Teaching Youth about Sex from a Religious Perspective: Mission Impossible?

Dr. Alexander Roman alex@unicorne.org

It would be an understatement to say that we live in a society that is very focused on sex from a variety of perspectives and not all of them positive. But who is in charge of teaching sexuality to teenagers in our schools and society? Is what they are teaching something that parents are fully aware of? What role do religion teachers have in education about sexuality?

As someone who has been teaching religion to teenagers for about a decade now, I would like to share what my students have taught me about this issue!

In a sense, priests who teach religion have it easier than lay-people engaged in the same activity. It seems that a priest would never get asked the kind of questions, out of respect for his status, both serious and not, by young people in a religion class.

Sex is a very sensitive issue and even more so for religious people in general. It is as if some religious people would prefer to ignore sexuality, that it is somehow intrinsically evil or reduced to its reproductive side only.

To be at home with one’s sexuality or to want to discuss it, or else be light-hearted about it is to be open to the charge that one is tending toward “lechery” and the like. Recently, I myself experienced this type of anger from religious people who, as my teenage students have told me numerous times, do tend to overreact to the nth degree over these matters.

The problem, as it seems to me, is that some Christians have given up on sexuality, thereby allowing secular, commercial society to “take it over” and shape in accordance with its will, rather than in accordance with the Will of Him Who created it for our use and, dare I say it, enjoyment.

Can we then blame our young people when they approach Christianity as something that is, in their view, wrong to be so “anti-sex?” We need to face up to why it is that there are young people who develop a view of sexuality that is quite independent of being informed by a Christian perspective.

To be a religion teacher is to already come across as being something of a sexual prude among some young people. This is why they try to embarrass with their quips and double-meaning questions – they are trying to make the religion teacher blush or else react in anger and indignation. In short, they are trying to confirm what they already believe to be the case with respect to the Church and sexuality.

There is a light wrestling game that is sometimes played on the beach. One grabs an opponent’s arm and then tries to push him off balance into the sand. That is very much what happens in situations like those noted above!

Students often tried to embarrass me by catching me on my words and turning it into a quip about sexuality. It is important for any teacher caught in such a situation to avoid responding in any negative way.

It is also important to give the students an insight on the true perspective of the Church on sexuality.

In discussing the Great Fast/Lent, I shared with students the fact that it was often the case that Christian couples not only fasted from food, but also from sexual relations and the reasons why.

But such abstention was strictly forbidden during the Paschal time in both cases, so as not to give the impression that the body is somehow “evil.”

That is on a formal level. It is likewise very important to invite questions from the students and to work to get them to feel comfortable enough to share their issues with you.

Parental involvement is very important and I’ve found that on days when my classes had a good, involved discussion on sexuality, the students will go home and share a lot of what was talked about with their parents. Perhaps it is because the terminology and openness that are part of the discussions remove, to a large extent, the possibility of embarrassment or inhibitions from talk about this topic.

And parents can be even more terrified, sometimes, than religion teachers could ever be when it comes to discussing sexuality with their children!

Some parents contacted me to say they appreciate what was being discussed (“so tactfully”) in class and to encourage me to continue with it. That is often the last I hear from such parents, however . . .

Other parents begin to discuss the issues of sexuality from both a moral and spiritual perspective with their children – and the children then come to class to tell me what their parents think about this or that, and so continue with the discussion. A religion teacher can be a “middle person” of sorts in this way!

But other parents eventually feel the need to come to sit in on my classes and actually participate in the discussions themselves. They themselves want to be active participants and learn along with their children!

The Principal has somehow learned to live with the presence of some parents sitting in on the classes, even though, as she has told me, it is “highly irregular.”

It was when other teachers started to come to the religion classes on sexuality that a sense of true wonder and amazement set in.

Our discussions centred on the contemporary issues such as premarital sex, sexuality in consumer society, sex and human relationships and the like.

Some are actually amazed that a religious perspective on this can be both relevant and meaningful, as well as something that goes beyond “Thou shalt not . . .”

When discussing miracles one day in class, a female student spoke and said, “When my mother was carrying me before I was born, the doctors advised her to have an abortion as they said I would be born as an unhealthy child. But my mother prayed and I was born perfectly healthy. Could that be called a ‘miracle?’”

Frankly, that was a time when I truly was at a loss for words for several moments!

I told her, “It is obvious that God answered your mother’s prayer in a very special way – of course, it was a miracle!” (Later, the mother started coming to my classes.)

When telling a class about a trip to Hawaii that I took with my wife, a student interrupted by asking out loud, “Sir, when you were there, did you have sex?”

As I abruptly looked up, my first inclination was to say, “None of your business!”

But judging from the look on everyone’s faces, they seemed to want to put me to a kind of test at that moment.

“My wife and I are married, yes, of course” came the reply. That was the last time anyone in that class ever dared ask a question like that again! Yes, that was pushing the envelope, but sometimes . . .

And during a graduation ceremony, the graduands decided to put on a “show” in imitation of their teachers.

The student who was imitating me approached a sitting class smiling from ear to ear (and I don’t think I smile like that!).

He began a religious discussion about salvation history, beginning with Adam and Eve. But seeing that the students were slumped over in their chairs, he quickly shouted out, “Sex!” We’re now going to talk about the sex life of Adam and Eve!”

At this, all the students jumped up in their seats, backs straight, hands folded, intently listening . . .

The Principal, who happened to be sitting next to me in the audience, gave me a (familiar) look.

But before she could say anything, I told her, “Please believe me that I’ve never mentioned anything to them about . . . Adam or Eve.”

The students then came to shake hands with me and asked me to forgive them if I thought they had gone “too far” in poking fun at me. (I told them they hadn’t.)

As I shook hands with the student who had portrayed me, it suddenly dawned on me that this was the student who, five years before, had come to me and declared his personal atheism.

“I’ll see you in Church, Sir!”

I think it was then that I was truly smiling from ear to ear.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all those students from whom I have learned so much. May God bless you all!

Ukrainian Orthodoxy