If we keep in mind that movies and TV dramas are in business to make money and not necessarily to narrate accurately the great and beautiful mystery of a man and woman in love, then we will finally understand why these media are often so far removed from the real world. The young can be forgiven if they, between their idealism and their hormones, expect entertainment to faithfully represent what happens with two lovers. Conceivably (pardon the pun), they might even hope Hollywood would be a better teacher than their parents, who have no such profit motive or any Oscar-winning glamour.
A Christian can start off with this given, that sex is an inexhaustible gift of God, who is the author of all life and love. In our belief we hold with the first pages of Genesis that God created us out of love and designed the love of man and woman as a mirror of divine love for us, even when we sin. The subject of sex should be one which we can discuss with our children in an age-appropriate way. Even if some of our early church fathers were grim on the subject, considering women as subservient temptresses, we know better today. Even if some of our parents were reticent on the subject, we adults try to do better when instructing our children.
That instructing, which can be a really bonding conversation, pulling parent and child together, would not especially rely on movies or TV unless they were exceptional. For instance, while I would not advocate suicide, I’d recommend Romeo and Juliet. And while I would not endorse the craziness of Raymond and Deborah Barone’s extended family, I’d say they could tell us a little about relationships. But experienced parents know that instruction is more vital than ever because of the many perversions and corruptions of love more blatant than ever.
In our shrinking world of interlocked communication, youth still may not know of things like the criminal abuse of girl children forced into child marriages or into sex slavery. Here is the taking of sex and corrupting it for the sake of unbelievable selfishness or of amoral profit at the expense of a child. National Geographic recently did a story on the longstanding cultural and economic practice of forcing girls as young as 5 to “marry” a man many times their age, and to start sexually servicing him without delay. In places like Yemen or Iraq or India, even though there may be civil laws supposedly protecting girls, police and families alike look the other way in the name of honoring “tradition.” Despite the hard work of feminists to procure such laws, reformers calling for health protection of girls are despised and sometimes murdered.
Or something else about which the young must learn: sexual abuse of children and teens. This too qualifies as something about as far removed from God’s plan as one could imagine. The U.S. bishops commissioned a study called The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010. Among its findings were issues such as whether the 81 percent of victims being male indicated that homosexuality was a cause (no), or whether the celibacy requirement of western rite priests was (no).
What really struck me was the finding that offenders when professionally interviewed could not understand why there was such outcry about what they saw as a private and sometimes consensual transaction. As though a prepubescent child could consent to something like this. As though the offender could not discern from the distress shown by the child during the act. This especially since most offenders were found themselves to be abuse victims in their own youth. The profile of the American child abuser is a middle-aged married man who himself was molested.
We celibate clergy are sometimes faulted for preaching about marriage in an unknowing way. I grant our inexperience. Perhaps our brothers in the pulpit, the permanent deacons, can make up for this. But such gross negatives as these about the corruptions of sex are all too real in our society, so jaded that Islamics say they do not want our American democracy since they think this means our pornography, our promiscuity, our prostitution. Young people considering a married life have to be alerted to the presence of predators and other selfish abusers. If their understanding of sex derives from the comparative little our entertainment shows them, parents have much to teach.
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”