Even though out sexuality is a God-created gift, it is an area in most peoples' lives around which there is some confusion, guilt, shame, awkwardness and woundedness. Each of us is a product of the environment (family, church and society) we were raised in. In this environment, some of us may have received positive messages and modeling regarding sex, sexuality, our bodies, and male/female relationships. We may have been raised in a home where our parents respected and cared deeply for each other and for us. Our parents and/or other significant others may have been there to accompany us through the turbulent years of adolescence. We may have found it very easy to talk to them about the changes going on in our bodies and emotions as we reached puberty.

But, many of us may not have been so fortunate. Our "sexual story" may be one filled with many negative experiences. We may have experienced a "great silence" around sexuality issues. When sex was talked about, it may have been with overtones of warning and danger. We may be been told by family or Church that "sexual feelings" were sinful and, therefore, needed to be kept under tight control. We may have been told that sexual sins were the worst kind of sins. Secondly, the relationship between our parents and between our parents and us may have left much to be desired. The way our mothers and fathers related to each other and to us is the most significant training we received regarding male and female relationships. If that key relationship was dysfunctional or abusive in any way, we, most likely, took that poor modeling and example into our psychics. The impact of what we experienced in our homes may still be influencing our male and female relationships today. Thirdly, when it came to the adolescent stage of our sexual story, we may have received little or no help understanding the physical and emotional changes that were occurring in us. We may have been thrown out into the wilderness or adolescence and expected to find our own way. Perhaps the only "help" we received came from our own peers, which could be translated as the blind leading the blind.

Much of the healing needed in most peoples" lives is in the area of sexuality. The first step to this healing is simply getting in touch with our "sexual story" which involves getting in touch with the messages we received growing up about our bodies, sex and sexual feelings, the modeling around male/female relationships, our journey through adolescence and how we relate today with men and women. The second step towards healing is sharing our story with a trusted friend or counselor who can help us to make some sense out of our experiences, help us to mourn the hurt and injuries, help us to see how our childhood and adolescent experiences are presently influencing our lives. Thirdly, we can pray for healing, but we need to remember that prayer without some form of counseling is usually ineffective.

Having briefly looked at some of the characteristics of our sexual story, we will, in a moment, look at three dimensions of our human sexuality. But first, let us attempt to give a working description or definition of what is meant by the term" sexuality." Frequently today, the terms "sex" and "sexuality" are interchangeably used as if they meant the same thing. The truth is that the term "sexuality" connotes a much broader dimension of our experience than the term "sex" or "sexual intercourse."

In their document on Human Sexuality, the American bishops call sexuality "a core dimension of our being. " It is "a dimension of one's restless heart which continually yearns for interpersonal communion, glimpsed and experienced to varying degrees in this life, ultimately finding full openness to God here and hereafter," (P. 9). So, our sexuality is something that touches us at every level of our being; the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. It is the energy in us which makes us attractive and attracts us to other men and women. Sexually-alive people are people who are in touch with their bodies, in touch with their feelings, able to relate to other men and women in healthy ways, and have a yearning to connect with the transcendent or spiritual dimension of life.

The way we feel about ourselves as sexual persons will influence our relationship with God, others and self. For example, if we are ill-at-ease with sexual thoughts and feelings and think that they are always "impure" and "unholy," we may feel we are constantly sinning in this area. This, in turn, will make us feel distant from God. In a similar way, if we feel ill-at-ease with sexual thoughts and feelings, we may fear close relationships with members of the opposite sex or even the same sex. Finally, if we are ill-at-ease with sexual thoughts and feelings, we will most likely be constantly seeking to deny and repress them. This, in turn, may lead us to live very sexually repressed lives. From all of this, we can see that the term "sexuality" has a much broader connotation than the term "sex," which usually refers to "genital intercourse." Now we will look at three characteristics or dimensions of human sexuality.

The Gender Dimension

"Male and female he created them," so writes the author of the Book of Genesis. The gender dimension of our sexuality has to do with our "maleness" and "femaleness" as persons and how men and women interact with each other and approach life. All of us grew up with certain ideas about what it means to be "a man" or" a woman." We attribute certain qualities or characteristics to men and women. Sometimes we hear the phrases "male thinking" or "female thinking."

One popular model for describing male and female differences is the one created by the famous Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung. Jung talks about male and female differences by describing what he terms "masculine traits" and "feminine traits." Various adjectives have been used to describe Jung's set of masculine and feminine traits. In their book, Partnership: Women and Men in Ministry, John Heagle and Fran Ferder use the following set of traits:

Jung proposed that the feminine traits revolve around a woman's instinct to seek belonging and relationship, while the masculine traits describe a man's innate drive toward autonomy or independence.

