Real love revolutionThe Second International Congress on Life, Sex and Love has come and gone, but the campaign to keep love real will never finish.
And thrilling it was to spend two jam-packed days listening to the wit and wisdom of experts and amateurs alike on the theme of the Second International Congress on Love, Sex and Life -- that is, chastity as "Love, Laughter and Life Ever After". Corny? Only for the cynic who has forgotten what the gift of human sexuality is all about. It is not, as the congress reminded us, about "having a relationship" while protecting yourself from a deadly disease. Not, as a Spanish advertisement pretends, a great "therapy" so long as you use a condom. And not, as the mass media constantly portray it and as some young people have come to believe, a way of having "fun".
Nor, on the other hand, is the meaning of sex captured by "abstinence education", just saying "no" and slogans about remaining a virgin until marriage. Saying no and waiting till marriage are important messages for young people but, as the congress brought out in a multitude of ways, from the comic to the academic and even the stirringly romantic, these cautions point to a larger, positive reality: the ability to give oneself to another completely and for good. This was the meaning of a "keep love real" campaign run in conjunction with the congress. We were all invited to sign up to it and my personal pledge is in front of me as I write.
As the aforementioned economist, Bernardo Villegas, put it in a memorable closing session: "By nature human beings want to commit themselves to one true and endless love." This is the theme of all popular romantic songs of all times, he said, before driving the point home with a moving rendition of the 1952 hit, "When I fall in love, it will be forever… When I give my heart, it will be completely…" Not bad for a professor who is usually occupied with the problems of a developing country. Dr Villegas is also president of Intermedia, a Rome-based consultancy and co-organiser of the congress. A lasting marriage Young people today are just as interested as their grandparents in finding "one true and endless love", according to research carried out among 4000 Filipino high school and university students prior to the congress. This may surprise some jaded experts from the rich countries who have lost the plot about sex, but the data is in and it shows that no less than 85 per cent of the young people who filled out an anonymous questionnaire value waiting to have sex as a special gift to the person with whom they will share their life. A lasting marriage was the top life goal of a whopping 93 per cent, said study director Jokin de Irala, a professor of public health at the University of Navarre in Spain. Three quarters of the large sample had not had sex, and half of those who had, admitted they were not ready for it. The young people did want more biological information, but around 80 per cent of both boys and girls wanted to learn about other aspects of relationships: how to prepare for dating, how to manage their feelings, how to distinguish between desire, sexual attraction and love. In view of the "veterinary" approach of some agencies to sex education, this was a very significant finding, said Dr de Irala. Put it down to a sin-conscious Catholic culture if you like, but the study shows that sexual experimentation is not inevitable, even when young people are exposed to the full gamut of provocative media messages, aided by the mobile phone -- as the youth of the Philippines are. The Philippines, congress director and university dean Antonio Torralba assured me, is the text-messaging capital of the world -- a small exaggeration to illustrate how a local youth character-building programme he has nurtured keeps in touch with the thousands of young people who have attended its seminars. The programme, I Am Strong, was one of a dozen presented, based on the same principle and from places as diverse as Mexico and Macau. Organisers took the mass media and new communications technology seriously enough to bring Keith Liu, head of internet and games experiences for Nokia, from Singapore. While this may have looked like a sortie from behind enemy lines to delegates all too aware of the dangers of the internet, Mr Liu, a father of three, argued convincingly for parents not only to monitor their kids' use of the technology but to let the young people teach them about it and make it part of the parent-child relationship. "I played board games with my mother," he told me. "Some of the new games can be played together -- the play and bonding elements are still the same." According to one of the main messages of the speakers --- and these ranged from grey-haired professors to guitar-toting youths -- no single aspect of contemporary culture can harm your children if you A) are a good model of the values and virtues you want them to have; B) are close to them and they can talk to you easily; C) have brought them up from the beginning to make good choices. Chastity education starts the day you ask your toddler, "What outfit do you want to wear today -- the red or the blue?" said Esther Esteban, an expert in values education. Choose the blue and you have to say no to the red, for now. Later on, choosing virginity means not choosing company in which you may be tempted to lose it. Strength of character It all comes down to character education, the theoretical basis of the congress. "Sexuality education must have the development of good character as its central goal," said keynote speaker Thomas Lickona, Professor of Education at the State University of New York at Cortland and director of the Centre for the Fourth and Fifth Rs (Respect and Responsibility). There are three crucial assets young people need to live a chaste lifestyle in our highly sexualised culture, he suggested: * Ethical wisdom: the wisdom of the great religious and philosophical traditions which provide the intellectual foundation for a chaste life. The "why" and "why not" of sexual decision making. * Strength of character: the fortitude, modesty, sense of responsibility for the welfare of others, and other virtues that make it possible to actually live chastity -- which includes returning to chastity again after lapsing from it. * Ethical support systems: family, friends, faith community, school, all of which should enable young people to live a chaste life in a hostile environment. Essentially, it is the parents' job