Sex Education

Sex Education of Children.—(a) Necessity.—Some moralists believe that sex education of the young should be indirect. They hold that it is dangerous to speak of venereal matters to the young; that silence itself is to them a lesson of modesty; that the practice of piety and mortification, along with parental watchfulness, will keep them pure; that sufficient knowledge will come at the proper time as God will provide. Others reject this theory as opposed to the tradition of the Church as well as to experience. The defenders of direct sexual education point to the evil of silence: the bad habits contracted and grown strong before their sinfulness is understood, or the scruples and misery into which ignorance will plunge young people entering the crisis of puberty, the false and corrupt ideas with which unavoidably the minds of the innocent will be indoctrinated by immoral companions or physicians, the loss of confidence in parents who have refused important knowledge and advice, and the ruin of innocent lives by seducers which a timely word of warning would have prevented. Hence, there is an invincible ignorance which cannot be removed without direct education, and which is more harmful at least to well-reared children than any evil that may be caused by the education.

(b) Preparation for Direct Education.—Training for purity should be directed both to will and intellect, for knowledge without character is powerless against temptation. Children should be trained from the beginning morally (i.e., they should be kept as far as possible from sources of contamination; should be taught to have implicit confidence in parents and to bring to them their questions and difficulties; should be trained to practise continual mortification and restraint and to struggle against evil tendencies until the habit of self-control becomes a second nature) and religiously (i.e., to use prayer, the Sacraments and other means of grace until they are well formed in piety). This previous moral education and religious conviction will stand on guard as a protection against the suggestions of indulgence which initiation into sex matters may suggest.

(c) The Subject-Matter of Sex Education.—The fundamentals of sex instruction include such points as the diversity of sex, its origin from God and its dignity, the beginning of life in plants and animals, the organs of reproduction, the functions of maternity and paternity, the grave reasons that demand sexual morality, respect for womankind, the great sinfulness of masturbation and fornication, the meaning of puberty and its accompaniments in male and female, the possibility and healthfulness of continence, the moral dangers of the world and the social diseases to be guarded against, and the hygienic aids to chastity.

(d) The Method of Instruction.—It is clear that not all the details just mentioned can be imparted at one time, for young children would not understand or there would be scandal of little ones; but, while fiction and exaggeration should be avoided, a strictly scientific and technical instruction is not necessary or generally advisable. It is clear also that parents, and especially mothers, are naturally suited for the delicate task of early guardians of chastity, though the later instruction should be supplemented in catechism class, sermon, school, and an individual advice given in confession. It would be impossible in brief space to outline sufficiently a program of sex instruction, but parents and persons who are about to marry should read, study and apply some of the excellent books prepared for their guidance.

61. 1. Chaste education. (A) Since young persons, like soft wax, receive any impressions more distinctly, it is of the greatest importance that already from tender years they learn how highly they ought to value purity of body and soul, and therefore with what horror they ought to flee whatever savors of impurity. Therefore let them be taught with how great reverence they ought to treat their own body, which is the instrument of the soul and the temple of the whole Trinity,² by avoiding sensual looks and touches, and by doing nothing in private which they would be ashamed to do before parents and honorable persons. Therefore let nothing be said or done before them which can excite a morbid and dangerous curiosity;³ for they attend to these things, even while they seem distracted by other things; what they see, they desire to imitate; what excites curiosity, they diligently investigate. Likewise care must be taken lest nurses, servants, and others conversing with children say or do anything indecorous which could insert an impure thought into their minds: for some, still innocent, have been corrupted by the depraved conversations or examples of servants. - Boys and girls should not sleep in the same room, nor especially in the same bed, at least after the seventh year.

² To the point Paul says (1 Cor. 6:19-20): "Know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you?... Glorify and bear God in your body."

³ This the poet Juvenal was already observing (Satire 14): "The greatest reverence is owed to a boy; if you are preparing anything shameful, do not despise the years of the boy."

62. (B) But when they have now become pubescent, and have experienced depraved movements in themselves, and at the same time seem anxious about the cause of these, we think it opportune that the parents themselves prudently and decently explain those things which younger persons may legitimately desire to know about these matters, lest perhaps they seek this from companions, who by depraved counsels and depraved examples can lead them to venereal acts. Parents, however, will opportunely adapt answers and counsels to the character of the young, not explaining all things at once, but little by little, adding that they are ready to answer honorably their honorable questions, as often as these shall have noticed something unusual.¹ If parents fail in this matter, it pertains to confessors chastely and prudently to instruct the young, as often as their confession offers them the opportunity. In which case, at the same time they should propose efficacious remedies for resisting temptations, both natural and supernatural.

