human sexuality. Christian sexual ethics seeks to integrate the dimension of pleasure with the procreative dimension of the biological aspects of human sexuality.

c. Some ethical implications of the biology of sexuality

i. Human sexuality differs qualitatively from that of other animals.

1. Sexual behavior in humans does not depend on hormonal influences like other animals. Human sexual biology is a human activity guided by reason and human freedom, allowing for moral.

ii. Initial bisexuality of the human individual.

I. In the early stages of development, the human fetus is characterized by sexual bipotentiality. This bipotentiality disappears in the onset of sexual differentiation through the prevalence of either male or female characteristics.

2. This initial bipotentiality remains in the organism , though in regressive form, and may reappear during certain vulnerable stages in life, such as

puberty, menopause or old age.

3. Since bisexuality is a characteristic of immature or decadent stages of sexual development, and since human development involves passage from initial bisexuality to sexual differentiation, there is prima facie basis for the obligation to achieve sexual differentiation and consistently live out one’s masculinity or femininity.

iii. Asceticism and love in sexual relations

1. Wholesome sexual behavior in the setting of marriage needs the following:

a. The practice of asceticism, which is self-control rather than apathy; lack of sexual self control mdehumanizes and degrades sexuality.

b. The avoidance of egoism, since sex should always be in the context of an interpersonal relationship that involves self-donation

c. Attention to the special characteristics of the sexual partner for sexual intercourse to be a language or sign of human love and

charity.

iv. The question of the biological necessity of sexuality

1 Male sexual desire and activity depend upon a psychological process. It is not provoked by the production or accumulation of sperm. The various gland-the testicle, the prostate, and others--constantly function at a steady but low rate of activity. Their products are naturally evacuated or absorbed without the individual being aware of it. It is only when psychological excitation occurs, whether the person is conscious or unconscious (as in sleep), that a serious of reactions and reflexes are set in motion leading to sexual activity.

2. For females, sexual desire is directed by psychological factors.

3. Therefore, the laws of animal behavior should not be applied indiscriminately to human behavior. To do so would be simplistic and prone to error.

4. Biological factors are important but are not in themselves decisive in sexual morals.

5. The genital expression of sexuality is not absolutely necessary for the health of the human organism. The drive to genital expression, though strong, is not an absolute necessity and can be foregone for sufficient reason without harming the human person.

Christian Sexual Ethics

Session 04

Meaning of Human Sexuality - Psychological Dimension

1. The Psychological Aspect of Human Sexuality

a. It is not the influence of hormones that is decisive in heightening sexual activity in humans, but rather the more developed parts of the central nervous system.

b. Human sexuality is a psychic phenomenon.

c. Freud: Scope and History of Sexuality

i. Scope: Human sexuality is not just a genital impulse but also love, tenderness, etc.

ii. History: Human sexuality does not emerge suddenly at puberty but is a gradual process within the whole life history of the human being.

2. Stages in psychosexual development

a. Prenatal sexuality: The sexuality of pre-natal individuals are influenced by such factors as the expectation and outcome (or their opposites) on the part of the parents and other important persons in their environment. These factors continue to exert their influence at birth and in infancy and childhood and beyond.

b. Natal sexuality: The experience of birth, where the neonate experiences a rough expulsion from a closed, protected, and familiar environment to an unfamiliar and threatening one, requires effort from the neonate to survive. This experience of loss and change of environment affects the way the neonate manages this.

c. Infantile sexuality:

i. Narcissistic or autoerotic (does not have an exterior object, but rater finds satisfaction in the infant’s body). It is consecutively fixed on various erogenous zones of the body necessary for various physiologically necessary functions - feeding (oral), elimination (anal and genital).

ii. The child advances in psychosexual development when he/she establishes primacy of the genital zone over other erogenous zones of the body and by moving from narcissistic love to objective love.

iii. The child achieves a resolution of the Oedipus complex (for males) or the Electra complex (for females). The Oedipus/Elektra complex is a stage of psychosexual development where a child of either gender regards the parent of the same gender as an adversary, and competitor, for the exclusive love of the parent of the opposite gender. This complex is resolved when the child achieves acceptance of his or her own sexuality and his or her relationship with the external object of this sexuality. This happens through identification with the parent of the same sex.

d. Early Adolescent Sexuality:

i. Sexual organs gains normal functioning capacity and the secondary sexual characteristics develop rapidly, temporarily outstripping the individual’s psychic and social development

ii. Relationship with others deteriorates (especially with authority figures), capacity for dialogue decreases; rebellious.

