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9. The humanizing role of sexuality

Human sexuality is a remarkable and multifaceted phenomenon. In this chapter and the two following we will consider it under three aspects: sexuality in general, marriage, the family. The three can be said to correspond to sexual identity and appreciation, sexual love, and sexual fruitfulness.

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In the anthropological view presented up to now, our point of departure has been man as an incomplete or "unfinished" being. Each individual must seek fulfillment, not however in an immanent fashion - not just inside himself. Within himself he does not find the necessary means to fulfill himself: he is not self-sufficient. He must transcend and go beyond himself; it is by opening to values and responding to them that he is fulfilled.

We have also considered that this process of opening meets resistance: on the one hand, when we are faced with "difficult" values whose acceptance can threaten our easy self-centeredness; and on the other, when we are tempted to react with jealousy, rather than admiration, to values incarnated in other people. The desire to be or feel ourselves "self-sufficient", thinking we can make it by ourselves, is present in both these situations. This desire renders it particularly opportune to look here at what in a certain way appears as a protective factor against individualistic self-sufficiency: the division of mankind as a whole into two halves, each of which is seen (although not always adequately) as a complement to the other: in other words, the factor of human sexuality.

The two modalities of the human person

In the fact that human beings exist in two modalities - masculine and feminine - , we can (to my mind we should) find a clear and original confirmation of the thesis that man has need of others in order to perfect himself. Any genuine fulfillment or development of the human person can not be achieved without adequate sexual interaction.

The sexual instinct in the case of man is - ought to be - broader than mere physical-corporal attraction. We cannot reduce the understanding of human sexuality to its obvious procreative orientation. The distinctive dimension of human sexuality is not exhausted (and would not even seem to consist) in procreativity alone, where animal sexuality in contrast finds its whole purpose and meaning [1].

The bodily aspect of human sexuality is certainly fundamental. However, it could be regarded not only as its most obvious aspect but also, in a way, as its most superficial. When a mainly physical and bodily perception of human sexuality predominates, there is a grave risk of its being reduced to a merely animal dimension.

From the anthropological point of view we can distinguish three aspects to the phenomenon of human sexuality:

1) a first aspect which affects the understanding and development of the personal life of everyone, proposing different characteristics or human ways of being which - if one is capable of perceiving them - tend to disclose the wealth and potentiality of each person's own human nature. It is always in this sense that sexuality should be first considered and studied. It is this aspect which reveals sexuality as an anthropological phenomenon of the very first importance. Its dynamism points not primarily to attraction and love between one man and one woman in particular, but to appreciation between men and women in general.

Sexual appreciation is peculiarly human, and is necessary for truly human growth [2]. It is necessary, moreover, if sexual desire, which we share with animals, is not to remain simply animal but also is to become genuinely human. In the absence of any true human sexual appreciation, there will be little ability to humanize sexual desire. Sexual desire without sexual appreciation is the growing result not only of pornography, but of transient sexual affairs, and of the failure to achieve - or the loss of - sexual identity.

2) a second aspect which, on a more specific level, offers a singular form of communion with a particular "you", committing one's own person in an unparalleled relationship of donation of self and acceptance of the other: i.e. the conjugal relationship of marriage. Since marriage, for the great majority of humanity, constitutes the closest and most intimate interpersonal human relationship, its role in genuine development must necessarily be unique.

3) a third aspect which is the natural result of the second: the formation of a broader communion - the family - where human life is perpetuated and developed, and where each new person becomes from the beginning not only the fruit but also the disciple of love. In the educative and humanizing function of the family, the role of sexuality also appears under different aspects.

Before proceeding to a more detailed consideration of these individual points, it could be useful to dwell briefly on a phenomenon that concerns all three: the feminist movements of modern times. Seriously initiated more than one hundred years ago, feminism (we really should speak of "feminisms") has strongly marked the twentieth century. It continues to take many forms, without having arrived yet at any definitive expression that might be fully coherent in itself as well as consistent with the deeper insights of anthropology.