¹ Cf. Fonssagrives, Conseils aux parents et aux maitres sur l'education de la purete. Parents themselves can use books written on this matter, and imbued with a Christian spirit, e.g., Surbled, Vie de jeune homme, Paris, 1900; idem, La vie de jeune fille, Paris, 1903; Stall, What a young boy ought to know; idem, What a young girl ought to know, Philadelphia.

186. - III. On the utility and method of revealing the mysteries of life.

By the name mystery of life we here comprehend the process of human generation, sins against chastity, and venereal diseases.

Is the explanation of these mysteries or is it not to be commended as a part of the discipline of chastity (de l'éducation de la chasteté)? This is the question, and today it is disputed with such force in books, writings, and speeches that it has seemed proper to propose at somewhat greater length a question so greatly agitated.

Wherefore, after certain historical notices, we shall allege and weigh the arguments brought forward on each side and the opinions, so that thereafter we may be permitted to put forth our conclusion concerning this matter more prudently.

187. - In the first centuries of the Church, as the Reverend Father Ruiz Amado himself observes ¹, Christian children could not have lacked instruction in sexual matters. For they were not prohibited from attending pagan schools, in which mythological fables and classical writers were explained ².

¹ La educacion de la castidad.

² Cf. Tertullian, De idololatria, chapter 10 (M. 1, 675).

Yet at the end of the fifth century, Julianus Pomerius records that "it had been decreed by the ancients that none of the young should read the book of Genesis, and likewise part of the prophet Ezekiel or the Song of Songs, and other such things in which the generations and deeds and names of certain women are written.... Lest perhaps, being still carnal, they should receive these spiritual things according to the flesh; and should not consider the virtues which those women signify, but should perish by thinking carnally about the women themselves" ³.

³ De vita contemplativa, book 3, chapter 6 (M. 59, 483).

What the subsequent practice was in concealing the mysteries of life is not altogether evident; this, however, can be affirmed: there was no pedagogical solicitude concerning this matter through the seventeenth century inclusive. The question is not even touched upon in Fénelon's Traité de l'éducation des filles, nor in the Lettres et entretiens de Madame de Maintenon. In the eighteenth century, however, J. J. Rousseau, in the famous work Émile, book 4, testifies that in his time it was often asked whether it was preferable to satisfy children who asked about sex or to deceive them with little frauds. He judges it useful to soul and body that a man become conscious of his sex only late; wherefore he counsels that, if it can be done, parents should repel the first questions about this matter, yet abstain from every lie. If it appears that an answer must be given, let the answer be simple, brief, and certain. But if you doubt whether ignorance can persevere until the sixteenth year of age, let the son be instructed before his tenth year ⁴. Thus he seems to have been the very first to examine the question.

⁴ Didot edition, 1793, p. 374 ff.

If the formal examination of the question has so recent an origin, and if we know little about the practices formerly received, then that Catholic tradition from which some contemners of sexual pedagogy would wish to argue is fictitious.

At almost the same time at which Rousseau was writing, several so-called philanthropists of Germany - Basedow, Campe, and Salzmann - proposed applying open explanations of these matters as a remedy for the corrupted morals of young persons; physicians such as Tissot (1759) and Peter Frank (1780) also began to commend this.

Discussion of these things then ceased for a sufficiently long period, until, a few years ago, similar efforts against the spreading excesses of young persons were attempted among the Protestant parties of America and Germany. In France also, a certain association named the Société de prévoyance sanitaire et morale was founded by Senator Bérenger and Professor Fournier; it planned to institute lectures on venereal disease for the use of lycées and colleges.

Hence pamphlets of the "Sex-series" were disseminated in almost every language; they bear titles generally such as these: What Every Boy, Every Girl, Every Adolescent, Every Young Man or Marriageable Daughter, Every Adult, and All Spouses Ought to Know. In addition, many writings, including those of Catholics, concerning the cultivation of purity are circulated everywhere.

The German bishops took little pleasure in the general rule by which it was said that the ignorance of adolescents was to be dispelled; while several bishops of France praised works which commended a prudent, though not common or collective, method of explanation. In Spain the pamphlets of Sylvanus Stall and Wood-Allen gave occasion for a great controversy. But on January 18, 1908, the Sacred Congregation of the Index wrote back to the Bishop of Barcelona concerning two books, Lo que debe saber el niño, written by Sylvanus Stall, and Lo que debe saber la niña, written by Miss Wood-Allen: "It is by no means fitting that in Spain the adolescent age should be educated and formed according to the rules contained in the aforesaid books; but it is necessary that those same books be taken from the hands of the faithful, especially of adolescents" ⁵. In Belgium, the Bishop of Bruges also disapproved the use of this method. At Liège, however, the Reverend Knoch, then a professor at the major seminary, wrote the pamphlet L'éducation de la chasteté, in which he imitated rather closely a pamphlet published in Austria by Fathers Gatterer and Kraus, S.J.