iii. There arises passionate friendships with individuals of the same sex, of sentimental character and sometimes accompanied by transitory homosexual practices.

e. Late adolescence and young adulthood: characterized by a gradual transition toward the establishment of interpersonal relationships with an individual of the opposite sex..

f Mature sexuality: This is founded on the overall equilibrium of the total personality

i. This is manifested by sufficient openness to the whole of existence, great capacity for friendship, and the maintenance of an attitude of openness to other persons, while at the same time having the capacity to be alone without the feeling disturbed and being able to appropriately control sexual instincts.

ii. Mature sexuality can be lived in various forms: marriage, virginity or celibacy, singleness or widowhood.

iii. Such maturity requires an integration of the sexual instinct with the entire complex of sexuality and the general dynamics of the person.

iv. It requires conscious, deliberate, calm and secure living and experiencing of sexual impulse and of sexual behavior.

3. Significance of the Psychological Aspect of Human Sexuality

a. Human sexuality is a reality that a person struggle with to integrate with his or her total personality, so that he or she may mature as a person.

b. Human sexuality is a privileged expression of the human person.

c. Certain psychic defense mechanisms tend to depersonalize human sexuality:

i. Fixation: when a human being is captive through strong bonds to immature stages of psychosexual development in which he or she finds pleasure in the past.

ii. Regression: This occurs when a person, after achieving a higher stage of psychosexual development, returns to a stage previously surpassed and attaches himself or herself very strongly to this stage. This may involves unresolved psychosexual conflicts, especially in infancy or adolescence. The individual resorts to seeking pleasure s of past stages, for which he or she feels nostalgic.

iii. Slow and delayed maturation: Some subject’s psychosexual development proceeds with abnormal slowness or suffers temporary stoppage, as if they need much time to summon the energy to make the leap to the next stage.

iv. Repression: This is a psychological defense mechanism whereby the ego defends itself against a disagreeable reality (often an unfulfilled desire) by consigning this to forgetfulness. This reality, though forgotten will manifest itself in other ways. In the area of sexuality, the undue repression of the erotic impulse gives rise to the accumulation of psychosexual energy which is not properly liberated, This tension easily tends to be discharged through unwholesome aggression.

v. Substitution and compensation: A psychological mechanism by which the visions of an unreal and imaginary world substitute for the real fulfillment of a sexual impulse.

Christian Sexual Ethics

Session 05

The Meaning of Humans Sexuality

Dialogical and Sociocultural Dimensions and

Relation with the Absolute

Dialogical Dimension

• Human personal integration and maturity require interpersonal relationships.

1. Stages of the heterosexual interpersonal encounter

a. Adolescence; discovery of the heterosexual “other”

i. The discovery of the other sex is at the emotional level. The other is looked at upon in an amorphous and mainly biological way.

ii. There is an intense curiosity about the opposite sex which is emotionally active. Symptoms of voyeurism often appear on this stage.

iii. Adolescent also often show sexual timidity or fear in relating with the opposite sex.

b. Young adulthood; discovery of the heterosexual “thou”

i. The young adult knows another person of the opposite sex, who begins to occupy his or her mind predominantly. There is a need to know the other deeply and give him or her what he or she wants.

c. Sexual love and courtship

i. The young adult falls in love, courtship and engagement often follow.

ii. There are three forms of falling in love;

1. Hyperoedepic form of falling in love; Individuals who remain excessively attached to their father or mother but who can no longer directly actuate this attachment because of the force of the superego, which prohibition against incestuous unions. In order to remedy this situation he or she seeks a substitute for the mother or the father in the girlfriend or boyfriend. In the normal resolution of the Oedipus complex, however, the image of the mother or father can play an important role. Thus a young man or woman who has known a happy family life and loves his or her parents would tend to repeat the example of his or her parents and look for someone who resembles the parent of the opposite sex.

2. Antioedepic form of falling in love: This takes place when young persons have suffered from tyrannical and cruel or neglectful parents. This painful experience leads to a distorted understanding of the opposite sex. A common occurrence is that the young person will leave the home in rebellion and shortly be attracted to a person with traits opposite of those of his parents. An immature young person who does not want to develop further and accept his or her responsibilities will take up with an older person of the opposite sex who would play the role of mother or father and treat the young person like a child.

3. Normal form of falling in love: This takes place between a man and a woman who are both mature and secure in their sexuality. Affective ties to parents do not unduly influence the psychological process of falling in love. At most these affective ties help to indicate to the young person the general characteristics of desired femininity or masculinity to be sought in the heterosexual partner. Love usually leads to courtship and later culminates in marriage.

