Beyond Good Intentions: The Art of Christian Living by Lorda Juan Luis

Author:Lorda, Juan Luis [Lorda, Juan Luis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scepter
Published: 2013-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

The Sexual Taboo

On the basis of the biological truth of sex, let us now consider its social and human aspects.

Sex is not just one more biological function, but the way life is transmitted to new human beings. Thus it is easy to understand something implicit in all the great religions and cultures, something that Frank Sheed expressed wisely: “Life must be sacred, sex must be sacred, marriage must be sacred .” Since human life is sacred, so, too, are sex, the source of life, and matrimony, the place where this function takes place.

Religious respect toward sex, expressed in strict moral rules, has been called a taboo (in the original Polynesian meaning: something set apart as sacred). This means it is something to be treated with great respect and needs particular attention.

Our culture has lost a great deal of its sensitivity in this area. Failing to understand the profound wisdom of the sexual taboo, it looks on it as a limitation of freedom rather than an important protection of the dignity of human life. Respect for sex has thus been lost. Its sacred character has disappeared, and it has been vulgarized, while the sacred character of marriage and the sanctity of human life also have been disappearing.

There is an urgent need to recover a deep vision of sexuality along with a proper regard for all the other great realities of life that are threatened by the consumer mentality: friendship, beauty, wisdom, serenity—values delicate and unseen but literally priceless. Morality, the art of living well, does not seek to repress sexuality, but to protect it and recognize its value.

Sexuality is the basis of the most important social institution, the family. Families are inextricably linked to the origin of new life and to the deep marital relationships that give rise to a home, the proper human environment for the growth and development of a new generation. By the same token, sexuality is an important element of full human happiness, since happiness is closely related to love, and the strongest human loves tend to originate in the family.

Sexuality also is an important part of the social order. The family is the normal environment where people grow up and learn to live as members of society.

Given the importance of sexuality, then, it is understandable that all well-ordered societies have treated it as something sacred and insisted on sexual discipline, including marriage laws, a minimum age for marriage, and other precautions. Lack of such discipline is a sign of decadence that weakens the central fibers of personal and social life by destroying families, impeding or preventing human development, causing economic problems, and loosing a host of destructive attitudes and forms of behavior that break down social order. All this is to say that lack of sexual discipline is a veritable Pandora’s Box, the root cause of innumerable personal and social ills.

Sexual morality is a matter of respecting what nature has determined as the reality of sex. Here above all we do not have the option of creating a morality according to our taste.

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