For years, in an endeavor to correct the many abuses of preceding centuries, feminist claims have accentuated equality of rights and dignity between man and woman. Wholehearted support is due to these efforts to achieve a genuine recognition in practice of woman's equal dignity with man, along with her equality of opportunity to participate fully in public life: in the political, professional, social spheres, etc. Nevertheless it must be added that a large part of the feminist movements, in centering almost entirely on issues of equality and dignity, has neglected and even obscured other aspects to human sexuality which are anthropologically fundamental and which cannot be disregarded without grave loss to both men and women. These are above all: a) the complementarity of the sexes, which harmonizes their equality with their differences; and, more fundamentally still, b) the sexual identity proper to each: an identity understood also as a goal to be attained by each individual so as to "realize" his or her own life. These two aspects are interdependent, for without well-defined sexual identity on the part of those who compose each sex, there cannot be genuine complementarity between the two.

The response to sexual values

Let us now consider the first aspect of the sexual phenomenon. To deal with the subject adequately requires limiting - or, as the case may be, broadening - our view of sexuality in order to see its humanizing role. In some ways this is the most universal and important aspect of sexuality, where it appears as a fundamental factor in the integral human development of the individual. What is meant here is not merely the biological origin of each one from the union of masculine and feminine elements, but rather the fact that man and woman cannot fulfill themselves adequately without a clear appreciation of the two modalities or expressions of humanity: the masculine and the feminine. They need to recognize the values - of character and attitudes - of each sex and to respond to these values, so as to develop both those considered more characteristic of each person's sex, as well as those regarded as typical of the other.

The sexual condition pertains to the person, not just to the body. To develop one's personality fully, each one should be able to assume and integrate his or her own sexual condition. A major obstacle to self-fulfillment is created by the attempt to live without reference to (or, worse still, in rejection of) one's distinctive sexual character.

In other words, each person (and this applies particularly to the adolescent's situation as he or she commences the more conscious process of maturing) finds himself or herself with two images of humanity that are equally valid. Neither the masculine modality alone, nor the feminine alone, offers a full model of humanity. It follows that the genuinely human character of a society or a civilization is necessarily connected with the presence, and with the fruitful interaction in it, of authentic values which are both masculine and feminine.

"Harmony between sexes is by no means to be limited to the area of sexual life, but implies a genuine need for communication and understanding between the two halves of humanity. Hence the harmony of the family, of institutions, and of the whole of society is connected with it" [3]. This harmony between man and woman, which is so endangered today, can only be reestablished through the recognition not just of an equality of rights (which derives not from their sexual condition but from their shared humanity and, subordinately, from their shared citizenship), but of their interdependent diversity and complementarity. Men need to be made more human - richer, that is, in humanity - through the presence of women; and vice versa.

The survival of a society depends on the maintenance of a sense of mutual help and complementary roles. More important than any awareness of complementarity, let us say, between magistrates or lawyers and police, is the sense of the complementarity between man and woman. If this sense is lacking, society can become technically more developed, but will enter on a process of human decline and perhaps of disintegration.

To grow, we must learn to relate to others, discovering them in their originality and respecting them in their legitimate differences. Difference of gender gives rise to particular modes of interpersonal relationships which tend to deeply configure each person's human life. Today an impoverished (and at times warped) notion of sexuality means that the sexual development of individuals is severely limited and in some cases even completely stunted. A man whose mind fixes on the exclusively physical characteristics of woman and is blind to the character or spiritual qualities that make up femininity, is humanly underdeveloped; he lacks that true understanding of human sexuality so necessary if he is to mature. The same is true of the woman who is content to draw men's attention to her feminine body and has no interest in (and perhaps does not even understand) the nature, challenge and power of the feminine spirit or soul [4].

Contemporary society is marked by a striking unawareness of the distinctive and humanly enriching character which should specify the different modalities of relationships between the sexes: from the most general form of that relationship simply between man and woman, to all the particular sexually characterized relationships of boy-girl, sister-brother, mother-son, father-daughter, fiancés, and specially of wife and husband. When the peculiar modes of these relationships are properly understood and lived, they powerfully help each one to grow in humanity. Conversely, few phenomena can present a greater threat to both individual development and social harmony as sexuality conceived just in terms of physical differences or, worse still, of a power struggle between the two halves of humanity.

Traditional conception of the masculine and feminine characters

Whatever way we choose to express the masculine or feminine typification of the human person, it will probably provoke the immediate critical reaction which every type of generalization tends to elicit. An "active" masculine character in contrast with a "passive" feminine one; man devoted to the public forum and woman to the home; reasoning in contrast with feeling or intuition; justice in contrast with pity [5] ...

