The Brazilian martial arts instructor from Bolesławiec probably had sexual contact with his underage student. It caused an uproar, and Wrocław’s Fakty came to us and made a report about it. Sensational, because there is suspicion that a fourteen-year-old had sex. If teenage sex in Bolesławiec is sensational news, then the sunrise and sunset in the city of ceramics might be too. But I doubt we would interest any nationwide media with that.
After watching the report on Fakty, I thought to myself that teenagers do have sex after all. Although the lack of sex education in schools, the widespread conspiracy of silence about the existence of contraceptives, lest they arouse the young ones’ lust, and society’s efforts to conceal the subject of sex among minors should finally have some effect. Surely this is one isolated case among teenagers baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, who live in sexual abstinence, just as their parents, also Catholics, did at their age.
Could it be that although we bravely repel the antihuman education of debauchery, the consumerist approach to human sexuality, and all that false tolerance for deviations, kids still educate themselves through trial and error? Is it possible that, secretly and under the pressure of social condemnation, they enter adult sexual life at the age of 14?!
Successive governments decide that sex education is unnecessary for everyone, or even harmful, and avoid the subject. “The lack of an official directive, schools’ widespread financial problems and fear of parents’ more or less imagined prudishness have practically eliminated sex-education classes from schools. (…) There is a kind of general powerlessness, an incompletely understood fear of offending devout parents, parish priests, the government? God alone knows exactly what they are afraid of,” writes Anna Lissewska, a sex educator, about her professional experiences. And this opinion dates from three years ago. Today, things are even worse.
The Church has been fighting condoms for years, although it has many more serious enemies than a piece of latex. In the book, incidentally excellent and necessary for Catholics, “The Sex You Don’t Know. For Spouses Who Love God,” the monk Ksawery Knotz, presenting the Church’s position, writes very modernly and boldly that condoms destroy true love because “The decision to use a condom is not made under the influence of the moment or an impulse, but is made fully consciously and thoughtfully; it becomes a planned life choice.” Isn’t that what parents pray for? That during a storm of hormones, their teenagers would not follow an impulse but think and act fully consciously? So let them pray that they always have a condom in their pocket, whether they are a boy or a girl.
As for hormonal contraception, the progressive monk writes bluntly that it is a death pill. Which young Catholic woman will swallow death pills, and what a shock will she experience when she accidentally discovers that her mother does it regularly?
And really, despite all these efforts, do these teenagers still do the Things Whose Name Must Not Be Mentioned?
By pretending that the subject does not exist, parents turn into a bundle of nerves when they see sweet little Jaś and innocent Małgosia blush and their eyes grow misty at the sight of an attractive classmate. Supposedly, they come over only to study, but somehow the parent is not in a hurry to leave for the allotment and leave the children alone at home. Why? After all, teenage sex does not exist. There is no need to tell them about pills or condoms. All it takes is not to go crazy with worry that they will do something foolish and to hope that it works out and there will be no baby. Is this really a better preventive measure, or should one mention those rubbers and weed the garden calmly on a beautiful sunny day?
And wouldn’t it be worthwhile to break with this hypocritical conspiracy of silence, with sweeping the problem under the rug, and start caring for our shared sexual health? The point is to live in truth, because the truth sets us free.
Grażyna Hanaf