2. Significance of the dialogical aspects of human sexuality

a. Human sexuality achieves its specific differentiation only by opening up to the “other.” Human sexuality without reference to the “other” is narcissistically enclosed upon itself. Every sexual deviation can be described in terms of some disturbance in the I-thou relationship, which is the basis of all dialogical relationship.

b. Sexual behavior is authentically human only when it is dialogical.

Socio-cultural Dimension

• In human beings, the sexual impulse exists continuously. This give rise to the accumulation of sexual energy. This excess sexual energy should be oriented appropriately by societal structures toward socially necessary or desirable ends which are not directly sexual.

• Because of the lesser role of instinct in human sexuality, there is much more flexibility in sexual expression in human beings. Consequently, social controls are needed in order that human beings may more easily direct their sexual behavior in a conscious way along appropriate channels, thus avoiding deviations or perversions.

• Because of the possibility among humans to separating sexual pleasure from biological (reproductive) ends. This separation can take different directions. It may go in the direction of producing a human life that is more personal and more dialogical with other human beings or it may go in the direction of fixation with sexual pleasure.

• Significance of sociocultural aspects:

o The sociocultural system has the function of assuring the pursuit of the unitive and procreative functions of human sexuality. The sociocultural system should guarantee that the basic finalities of human sexuality be socially stable and normal.

o Them sociocultural system should channel excess sexual energy of human individuals and social groups into appropriate, humanizing interests and activities. For example, social regulations regarding control of promiscuity, as well as socially supporteds sports and recreational programs.

o The sociocultural system should offer an appropriate social framework for the expression of the erotic (anything which can give rise to sexual pleasure) in human life

o We should not coinfuse a concrete form of sexuality with sexuality as it should be, Ethics has to criticize and evaluate the sociocultural aspects of sexuality, as also its biological, psychological, and other aspects.

Sexuality and the Absolute

• Human sexuality has the capacity to symbolize religious realities and categories.

• Human sexuality has the capacity to elicit and express celebration. Authentically humanizing expressions of sexuality can be described as celebrations of human love and tenderness.

• Human sexuality has the capacity to cause tension, conflict, and pain which give human beings

Christian Sexual Ethics

Session 06

Love and Chastity

In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Sexuality (Vincent Genovesi, po. 144-145)

• For many centuries the meaning and the morality of human sexual expression were defined primarily in terms of natural law with emphasis on the procreation and education of children. Only in more recent years have we come to a fuller, richer, and more personal understanding of human sexuality, an understanding that makes clear who we are, not only biologically but also psychologically, socially, affectively, and theologically.

• Sexuality is an integral or essential element in the challenge we face of becoming fully human. It is also a crucial factor in the mission we enjoy as Christians, namely, to continue proclaiming and manifesting the reality of God’s love for all people, which became flesh in Jesus Christ.

• It is our nature as sexual beings that enable us to be lovers, and it is love that must provide the context for our expressions of genital sexuality.

• True loving involves concern and caring for the other and embodies a willingness to work on behalf of the other’s well-being.

• Infatuation, immature love, or simply “being in love” provides no justification for genital expressions of sexuality. It is not enough to say simply that only true love justifies genital expression. What is needed, rather, is that special kind of true love that is shared by two people who honestly pledge themselves to the building of a life together.

Chastity

Chastity is the virtue or habitual disposition of a person which keeps order ion the sphere of his or her sexual activity.

• In the past, chastity was rather narrowly identified with continence and abstinence from unlawful sexual desires and pleasures. The virtue of chastity was identified simply with renunciations and denials. Presented negatively, chastity did not exert much attraction or awaken enthusiasm. It was seen as a burden.

• Chastity neither disdains sexuality not absolutizes it. Chastity reverences sexuality and directs its expression according toward personalization.

• Chastity is rooted in an attitude of reverence for the mystery of life and for the personal dignity of other human beings, including sexual partners, who should not be treated selfishly but rather should be nurtured and protected.

• Chastity shapes and orders the sexual powers in such a way that they truly serve the goal of humanization, either through a conjugal relationship or through consecrated life of virginity or celibacy, or in single blessedness.

• Unchastity is the dehumanizing and therefore unlawful use of one’s sexual powers, whereby sexuality is isolated from the total context of human love. Sexual satisfactions may not be sought in a way that disregards the person of human beings and degrades them to subhuman animal level.

CCC 233 1-2400 THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY

2337 Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.

The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.

2338 The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. it tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.

2348 All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has “put on Christ,”35 the model for all chastity. All Christ’s faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.