Today such an analysis is less and less accepted. It seems to offer simple stereotypes and over-rigid portraits that assign ways of being, characteristics, and virtues exclusively to one or the other sex, as if the values or virtues to be developed and assimilated so as to attain a properly fulfilled personal humanity were fundamentally different in the case of man and woman [6]. Today it is rather held that each human person can achieve integral development only if he or she acquires all the human values or virtues. When, as not infrequently happens, someone sees that a quality is particularly lived by a member of the other sex, this should lead to the realization that he or she also needs to live that virtue, even if in a manner more corresponding to his or her own sex. For instance, woman can and should be brave, and man should be sensitive and tactful.

It is preferable to start from the basic principle that all the human virtues are to be assimilated by every man and woman. What the sexual phenomenon reveals in this field is that there are masculine or feminine ways of living each virtue (or its opposite defect), and each sex must learn - according to these different ways - from the other. This again highlights the point that woman represents humanity as much as man, but each sex does so in its own necessarily partial way.

In psychological studies significant ground is being gained by a school of thought which, basing itself on the equal dignity of man and woman, proposes distinct models for the development of the sexual identity of each. It points out that the standards hitherto generally applied in the field of psychology to gauge an individual's degree of human maturity, have corresponded almost exclusively to a model of masculine development. The result has been to define "man" by human (and not first by masculine) characteristics, and "woman" by feminine (and not also human) characteristics. This has given an incomplete idea not just of woman, but of man too [7]. Once such masculine standards are applied, the results logically "prove" the "inferiority" of woman, in the light of almost all the values considered as a key for a successful life.

Within the newer view, human maturity is to be measured in a different way according to whether the person is a woman or a man; feminine maturity is as valid and important - for individual and social development - as masculine; and all the "values" or "virtues" which the person of one sex must try to incarnate as proper to their own sex, are values to be assimilated - perhaps with a different modulation - also by those of the opposite sex. "It needs to be underlined that masculinity and femininity are distinguished not so much by a distribution between them of qualities or virtues, but rather by the peculiar way in which each one incarnates them. Virtues after all are human, and each person should develop them all. It is not clear therefore that there are tasks or jobs specific to man and to woman" [8].

"Gender equality" can be a misleading expression. "Personal equality" might seem preferable. However, "equality of dignity and opportunity between men and women", though a cumbersome phrase, expresses greater precision. Man and woman are not "equal" in their respective sexual nature; they are quite different. They are not "equal", but complementary. Even the concept of "personal equality" can be improperly understood. Persons are equal in dignity; but there are no two "equal" (i.e. identical) persons; each person is unique.

In fact it seems correct to say that there is a masculine way of developing feminine characteristics and virtues, and likewise a feminine way of incarnating masculine virtues. The modalities or nuances of this particular process are no doubt so rich and different as to escape any classification. The way in which a man shows tenderness (a feminine virtue, and not a masculine one?), or in which a woman confronts a dangerous situation, will almost certainly not fail to express the sexual identity proper to each one. There seems no reason to maintain that a woman is necessarily less feminine because she has developed a strong sense of competitiveness (think of the different reactions - so often visible in gesture - of a man or a woman in the moment of winning an Olympic competition).

The human person cannot develop adequately - that is, become fully human - within a framework of purely masculine or purely feminine values (a society itself may be excessively masculinized or excessively feminized). Only whoever appreciates values in both the sexual modalities in which they can be found, and tries to practice them, follows an integral human way of character formation. Human personality is necessarily expressed through femininity and masculinity. Man just like woman represents humanity in its diversity and in its diversifying action.

It is pointless, therefore, to discuss which of the two sexes is superior. In each case that person will be "superior" who manages to develop the characteristic virtues of his or her own sex (overcoming, if he or she is able, the defects which can also be considered peculiar to the same sex), while at the same time searching no less to understand and develop (perhaps, I repeat, with a slightly different human tonality) the "typical" virtues of the other sex. One can in effect say that to become more fully human, each sex must learn "humanity" from the other [9]. In any case, any possible superiority will depend on the adequate achievement of each person's own sexual identity. No doubt one could for instance say that "she is more a woman than he is a man", the sense being that she has been more successful in establishing her proper sexual identity.