A Critique of Jung's Theory

Today, critics of Jung's theory would say that his list of anima (female) and animus (male) personality traits are primarily human traits and not primarily male and female traits. So, for example, a man who is nurturing and sensitive is not "discovering his feminine side." Rather, he is simply being a more authentic and well-rounded human being. Likewise, a woman who speaks with more assertiveness than she did in the past is not "discovering her animus" or masculine side but is growing toward greater integration as a human person. In other words, sensitivity and assertiveness are human traits and not female or male traits. Heagle and Ferder comment, "When we assign masculine and feminine labels to traits that ought to categorize all healthy people, we loose sight of what is most deeply human" (Partnership, p. 141).

Regarding male and female relationships, it is important for men and women to realize how much they need each other's friendship to help them become the persons God meant them to be. In the Book of Genesis, we have God saying: "It is not good for man to be alone." (We can assume that neither is it good for a woman to be alone.) Of course, that does not mean that every man and woman ought to get married. After all, Jesus was not married; neither were some of the greatest men and women in history. But, it does mean that men and women can benefit enormously from having healthy friendships with each other. In his book, Sexual Dimensions of A Celibate Life, William Kraft writes: "Man/woman relations are necessary for healthy and holy growth. Since a woman evokes in a man and a man in a woman, experiences that differ from nonsocial relationships, men and women need each other to complement and fulfill each other. A man not only acts differently when with a woman, but he can also learn from her in ways he cannot learn from a man. Likewise, a woman manifests herself differently when with a man and she can learn differently from the way she might in her homo social relationships," (p. 111). Rather than being threatened by each other's differences, men and women in the family, Church and society are called to appreciate and mutually grow from open interaction. A family, a Church or a society that is dominated by either the male or female viewpoint is impoverished.

The challenge for men and women (in the family, Church and in the work place) is to see each other as partners and companions and not as competitors. When God created men and women, he did not create one gender to dominate the other. Rather, God created men and women to complement each other. To the extent that men and women succeed in being partners and companions in the journey of life, to that extent will they reflect to the world a true image of God. (For this section on the gender dimension of our sexuality, I have relied heavily on John Heagle and Fran Ferder's book, Partnership: Men and Women in Ministry, Ave Maria Press.)

The Affective Dimension

This dimension of our sexuality refers to our capacity as human beings to be warm, loving, compassionate, vulnerable, trusting and responsive in our interpersonal relationships with other persons of the same or opposite sex. To the extent that the affective dimension of our sexuality is developed, to that extent we have the capacity for intimate relationships.

Sometimes, two people will get married only to realize somewhere along the way that one (or even both) of them has a poorly-developed capacity for emotional intimacy. One spouse may have little or no ability to share deeply and be vulnerable about one's feelings, or one spouse may be uncomfortable when the other is vulnerable with his/her feelings. A person may be very successful in business and social relationships and be very limited in interpersonal relationships. Couples may say that they have a "good" sex life and yet enjoy very little emotional and spiritual intimacy with each other.

The Genital Dimension

Genital sexuality refers to "behaviors, thoughts, fantasies, desires and feelings that activate the genital organs. When talking about genital sexuality, we need to distinguish genital feelings from genital behavior (sexual intercourse and masturbation.) Genital feelings are neither right nor wrong. They simply exist. They may or may not lead to genital behavior, which may be healthy or unhealthy" (William Kraft). True genital expression has a physical, a pleasurable, a relational and procreative dimension. The "Playboy Culture" today only emphasizes the physical and fun dimension of genital sexuality.

The unitive and procreative aspects of genital sexuality have a transcendent or spiritual dimension to them. They call us to transcend or go beyond ourselves. In genital intercourse, a husband and wife reach out to and receive each other. In their reaching out for each other, they can catch a glimpse of the God who is the ultimate fulfillment of our search for interpersonal communion. This gives genital sex a powerful spiritual dimension. The transcendent dimension of the procreative aspect of genital sexuality is a couple's openness to co-creating, with God, new life.

In summary, we can say that sexuality is a core and fundamental dimension of our being. It is certainly a much larger reality than our genitals and genital sex. We are sexual persons through and through. Our sexuality is always at work in our relationship with God and others. Any attempt to deny or repress our sexuality will impact, in a negative way, our relationship with God, others and self. Everyone of us, whether we are married, single, celibate priests or vowed religious, is called to develop and integrate our sexuality, including the genital dimension, into our whole personality.

© by Father Eamon Tobin