⁵ Cf. Vermeersch, Periodica De religiosis et Missionariis, vol. 4, no. 250, p. 165.

188. - II. Arguments customarily adduced by the patrons and adversaries of the explanation that is to be made.

A. Arguments of the supporters.

1. All knowledge is useful of itself. But there is no reason why we should be ashamed of a faculty given by God. (Thus non-Catholics especially speak.)

2. This knowledge is necessary in order that a boy may perceive the reasons for his obligations and may become formally chaste. Thus the Reverend Fathers Gillet, O.P., and Castillon, S.J.

3. The Church conceals neither the Virgin's giving birth in the Hail Mary, nor, among the commandments, the sixth, by which adultery and lust are forbidden, and the ninth, by which carnal desires are forbidden.

4. In many ways, even by the very phenomena which are observed by accident or with deliberate intention in his own body or that of another, an adolescent is impelled to ask about sex, the passions, and generation. Unless the parents themselves satisfy him in an honorable manner, since that is the age of restless curiosity, he will seek light elsewhere, that is, in books or among friends, who sometimes offer themselves spontaneously. Not infrequently these are corrupt, and they certainly will give information about these matters only in a manner which teaches nothing about the most noble end of these functions, about the most exalted counsels of divine Providence, or about the duties joined to them - in brief, nothing which elevates the mind. Thus the boy or adolescent will be deprived of every positive formation in purity, but, in a most grave and delicate matter, will be left to himself and to companions of his own age. No sane person can approve, however, that young persons should be left to themselves in these matters while they are growing up ⁶.

⁶ Cf. Gemelli, Non moechaberis, p. 18.

5. Nor is it necessary to reflect long upon the things which today are exposed to everyone's sight in streets and shops, or upon the things which are narrated in books and newspapers and read by all, in order clearly to perceive that no reasonable hope of prolonged ignorance can be entertained concerning many adolescents.

6. Knowledge prudently supplied will render, or can render, modesty itself more conscious, more attentive, and more meritorious.

7. Nor are the adolescents few in number who, having experienced pleasure from some accident, for example from riding a horse, or from a nocturnal dream, or at the instigation of a companion, begin to indulge it, and soon, in ignorance, commit material sins in such a manner that through ignorance they contract a habit which is already pernicious and obstinate in itself. There are also others who, terrified by a nocturnal pollution whose nature they do not know, begin thence to fear for their health and remain in anxious dread for so long that they bear the injuries of dejection throughout their whole life. For it happens that a certain class of charlatans deceives them and, through prolonged medical treatment, both confirms them in their fears and fleeces them of their money ⁷.

⁷ A trustworthy witness relates that in America he saw a very great number - more than a thousand - of letters sent by fearful adolescents to a society which, while promising secret consultations, abused their innocence.

8. It is also certain that many adolescents of both sexes have joined an awareness of sexual matters with the most innocent morals. Approved witnesses affirm a fortunate, or at least not harmful, experience of instruction in many cases.

B. Arguments of the adversaries.

1. Knowledge of sexual matters, after original sin, has become dangerous. For it prepares temptations which younger persons are not yet able to bear. By declarations of this kind, while one curiosity is allayed, another is aroused, namely, to see the things which have been described and to experience the things which have been narrated.

2. No positive utility is present in this explanation ⁸, so that the question can concern only the prevention of an imprudent and impudent disclosure.

⁸ Thus the Reverend Father Ruiz Amado, op. cit.

3. The sense of modesty is blunted by these declarations; shamefastness is diminished.

4. We have long since been taught by common sense that the demon of impurity is to be conquered by fleeing, not by attacking.

5. We are taught by the Church that these matters are to be treated circumspectly. Cf. the Roman Catechism: "In explaining this very matter of adultery, let the pastor be exceedingly cautious and prudent, and let him mention in veiled words a matter which calls for moderation rather than copiousness of speech. For it is to be feared that, while he strives to explain at excessive length and fullness the ways in which men depart from the prescription of this law, he may perhaps fall into a discussion of those things from which matter for exciting lust rather than a means of extinguishing it is accustomed to arise" ⁹.

⁹ Chapter VII, On the Sixth Commandment.

6. Everywhere, among civilized peoples, matters pertaining to generation are covered with some veil; everywhere various devices, indeed lying formulas, have been invented to conceal these things from children.