to form a child's character and prepare them for chaste life. In this context, sex education is both more and less than "the big talk" -- the kind that "embarrassed" one speaker into a chaste youth, so anxious was he to be spared another; the kind that makes some mothers offer to pay I Am Strong facilitator Lora Tan Garcia if only she will do it for them. (Instead, the young mother of two has written a book, Keep Love Real, to help them and their teenagers.) The best sex education demands more because it begins with the child's first questions and keeps going. But it is also something easier and more natural, Dr de Irala, father of four, told a press conference. It is explaining the facts in ways that are attractive, respectful and meaningful all at once. A little girl, when she asks, can be told that although she doesn't have a penis, she has something else equally special "but it's inside, it's protected". And at puberty, "You're body is preparing you to be a spouse, a mother." Formal programmes can help parents with this kind of fine tuning. Character, said Kevin Ryan, founder of the Centre for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at Boston University, comes from the Greek word meaning "to engrave". That makes character the sum total of the marks made on a person by experience, for better or worse. In the end, young people have to take hold of that chisel and form their own hearts. That today's young people are just as capable of this task as their forbears was evident from the prominent role they played in the congress -- as organisers, speakers, technicians, ushers and finally as performers, both at the congress proper and at the I Keep Love Real youth rally that followed. It will be worthwhile keeping an eye on their blog, since, while the congress might be over, the campaign for a real love revolution is only beginning. Carolyn Moynihan is Deputy Editor of MercatorNet. She attended the congress courtesy of Intermedia. |
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Did you hear about the New York education professor, the Singapore IT aficionado, the Spanish doctor and the Philippine economist who met up in Manila last week? They, and 700 others who arrived at the same destination, were all in pursuit of what an American author has ingeniously dubbed "the thrill of the chaste".
Comments (14)
Boombeeshark said...Great article!
As a father of 7 (with the eldest being a daughter of 14), my wife and I have been working very hard with the 3 “critical assets” mentioned above. This article helps to confirm our approach in setting up our children for successful relationships (now and in the future).
Australia | Sunday, 2 December 2007 at 1:54 pm
Emeka Enemuoh said...Carolyn, thanks for this report on the conference held in the Philippines. It is always reassuring to know that there are many people in the world with the right perspectives on sex and sexuality and who see, clearly, the need to prepare children for responsible parenthood, especially through character building. Often, bleak pictures of a complete collapse of morality, painted by the mass media, do not allow us to see these things.
This is the situation here in Spain where I am studying at the moment. One is tempted to conclude that the adult generation, children of the so-called “sexual revolution” is a lost one. “Let’s write them off and begin again with the younger generation.” But, it isn’t really so. Even here in Europe, which appears, at the moment, to be experiencing something akin to the last painful shudder of a dying man (as George Weigel suggested when he was here in Madrid about two weeks ago for a conference), there are a many brilliant points of light with the promise of a kind of cultural (Christian) revival.
I fear for my own country, Nigeria, where powerful, international, anti-life and anti-family institutions like the International Planned Parenthood Federation are exerting all their strength in order to eliminate age-old traditional Christian values among the youth. And the voices of opposition are two muffled (especially due to scarce financial means) to be effective in combating them.
How I wish the next conference would be held in Nigeria: in Lagos or Abuja. It would certainly be a big moral boost for those little “Davids” that have held the fort against “Goliaths” like IPPF.
As an aside, I had attempted to go from Nigeria for the previous conferenc which took place in Mexico. But it was very difficult: apparently, the embassy of Mexico closest to Nigeria is located in Morocco, and I was expected to go there for my visa! If you take a look at the map, you will understand why such a move would have been strange.
Spain | Monday, 3 December 2007 at 3:05 am
ecv said...Perhaps instead of regarding the internet or mobile devices with reservation, more initiatives on chastity education in this area can be made since the young people virtually live there. One Vatican official mentioned that the internet can even be regarded as a “mission territory.” Well-formed, courageous and techno-savvy souls are needed to navigate in these areas.
Philippines | Monday, 3 December 2007 at 11:02 am
Roger P. Sarmiento said...Here’s a note of appreciation for the article and for the persons who wrote the earlier comments. I teach in the undergraduate Marketing program of the University of the Philippines Visayas and I find ecv’s suggestion really interesting.
I went to the congress with some educators and parents from Iloilo and Bacolod, two neighboring cities south of Manila. After the Congress, Dr. Tom Lickona flew to Iloilo to speak with students, parents, and teachers. Organized by PAREF Westbridge school, Dr. Lickona’s “mini-congress” drew about 1,200 participants. When the speaker began taking questions, the attendees wrote them on slips of paper and handed them to the emcee. There were so many questions and time ran out to answer all of them. Dr. Lickona took the remaining slips and said he would reply to them via email.
Philippines | Monday, 3 December 2007 at 5:13 pm
That Lesbian Down The Street said...Nice article^^ You make tons of great points, everything is nicely researched and supported, etc etc…
Too bad the article is inherently useless.
Think; what is the point of the article? Is it to promote a ‘love’ feeling (’let’s try to show cynics the reasoning behind our views of chastity.’) or a ‘hate’ feeling (’we people who know chastity is the way have to rally against those cynical bastards!’)