In passing we would call attention to what is a major (and paradoxical) defect of mainstream feminism: its marked reluctance to define "feminine". The original feminist claim was mainly civic and political, a claim to the same legal rights and to equal educational and professional opportunities, for women as for men. The claim was, beyond dispute, absolutely legitimate and just. But nineteenth-century political and social feminism gave way to a twentieth-century "equalism" of a predominantly psychological nature. The main concern now became "self-realization" or "self-fulfillment". Elsewhere we question whether the self-assertive and self-centered presuppositions of most of modern psychology can lead to true fulfillment. Here we simply note how this new psychological feminism shows little or no interest in considering whether fulfillment, for a man or a woman, has any necessary relationship to sexual identity. If, as is often popularly expressed, to be fulfilled means "to be oneself", is male sexual identity of no relevance to a man in his effort to "be himself", or female sexual identity to the woman who wants to "be herself"? Or is the unisex trend of psychology right in holding that the whole concept of "being oneself" has absolutely no relationship to whether one is a man or a woman? We hope to enter more fully into this question in another work.

The sexual identity of man

The psychological portrait which man offers is probably simpler than that of woman. He is physically stronger; he has a tendency to conceive fulfillment in terms of struggle, as a matter of surpassing oneself and surpassing others. He is therefore more inclined to active competition, and perhaps to exterior affairs. He easily tends to excess in physical activity, and even to violence and cruelty. He possesses a special impulse towards independence; the idea of self-sufficiency is probably a greater temptation for him. Nevertheless, he remains incomplete. He needs a complement; and in particular a humanizing influence. An authentic discovery of woman can be the condition for him to become more human.

Julián Marías says that "the nucleus of man's condition is precisely enthusiasm for woman" [10]. The Book of Genesis speaks of the reaction of joy in Adam when he first beheld Eve. It was the initial human response to sexuality, a response not of desire but of sexual enthusiasm, of someone who has found a new dimension to life that fills in something he now realizes was lacking. The deepest reaction to sexuality should in fact be one of joy, joy before what is designed to be complementary and therefore fulfilling and enriching. Certainly both sexes need to understand this, just as they need to try to create and maintain the conditions that facilitate this reaction - which seems less and less frequent in today's society. Man has probably the greater need for understanding in the matter; woman the more decisive role in creating the conditions which facilitate the adequate human reaction.

Among major aspects to be noted here is how the instinct of respecting or protecting woman, as well as admiration for virginity and for motherhood, is fundamental to the development of true masculine character. Modern man is not different with regard to these needs; the problem is rather that he may not be aware of how deep his needs are here. The situation is more serious inasmuch as the dominant social and cultural atmosphere in no way encourages him to take stock of these needs or of his lack of awareness of them; rather the contrary. Another question is whether women appreciate their role in this.

Fred Uhlman, in his masterly short novel Reunion, notes the "ingenuous" way in which, in the 1930s, two sixteen-year-old boys exchange ideas on girls: "And we talked about girls. By the blasé standards of today's adolescents our attitude was incredibly naive. To us, girls were superior beings of extraordinary purity, to be approached only as the troubadours of old approached them, with chivalrous fervor and distant adoration" [11]. Teenagers today, if they have had no other model to go by, can hardly realize what a loss is involved in the contemporary disenchantment with the other sex. Is the adolescent world richer for being told that it is stupid to want to be a hero to one's heroine or a heroine to one's hero; in other words that the romantic concept of the relation between the sexes is dead and gone forever?

Romance seems absent - sadly and perhaps cynically absent - in modern presentations of man-woman relations. Contemporary sexual culture is sensual but not romantic. Attraction is becoming bereft of human charm and reduced to simple animal magnetism. The girl seems no longer to dream of her Prince Charming, nor the boy of his Princess.

The prince wants to adore his princess; the princess wants to care for her prince. Adoration and caring are shown in different ways; but both mean loving service of another. It is urgent that service and the different ways (including the complementary masculine-feminine ways) in which it is manifested be understood - be rediscovered - as an expression of love.

Nowadays we seldom hear mention of learning "to be a man" (and yet it is more important than ever to grasp the message underlying the expression). We hear even less, I think, of learning "to be a woman". Properly analyzed, there is probably a greater challenge in the "be a woman", addressed to a girl, than in the "be a man", directed to a boy. Yet many girls today might not be able to say what they are being challenged to.

