Is there a sexual education that is an expression of a cultivated intelligence?

Abstract

This article aims to show how sex education today responds to the dominance that philosophies of suspicion have achieved over intellectual life, a dominance that hinders a normative judgment of human sexuality. Any attempt at regulation is suspected of concealing some kind of domination by some over others. The lack of regulations makes meaningful education about sexuality impossible and only allows for education that is superficial, instrumental, and limits itself to managing unwanted consequences such as teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. This work shows that there is another way of understanding intellectual life that is linked to moral life, open to the truth, and not just dedicated to denunciation. Thinking well involves living within a tradition and on the path of a good life. A concept of a good life supposes a teleological understanding of the human condition and the necessary cultivation of virtues in order to remain within it. In this dimension, sexuality has a meaning that is not merely biological but also relational, generative, and communicative, and it is subject to rules that derive from our personal character and sexuality’s relationship with intimacy.