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I hope everyone who wanted to celebrate Valentine’s day had a good celebration.
I hope that heterosexual couples duly married went out and had fun and, if they were so inclined, stripped bare, got vulnerable and had a really good time in bed with both parties consenting.
I hope that those heterosexual couples who are not married and are inclined towards abstinence (for religious or other reasons) before marriage went out, held hands and kissed a bit with both parties consenting to kisses and handholding. Or maybe their interpretation of abstinence does not include kisses or hand holding in which case I hope they had fun saying nice things to each other that may or may not have been sexual depending on what they consented to.
I also hope that unmarried couples, heterosexual or otherwise, who have a different interpretation of their religious edicts (whatever their religion) went out and had fun and if they were so inclined, stripped bare, got vulnerable and so and so forth.
Matter of contention
Sigh. I know I am being tedious. But let me be even more so because that part you just read, dear reader, about unmarried couples? Everyone but everyone (except seemingly those who seem to object to comprehensive sexuality education, or CSE) knows this issue is a matter of contention within and between adherents of all major faiths and non-faiths). Note, for example, data that a rapidly increasing number of of young people now prefer living together without the benefit of marriage and that in 2023, the number of children born to non-formal unions exceeded those born to married women,
Let me add another point as I am forced into being tedious by current debates around CSE: that everyone but everyone knows that sex between non-heterosexual couples is also a matter of contention within and between adherents of major faiths and non-faiths.
For the last seemingly obvious observation I need to make: our positions about whether sex within marriage is acceptable and how that relates to abstinence crosses social, economic, political, cultural, legal, historical, religious and spiritual considerations, as the WHO’s definition of sexuality states.
I, for one, am a feminist agnostic who believes that chastity and abstinence are beneficial for large numbers of our population even if I do not find non-heterosexual sex and sex outside marriage immoral.
Stay out of my bedroom
Deym! Why I even have to state my position in a supposedly tolerant and democratic society makes me feel like I am in some backward banana republic. Because, to translate what state policy should be in terms of such matters of intimacy in simple terms: the state should stay out of my bedroom and for that matter anyone else’s bedroom. In a very limited sense can the state interfere: when there is violence like sexual abuse or rape including marital rape.
If some believe that their religion allows their priest or pastor to have a say about whom they fall in love with, whom they have sex with and under what circumstances — why that is entirely good too. The government should not interfere with that too.
It’s called secularism. It’s called the right to privacy. It’s in our Constitution.
Second sigh. This over-long and tedious introduction isn’t even really the major part of sexuality and CSE. Except tha CSE won’t teach young people to have sex only within marriage as much as it won’t teach them to have sex outside marriage, sexy sex is just the smallest part of CSE. Except the CSE upholds tolerance, the right to privacy, religious freedom and all other human rights.
Only if you believe that desire and pleasure, as these relate to the body, and especially the genitalia, are necessarily driven towards genital reproductive intercourse can you interpret CSE as immoral. Yet pleasure and desire are not always carnal. And even the discovery of the pleasure induced by the manipulation of sexual body parts by a masturbating 4-year-old is not carnal in nature. Unless of course you tell that to a four year old you and send them on their first steps towards dysfunctional attitudes about sex.
By the way, this interpretation of desire and pleasure is quite Freudian, a matter of great debate within Christianity.
Eros, agape, storge and philia
So let’s talk about love. From the Greeks we have four words related to love and 4 types of love.
Eros stands for romantic love, Agape is defined by the Greeks as an unconditional, universal, selfless love and by Christians as the unconditional love of God for people and the selfless love for God of the true believer. Storge is familial love. Philia is love for others.
Again, I do hope everyone had a lovely erotic Valentine’s day (which may or may not have included consensual sex). Indeed I am writing this after Valentine’s day because I want to be less of a killjoy. But here is the killjoy part: in this society eros is overrated. storge is overrated too but not as much as eros. As for eros, we could do with a lot less of those soppy, gender-stereotyped, brainless, shallow poems, songs, movies, novels, etc.
Don’t get me wrong. Eros is good. Except when it is used to excuse abuse and violence and infidelity and unwanted pregnancies and commercialism and capitalist excesses. Storge is good except when it is used to excuse parental abuse, patriarchal dominance, political dynasties, commercialism, and capitalist excesses. (And if anyone thinks I am just throwing these words around I suggest they watch the hit series Succession.)
But, if we had far more emphasis on philia and agape (in its secular and religious sense), then we would see a better world. The reason I believe that there is such a great cultural emphasis on eros to the point that pleasure and desire in a bodily and psychological sense is only related to eros is because more collective passions are fundamentally threatening to systems of inequality including those related to environmentally ruinous policies.
Hence when CSE talks about pleasures, desires and relationships or even the gender and power aspects of these concepts it must be taken to mean all those pleasures, desires and loves we are capable of having.
The insistence that sexuality is only about eroticism is but one interpretation of what the foundational religious texts, including the Bible, say about love. I have tried to study some of the major religions and all speak of these 4 types of love.
Looking at the WHO definition that sexuality is also about eroticism, let me point out to the reader that the definition also states that this dimension of sexuality may not always be experienced or expressed. See? It really isn’t only about sexy sex!
And if a person doesn’t always experience eros then surely they would be so horribly destitute if they also could not experience or express love for family, love for others, and love for that which is bigger than all of humanity, that which is sacred. Love and the related concept of sexuality is, as the definition states, a central aspect of being human throughout life. That is why sexuality education must be comprehensive and integrated in school curricula across grades and subjects.
Those who oppose comprehensive sexuality education have the wrong end of the stick. Their interpretation of love and sexuality as only being related to eroticism is counterproductive to all those seeking to ground love, desire, pleasure and sexuality in a life-giving ethics that upholds our most deeply held democratic traditions and humanitarian aspirations. – Rappler.com
Sylvia Estrada Claudio is a doctor of medicine who also has a PhD in psychology. She is Professor Emerita of the University of the Philippines, Diliman.