The type of "sexual education" that has emerged in the last few decades is reduced to the limits of exclusively physical-biological instruction. From a truly human perspective, far from meriting to be termed sexual education, such instruction is rather in the nature of a "deformation" of the human understanding of sexuality, and ends up by producing desexualized people, with the consequent impoverishment of individual life and social living.

Virginia Woolf, one of the most innovative novelists of the twentieth century [12], claimed equality of opportunity with men; yet did not want to use her own notable literary talents in a masculine way. She realized the danger of women's letting themselves become more and more like men and, far from desiring to eradicate the differences between the two sexes, wanted education to strengthen these differences. She considered that the historical bottling up of woman in the home, had in fact given her a "creative force" which she should now be free to unleash in its fullness. "But this creative power differs greatly from the creative power of men. And one must conclude that it would be a thousand pities if it were hindered or wasted, for it was won by centuries of the most drastic discipline, and there is nothing to take its place. It would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men, or lived like men, or looked like men, for if two sexes are quite inadequate, considering the vastness and variety of the world, how should we manage with one only? Ought not education to bring out and fortify the differences rather than the similarities? For we have too much likeness as it is" [13].

One is born either male or female. One is a woman or a man, by birth. What then is meant by "learning to be" or "to become" a woman or a man? How does a girl become a woman? What model or ideal should she follow: that of becoming "more like a man", as Henry Higgins would have had it [14]? George Bernard Shaw, as adapted by Alan Jay Lerner, was perhaps giving a man's view of mistaken feminism, as he saw it. Much more interesting and important are contemporary efforts to identify where much of feminism may have gone wrong, and to propose a sounder version.

The sexual identity of woman

The last two decades have witnessed the emergence of a new feminism. Building from suppositions not just of equal dignity and opportunity for the sexes, but of complementarity between them, it emphasizes woman's distinctiveness and points of characterological difference with regard to man. Hence it holds that woman has her own way of achieving personal maturity and human fulfillment. This neo-feminism is in direct contrast to the hitherto dominant feminist trends, which tended rather to hold that "equality" is better proposed by insisting on similarities between the sexes.

According to this "complementarity" analysis, woman is characterized in general by a special "caring for others" attitude or ability. The feminists of the former predominant school see in this an implied subordination of woman to others (especially to men), something they find not acceptable; moreover, if at times they try to connect the two major human characterological models ("autonomy" and "relatedness"), there seems little doubt that for them personal "autonomy" remains the more important factor [15].

If it is true that to "develop" or fulfill "self" in the masculine mode means making one's self independent from others, while the "self" in its feminine mode develops through relating with others ("separation" in contrast to "connection"), then women, in appraising and creating their own identity, need to use certain parameters that are peculiar to them [16]. Some psychologists also hold that masculine identity is forged in relationship to the world, while feminine identity is actuated in relationships of intimacy with some other person [17]. If this is so, then the idea of "human maturity" as applied to each sex (and despite many factors in common) is probably to be appraised according to different although equally valid definitive norms. The major questions of sexual identification and sexual education should perhaps work from the idea that a mature woman and a mature man relate differently to the world [18]. Man is used to considering himself superior (from his point of view); notwithstanding this, the intelligent woman has always been convinced of her superiority - from her point of view, and in the human areas that naturally fall under her dominion. At the end of My Fair Lady, Henry Higgins, despite himself and his self-sufficiency, has learned to love Eliza and to miss her. When she returns, he hides his joy under a gruff "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?" And she, who had earlier fallen for him and was then so resentful at his lack of appreciation for her, now understands - and realizes that he too understands and loves. She accepts a relationship where he will continue to "boss" her, but in constant surrender to the fact that he needs her. Now she knows herself needed - and loved. Each has surrendered, and each has won. The "war of the sexes", in its minor or major expressions in married life (where it also occurs), can only be settled when victory is understood in terms of surrender, and surrender is seen as victory. It is the loss-gain experience of two persons each of whom gives self and accepts the other in a love-union where the two become one.

In the past perhaps more than in the present, the scope of sexual identity also extended to the idea of "sinning against one's own sex": for example, yielding to cowardice, in the case of a man or, in the case of a woman, to immodesty or unfaithfulness.