7. Nor are there lacking, even today, those who have gathered the fruit of a happy innocence from their ignorance, while moral ruin seems sometimes to have followed disclosure.

189. - III. Examination of the arguments.

It seems worthwhile that we weigh these arguments in an even balance. The reader, however, will observe that we have passed over in silence those who so celebrate the honorableness of the sexual apparatus and of conjugal use that they call all things decorous and attribute the custom of using marriage in secret to vulgar error. We need no longer deal with "Naturalists" of this kind. From what was said above, their arguments, rejected by common sense itself, have already been fully refuted.

Care must be taken only that we do not unduly disparage the work of generation, which God blessed even after the flood, and therefore after original sin; that would indeed accord poorly with our regeneration in Christ and with the words of Paul concerning mixed marriages. For the Apostle wrote these things: "The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the faithful wife; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy" ¹⁰.

¹⁰ 1 Corinthians 7:14.

Let us say instead that a function given for holy ends is now possessed and exercised in such a manner as to furnish us with this cause for shame.

Equity further demands that we take care not to impute to honorable men, even if they are non-Catholics, errors which they have by no means professed, merely because their counsels please us less. He who speaks temperately has greater authority for persuading; nor are false or rash accusations rendered honorable even by a good end.

To come now to the former series of arguments: in the first argument, by which all knowledge is called useful of itself, too much hope seems to be placed in the illumination of the intellect alone, although most persons acknowledge that the necessity of educating the will has also been confirmed by modern experiments.

Nor do we know any Catholic writer who would not bring forward these or similar words with the Protestant professor Foerster ¹¹: "To know the right way is by no means sufficient of itself; but we must also be taught how we are truly to tread that way." All knowledge is indeed useful of itself, but in varying degrees of utility, and it can do harm per accidens. And that per accidens can occur so frequently in the concrete circumstances of persons that, because of the slight utility of the knowledge and the great danger of its evil use, ignorance is to be desired and preferred for those persons. Indeed, with Bucceroni ¹², who marks this as a theological error, we judge it wholly alien to the truth to say that knowledge of sexual matters directly and formally assists chastity.

¹¹ Lebenskunde.

¹² Casus morales, vol. 2, Appendix VI, De puritatis educatione.

To the second argument we shall concede that formal or conscious chastity is to be preferred to material chastity; but if knowledge brings with it a danger of depravity, we ought to prefer one materially chaste to one formally wicked.

Concerning the third argument, we shall observe that the brief statements contained in the Hail Mary and in the formulas of the commandments have been so worn by long use that they have lost every power of exciting curiosity ¹³; therefore, no argument for fuller and clearer explanations can be gathered from them.

¹³ Experience testifies to this. For ignorant adolescents assign words which they do not understand to mysterious formulas of faith, whose explanation they do not seek because they seem to contain nothing alluring to nature.

The things proposed in the following arguments, however, are worthy of attentive consideration, nor do we judge them to be false. But they do not demonstrate the suitableness of an explanation made to all concerning everything.

IV. Especially as to education. Since the younger, like soft wax, receive any distinct impressions, it is of the greatest interest that already from tender years they learn how highly they ought to value purity of body and soul, and therefore with how great a horror they ought to flee whatever smells of impurity. Therefore let them be taught with how great reverence they ought to treat their own body, which is the instrument of the soul in acting, and belongs to the proper dominion of the whole Trinity, as created by the Father, the supreme Lord; redeemed by the Son and joined to him as a member; consecrated by the Holy Spirit as his temple. Therefore let them be conscious that they cannot use according to whim a body over which they do not have dominion, but only according to God's good pleasure, and therefore that sensual looks and touches are to be avoided, and nothing is to be done privately which they would be ashamed to do before parents and honorable persons. Therefore let nothing be said or done before them which can excite morbid and dangerous curiosity; for they attend to these things while they seem distracted by other things; what they see they desire to imitate; what excites curiosity they carefully investigate. Yet not all things should be mysteriously kept silent from false shame, or explained by fictitious interpretations, as if those things which are honorable were sins. Thus, for example, even to the younger let it be said that God gives children to parents as the blessing or fruit of their union.