It seems you’ve chosen the second path, as evidenced by one early excerpt:
“Chastity as “Love, Laughter and Life Ever After”. Corny? Only for the cynic who has forgotten what the gift of human sexuality is all about.”
Ouch, babe. Because of that one sentence, any/all people who thought that was corny (which it is, by the way. Sometimes things are corny regardless of what they stand for.) are going to feel as though the piece is arguing against -them-, the “cynics”, even if they’re otherwise with you. They’ve therefore braced themselves against your message; not what you want, I’m sure.
Maybe a better choice of words would be something along the lines of “ ‘Love, Laughter, and Life Ever After’ which, although corny, symbolizes exactly what chastity stands for: and it’s time to listen.”
Or, I dunno, something like that. You’re the author here.
Anyways, I’m just thinking that an article about love would have a ‘love’ message instead of a ‘hate’ message. But if you want to turn off possibly half of your readers in the second paragraph, I guess the First Amendment covers that.
Very nicely written, very nicely documented, excellent overall, except for that fatal flaw. As it stands, you’re only going to ‘reach’ people who thought the way you did in the first place. Pointless, no?
You came close, though. I’d welcome a re-edit of this article.
Have a nice day, all^^
-- | Monday, 3 December 2007 at 9:08 pm
Chen Sy Yu said...The Congress was fantastic! It was too short for all the content it had. And it should have been attended by people whose values have been watered down by a licentious or immoral lifestyle. The Congress, although packed with people, has room for the open-minded. It takes a great honesty with oneself to recognize the truths in the Congress reflected in this article of Carolyn.
Thanks Carolyn for writing about the Congress. I hope to see more articles in Mercator focusing on the life-altering principles echoed by the various speakers.
-- | Monday, 3 December 2007 at 10:00 pm
The Old Bloke up The Road said...I agree with That Lesbian Down The Street(it`s a shame when a most excellent article is slightly hampered by one poorly thought-out sentence). Having said that, I don`t like That Lesbian Down the Street`s use of the word “nice,” to describe everything and anything.Sounds a bit cute to me. Nice, is a good word to describe biscuits.
I`d prefer to substitute the word “nice” for the word “good.” Somewhat a personal preference, I suppose, that doesn`t really carry any significant meaning at all. Well, I`m getting on in years, so I guess what I say doesn`t really matter much anymore.
Keep up the good work, Carolyn, you`re doing a great job, and have a good day folks!
-- | Tuesday, 4 December 2007 at 12:41 pm
Charles M. Sendegeya said...Thank you Carolyn for this article. The marks are clear on the wall for all to see....chastity or nothing else! They labour in vain who speak against a chaste lifestyle for normal people. In Shakespeare speak---hunting they love, but love they laugh to scorn!
Uganda | Wednesday, 5 December 2007 at 9:33 pm
Oliver said...Great article! Yes, young people know that chastity is still the best option. It’s just that it seems like it is never promoted, much less discussed-- even by parents. And since media has become their ‘surrogate parent’ and majority of media outfits seem to promote sex, they become confused. And so, we need more articles like this not just in mercatornet but in as many websites as possible. Keep it up, Ms. Carolyn!
Philippines | Thursday, 6 December 2007 at 1:12 pm
Darren Mason said...To Charles M. Sendegeya. First of all, I`d like to take the opportunity to correct your mis-quoted Shakespeare. It should read “Hunting he loved, but love he laught to scorn:” Not as you put it: “hunting they love, but love they laugh to scorn!” Sorry, I just can`t bear to see the great Bard, mis-quoted.
Secondly, I don`t quite understand the relevance of the quote you have used, so maybe you could please explain what it is you are getting at??? The quote is taken from the first stanza of Shakespeare`s epic poem, “Venus and Adonis.” In it, Venus, the goddess of love, pursues the young fellow Adonis. Please explain…
Australia | Thursday, 6 December 2007 at 9:48 pm
Charles M. Sendegeya said...Dear Darren,
The twist in that quote was intended. But how can I help you to understand? Think…
Uganda | Friday, 7 December 2007 at 2:57 pm
Darren Mason said...Hi Charles M. Sendegeya,
thankyou for trying to clear that up for me.
I`ve re-read Shakespeare`s poem, “Venus and Adonis,” and I still don`t get the connection. Anyway, it doesn`t matter, perhaps I`m missing something. Thanks again for trying to help me. All the best and bye for now.
Australia | Saturday, 8 December 2007 at 8:51 am
Milagres Pereira said...I am so glad to hear that the Philippinos are keeping real human values at the centre of their heart and not getting carried away by fleeting pleasures. In a world that glamourises sex on the media but never getting to enjoy it to the fullest in the real sense, these youngsters who wish to stick to virginity have a lot of endless goodness waiting for them in marriage. Good. keep it up.
Milagres Pereira
Goa, India.
India | Friday, 4 January 2008 at 5:39 pm
Vigrx said...How I wish the next conference would be held in Nigeria: in Lagos or Abuja. It would certainly be a big moral boost for those little “Davids” that have held the fort against “Goliaths” like IPPF.
United States | Sunday, 6 April 2008 at 12:14 am
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