"Women are extreme; they are better or worse than men" [19]. It is not a view that is easy to appraise. Nevertheless, the impression traditionally existed, and probably still exists, that woman needs to act according to a higher level of goodness (or a superior degree of morality). Nor is it easy to appraise the reasons which Julián Marías suggests for this: woman "needs to be happy with herself, to feel all right when she meets herself" [20]. If this is true, and if it is true that woman has traditionally maintained a greater goodness (or a higher degree of morality), it could also follow that the immoral woman is likely to be threatened by greater self-contempt than the immoral man.

In attempting to explicate sexual identity, it would be as absurd to ignore completely the distinctive procreative roles of man and woman, as to limit this identity to these different roles. While the cooperation of both man and woman is essential in bringing children into the world, it is clear that woman has by far the greater part to play [21]. This is a fact, whether we choose to regard it as an unfair disadvantage and burden, as a simple duty or mission, or as a unique privilege [22]. Within this last view a first principle of feminine role and identity could be formulated as: Woman's most distinguishing role is "to give life to humanity and to give humanity to life" [23].

Femininity

At the same time, "femininity", considered as a value that attracts man, has little or nothing to do (at least in its first and broadest expression) with potential motherhood. As a value, it is manifested and appreciated much less through its physical or corporeal expressions than by those which are spiritual or characterological. Our generation may indeed have lost a natural understanding of this. Half a century ago, "feminine grace" was a concept filled with great meaning, to both men and women, and an attribute that girls and women sought to develop and perfect. No doubt there was in this much that was conventional; and yet there was also much that was very human. Today "feminine grace" seems to be a notion that many women do not really understand. As for men, while they probably do not consciously think of the concept, they are still enormously impressed and attracted by the reality when they encounter it. The impact of Audrey Hepburn, back in the 1950s (in contrast, say, to that of Marilyn Monroe), could serve as an illustration.

Feminine grace has certainly something to do with behavior, insofar as outward bearing suggests interior quality. Yet it is not mainly identifiable (far from it) with mere physical beauty. It is truly a form of "sex appeal", although not in the sense in which the term tends to be used and understood today. Girls who are not physically appealing can make themselves attractive to the other sex by means of feminine grace. Grace in action and look is a revelation of interior character and self-possession: qualities in a woman that appeal to any man of worth.

Our modern age puts a premium on physical looks, and thereby penalizes the girl who is not particularly endowed in that way. Worse still, the current social ethic pressures her to be "sexy"; maybe she can manage to do so, but in that case she exercises on men a totally different attraction from that of being "feminine". The nineteenth century was a period when women were certainly less socially "liberated" than today; yet its literature frequently reflects situations where a woman who is feminine, even if plain, has a greater power of attraction than one who is beautiful but lacks "femininity". Jane Eyre (particularly in its film version) is a case in point.

It could be argued that a woman who does not acquire genuine feminine grace (which lies within the reach of all women) suffers a greater limitation in sexual identity than a man who is weak or lacks drive.

Gentleness, tenderness, feminine tact, modesty ... These are among the qualities that a man, consciously or unconsciously, looks for in a woman. If he marries and does not find them in his wife, disillusionment sets in; the marriage can begin to break down. Something similar can be said for the woman who does not find in her husband a certain strength: the capacity to face job or family difficulties with optimism and initiative, and particularly the strength of taking a full share in building the family and home.

If sexual awareness centers on physical relations, the potential of sex for giving happiness becomes greatly limited. Morality apart, sexuality is impoverished and becomes impoverishing if it is reduced to tactile sensation or absorbed in physical appetite, whereas it is enriching when it is a school where one learns to appreciate complementary qualities. A man can constantly find inspiration in what is feminine, a woman in what is masculine [24]. A woman who emphasizes the merely physical aspects of her sex easily brings out the worst in man. It is when she develops true femininity and shows it that she inspires him. The same applies vice-versa, but not so powerfully. So we understand how it is that woman has such humanizing and saving power - or the opposite.

In physical strength man is superior; the compensatory qualities woman possesses do not lie in the merely physical field, but in that humanizing power of hers. Emmanuel Mounier writes of woman's inexhaustible and consuming need to give herself, and suggests a double consequence: "from this comes her weakness, for she always feels the need for support; but also her strength, for she is the main enemy of selfishness in this world" [25].

