Just Sex?

Giving young adults

what they truly want

by Richard G. Malloy, S.J.,Ph.D

“Fr. Malloy, are you a virgin?”  So inquired an undergrad in my intro to sociology class.  Every semester, usually just before Fall or Spring break, I hand out index cards and tell the students “we’ve been studying religion as an institution in society.  Here’s your chance to ask a priest anything you ever wanted to ask.  Go ahead.  Write down your question.  Don’t sign your name.  No topic is off limits.”

The questions run the gamut from “Do you really believe God exists?” and “Why is there so much suffering in the world?” to “We know you’re really the exorcist for the diocese.  C’mon, why can’t you just tell us?”  To the last one I reply, jokingly, “I would tell you, but then I’d have to kill you!” 

In addition to questions about women priests and married clergy, invariably, I get a smattering of questions about my sex life (I try and tell them I have a life filled with relationships, not a sex life). “Did you ever have a girlfriend?” (Yeah. Lots.  And Julia Roberts went home and cried herself to sleep when she learned I was entering the Jesuits.  I really hated to break her heart, but God called and…”)

The “Are you a virgin?” question, however, was new.  It gave me a chance to speak about sex and intimacy in ways I realized my students had never heard.  I’ve spent the past fifteen years teaching anthropology and sociology to undergrads.  I’ve lived in a freshman dorm the past five years.  In thousands of conversations, often late, late at night (you gotta be in the student center at 2:00 AM to hear what is really going on), I’ve heard over and over the yearning young adults have for honest and life-giving relationships. 

Sex and the University

My student’s question reminded me of Julia Tier’s BustedHalo article “Sex and the University,” a sensitive and honest essay about being at Mass one Sunday evening and realizing what she and many others in the Chapel had been doing the night before.  She writes:

In my experience many women find one night stands emotionally unfulfilling and often hurtful. If the Church condemned this act because it is empty and damaging to all involved, I think a lot of young people would listen. It would certainly speak to their experience. Some might argue that this concern for our own dignity as well as our partners is, in fact, at the heart of the Church's wisdom on sexual matters. If so, at the age of 21 after 17 years of Catholic school, I've yet to hear it expressed in that way…Until young Catholics are provided with a sexual ethic that reflects their experience, rather than what they perceive to be an ironclad list of unjustified rules, they will continue to make decisions about sexuality without religion as an authority.

Tier and the students in my class will not accept the message “sex is bad” when their experience tells them sex is the closest thing they can get to achieving real connection with another.  The problem isn’t sexual immorality so much as it is the inability of young adults to relate to one another in ways that allow sexuality to give them what they truly desire.

Intimacy

As the students warm to the topic, I go on:  “For many of you, whether or not someone is a virgin is just a question about whether they’ve had sexual intercourse. Sex on the physical level alone is so much less than what persons are invited to.  The real question is whether one achieves intimacy in their relationships with others.  Know that one can enjoy much intimacy without having sex.”  I continue, “You’ve been programmed to think you want a lot of sex, when what you truly and deeply desire is real and lasting, true and trusting, intimacy between yourself and another person. 

Sex without real, intimate connection may be a pleasant experience, but it ultimately fails. Sex is more than sex, it is designed to make us go beyond ourselves to become who and what we truly desire to be, that which we are created to be: lovers.  Opening yourself and disciplining yourself to achieve and receive the grace of intimacy is a much more soul satisfying way to live your life.”

Catholicism must be presented to young adults not as “A Faith That Condemns” but as A Faith That Frees (a shameless Colbert-ian plug for my book, I know). 

Justice?

As a Jesuit, along with vows of poverty and obedience, I took a vow of celibate chastity.  “Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person” which leads to “inner unity” in both our body and spirit (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2337).  We all are called to be chaste, integrated and loving, whether we are having sex or not.  To know if your sex life is chaste, integrated and loving, ask yourself a simple question: “Do my sexual choices demonstrate justice?”

At this point my students are still attentive and listening, but the justice idea just sprained their brains.  The wrinkled brows and questioning eyes communicate they’re with me but not understanding.  They are wondering, “What the hell does justice have to do with sex?”  Justice is the virtue of establishing right relationships.  Sex, like everything else in our lives from economic activity to family relationships, must be engaged in justly, in ways that make our lives—and others’—worth living.  As those called to transformation in Christ, we owe it to one another to understand sex as a relational reality between persons, not as a meeting of "things."

Part 2>>

Rev. Richard G. Malloy, S.J., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA. His book, A Faith That Frees: Catholic Matters for the 21st century was recently released by Orbis.

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