Especially:

a. In tender age, care must be taken lest nurses, servants, and others conversing with children say or do anything indecorous which can cast an impure thought into their minds; for some still innocent have been corrupted by the depraved conversations or examples of servants. Boys and girls should not sleep in the same room, and especially not in the same bed, unless perhaps they are very little; indeed each one should have a separate bed. They should learn to lie down with hands placed upon the sheets or under the head, or even joined in the form of a cross. Chastity should be said to be required of them by natural decency, since the genitals serve, or are found nearer, the lower functions, whence nature for both inspires the same care of bodily purity; yet let it be added that this is pleasing to God. Defects and sins should be corrected immediately without exaggeration of culpability.

b. When they have become pubescent and have experienced depraved motions in themselves, it seems opportune that the parents themselves prudently and decently explain what the younger legitimately desire to know concerning these matters, lest perhaps they ask this from companions who by depraved counsels and depraved examples can lead them to dishonorable things. To young men let it be said that nocturnal pollution is natural, but is not to be procured lest strength be lost, and that this is prohibited by God. To girls who suffer menstruation let the cause of the phenomenon be explained. But parents will opportunely accommodate their responses to the disposition of the children, not explaining all things at once, but instructing them little by little and by degrees, adding that they are ready to answer their honorable questions whenever they have noticed something unaccustomed. To all, it can rather easily be revealed without inconvenience what the maternal function is, namely procreation from the flesh of the mother, the long time during which not without cares and inconveniences the offspring is borne in the womb, at the end of which it must be brought forth by laborious birth and nourished by maternal milk. For this does not excite the imagination and provides a sufficiently adequate explanation, indeed also confers utility for increasing the affection of piety toward the mother, while the father can be regarded more as head and providence and guardian of mother and offspring. On the contrary, the function of the father in generation itself and conjugal copulation does not seem to be revealed, unless a special opportunity or necessity is given. But if parents fail in this matter, it pertains to teachers and rectors, and if these fail, to the confessor, for young men, to instruct them, not collectively together, but each one privately according to various necessity. Yet all these should place the moral and supernatural aspect in the light, and at the same time propose efficacious remedies for resisting temptations; for knowledge does not suffice for cultivating virtue, but the supernatural motive and the grace of God.

c. When they have become older, for example finishing humanistic studies, or exposed to the dangers of a great city, let them learn all things as to substance, not by collective instruction in schools, which cannot be adapted to the necessities and varieties of individuals, but privately and diversely. Then it will also be opportune to teach them about venereal diseases and the harmful effects of lust. Ignorance concerning a determined point is to be dispelled when, for someone, it is more dangerous or worse than knowledge; on the contrary, if knowledge would harm more, he will generally be left in ignorance.

And so instruction concerning the transmission of life should be done not publicly but privately, not collectively but individually, not at once completely but by degrees:⁴ let it be brief, dignified, and simple, not with apparatus and solemnity, or a form which would suggest less chaste phantasms; nor should it be held merely natural and intellectual, as if the very knowledge of things sufficed for preserving from vice, but it must be first of all moral and supernatural. And let it always be inculcated how well all things have been directed by nature and by the Creator to the end of the creation of souls.

⁴ Conformably to the Provincial Council of Mechlin, n. 56.

Explanations will be opportune which anticipate the revelations of evil counselors; which prevent the soul in the young person from being excessively disturbed by physiological phenomena; which turn the more exposed and more mature away from illicit commerce; which call marriageable girls back from dissipation and dangers; which join parents and children by a stronger bond of confidence and love; which render conscious virtue stronger; and which procure a better understanding of the dignity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the benefit of the Incarnation.⁵

⁵ Thus Vermeersch, o. c., n. 201.

We do not append a specimen of instruction, because according to diverse circumstances it must be infinitely varied.⁶

⁶ Concerning these things these deserve to be inspected: Knoch, L'Education de la Chastete; Fonsagrives, Conseils aux parents et maitres sur l'education de la purete; Surbled, La Vie de jeune homme; La Vie de jeune fille; La Vie a deux, for spouses; Stahl, What a young boy ought to know; What a young girl ought to know; Ernst, Elternpflicht; Foerster, Jugendlehre; Sexualethik and Sexualpadagogik, translated into Dutch; Lacordaire, Lettres a un jeune homme; Dr Stephane (Lefebvre), Lettres posthumes a un jeune homme; Kraus and Gatterer, Die Erziehung zur Keuschheit; Guibert, La Purete; Gillet, Innocence et Ignorance: education de la purete; P. Guitton, De la Chastete; Francoise Harmel, Une grave question de l'education des jeunes filles. La Chastete; Hardy Schilgen, Im Dienst des Schopfers, translated into Dutch by Dieben; Jos. Konn, Auf dem Wege zur Ehe, for girls; Herman Muckermann, various little works, translated into Dutch by Henri Deshayes; Dr Deelen, Het sexueele in den mensch; and for parents these two, published by Katholische Schulorganisation in Dusseldorf: Die Erziehung des Jungen (des Madchens) zur zittlichen Reinheit; Hoornaert, Le Combat pour la purete; Vermeersch, o. c., n. 186 and following.