Man has more muscle; woman more heart. But if woman sets out to develop her muscle and not her heart, she will be inferior. Traditionally she has been held to have a greater capacity for self-denial than man; and this was thought to constitute one of the most attractive and authoritative aspects of her womanly character. "That feminine sweetness which has its most frequent foundation in self-denial" [26]. This view of a nineteenth-century author will provoke varied reactions today. Many women would probably doubt whether they want to be considered "sweet". Many more, in tune with the individualism of the age, would look on "self-denial" as an alienating defect. This is certainly the case with most modern feminists: and the model of woman that their feminism offers is certainly free of such a trait. And yet, self-denial in its personalist sense (self-gift; self-forgetfulness) is a virtue and a sign of maturity.

It is particularly difficult for a woman to overcome the inner conviction that "self-assertion" is often merely selfishness: something which stands in opposition to the gift of self that is so necessary for the attainment of feminine identity. It is not easy for a woman to find her identity through self-assertion.

The masculinization of women is often the result of badly directed feminism. So many women, unable to recognize true and distinctive feminine values, push their imitation of men to the point where they find little difficulty in assimilating men's defects. Is it overly negative to suggest that we are heading toward a society dominated by (the worst of) masculine qualities? "When women, entering professional life in a masculinized world, adopt masculine 'defects', they become hard and violent (instead of strong), independent and uprooted (instead of sociable and linked to personal values), technical (instead of practical and concerned with what is concrete)" [27].

Those who seek fulfillment through self-assertion, and fail, lapse at times into self-pity. This may happen more often in the case of women, since self-pity is possibly a greater trap for them than for men. Then feminine courage and fortitude need to be particularly summoned up [28].

Radical feminism thinks that women have been treated badly and without respect throughout most of history; and it seems undeniable that this has been so in very many areas. What is surprising is that these feminists fail to appreciate how - and why - so many cultures have regarded women with such profound respect and with limitless admiration. How is it that these feminists have let "motherliness" or "sisterliness" become almost unmentionable words - at least for them? All the positive content of these feminine qualities, as well as all the challenge involved in developing them, are being ignored or deliberately sent into oblivion; as is the inexpressible gratitude on the part of the many men who venerate the presence or the memory of their mother or sisters.

Unisexism

Unisexism, with its downplaying of the differences between the sexes, tends to reduce the attraction naturally existing between them to an exclusively corporeal dimension. This is an impoverishment and a grave loss. As we noted earlier, the "sex education" commonly given today in most countries is a misnomer. It is not sexual education at all, but rather "de-sexing" education. It educates young people not to grow into mature men and women, but to become unisex citizens. Given the special richness of the feminine character, the failure to understand and develop specifically sexual traits or qualities probably limits a woman's mature development more than it does a man's.

One almost unavoidable result of unisex education is the de-personalization of the body. The body becomes something extraneous to the person, something a person can use for enjoyment, as he might use a guitar or a hamburger or a Coke. And then every sort of sexual gratification becomes logical, absorbing - and unimportant. In sexual activity, one is not using or abusing one's own person or another's, but rather gratifying oneself (and perhaps the other) by using something extrinsic to both. History has more than once witnessed the destructive effects of this dualism.

Fashion

Fashion tends to be a powerful factor that can favor or hinder the achievement of a true sexual identity. It usually makes its impact more at the level of appearance than at that of reality, and where it holds too much sway it can place a premium on external or bodily elements that have little to do with genuine sexual identity. A healthy independence from fashion, besides revealing a greater maturity of character, makes it easier for a person to make up his or her own mind about what it means to be a real woman or a real man.

The custom of dueling may have served to steel some fainthearted men to be brave. Yet the bravery of the duelist was almost always more apparent than real, for it was so often driven by the fear of being considered cowardly by others, something that reveals an immature and dependent character with standards of personal conduct shaped by what one thinks others may think. Russian roulette marks an extreme of this psychological immaturity. Beneath the utter recklessness it shows lies an adolescent fear of the presumed opinion of one's peers - an opinion that a person of average psychological discernment would dismiss as not worth having.

Many psychologists consider that subservience to fashion is even more powerful among women in making or marring their growth in sexual identity. Certainly if a woman both lacks independence of character and has little insight into the sexual makeup of men, the force of fashion can lead her into choices that scarcely favor her development.

Few women are "leaders" of fashion; most tend to follow it. Individual variations are more likely to echo the dominant tone of current fashion than to depart from it. The desire to be more fashionable is often accompanied by the fear of being too different. And yet it is the woman who is clearly "different" that often appeals most to men, all the more so if the difference expresses a greater femininity. "Women can't be attractive if they do everything that men do ... Don't men like women to be different from themselves? They used to" [29].

When bodily exposure establishes itself as a norm of fashion, disapproval in the name of morality sounds outdated to many. Bypassing any moral issue, the student of anthropology may still suggest that girls or women who readily submit to this norm show little awareness of the varying ways in which they can provoke sexual interest on the part of men, and perhaps need to ask themselves if they really want to be the object of the type of interest they are tending to provoke.

Within a couple of decades, the women-in-slacks fashion has established itself almost universally in the Western world. While no one is likely to suggest that this fashion shows any moral lack in a woman, it may still reveal an insensitivity towards the importance of sexual identity, coupled with a lack of psychological discernment of masculine appreciation and compounded by a weak yielding to peer pressure.

Take the case of a mixed party where a woman dressed in a skirt realizes that all the other women present are wearing pants. Will the ensuing self-consciousness resolve itself into embarrassment, vis à vis the women present, at her own lack of "fashionableness"? Or will she be acute enough to realize that she is almost certainly the one of the whole group who appears as most feminine to the men present? Not all women with the psychological discernment to assess the situation so may be independent enough to act in consequence. Then the natural desire to be interesting and attractive to the other sex yields to an unliberated submission to the peer pressure of fashion [30].

Complementarity and integration

Unless the relational-psychological aspects of sex are seen as intrinsically linked to its bio-physical nature, little sense will be made of human sexuality. Sexual identity must be considered as something given (and therefore to be accepted), before it can also be proposed as a goal to be conquered. Few reactions are more alienating and self-destroying than to contest the objective and given aspects of one's human nature [31].

Part of the mission of each sex is to "nourish" the other in his or her sexual identity, thus helping each individual person in the development of a fuller humanity. But today there is not enough masculinity around to nourish women, to bring out their femininity, and so to facilitate their human maturity. Nor is there enough femininity to inspire men and help them towards the development of proper masculine humanity. Our contemporary world is suffering from a lack, not an excess, of true sexuality; ours is in danger of becoming a sexually starved, and therefore a humanly underdeveloped, generation.

As we have already noted, a society is more human in nature, the more it is made up of well-developed representatives of the masculine and of the feminine modalities; and of their interrelationship. Hence, society itself, that is, the totality of the individuals who compose it, will appear more - or less - human to the extent to which an integration of feminine and masculine values is present and operational in it; or, contrariwise, absent. This is why the contemporary loss of sexual identity is a matter of deep concern.

"Today it is recognized that woman's ideal is to bring feminine characteristics to their fullness in herself and in society, thus increasing harmony with man and with the masculine features that seem to have conformed modern culture in an over-dominant way. It is a matter of respecting the difference between both types of characteristics, and seeking the complementarity, and not any opposition or incompatibility, between them" [32].

"Both sexes are entrusted with the same tasks: the family and the management of the world. According to this view, there are no tasks exclusively reserved to men or to women. In other words, the private and the public spheres correspond to both. Historically, however, it is a fact that woman has been restricted to the private sphere and man has exclusively appropriated the construction of the world, dedicating scarcely any time to the family. This supposes an imbalance which needs to be overcome. In short, one could summarize the situation by saying that culture needs to find a mother and the family a father" [33]. There is much insight in this. It is indeed necessary that both men and women should be active in the private sphere [34] as well as the public. But insofar as it is true (and it is always a generalization) that woman's natural approach is more "person-concerned" and man's more "activity-concerned", women's greater participation in public life should serve in particular to counter and remedy the depersonalized character of so much of contemporary life. To achieve this, many women may well need to rediscover (and, if necessary, have the courage to follow) their natural tendency to professions that are person-oriented.

Unless one grasps the unique value of femininity and masculinity, it becomes impossible to understand the need for true sexual formation, which can help each one attain a personal human identity modeled diversely according to whether one is a man or a woman. To see opposition rather than complementarity between the sexes leads to a disruptive feminism or "masculinism" obsessed with a "struggle for power" which tends to reduce all aspects of men-women relationships to opposition. Modern Western society, at least, is witnessing an increasing division and a lack of reciprocal trust and respect between men and women, which constitute an alarming cultural phenomenon. That such a situation should develop between the two halves of humanity is a matter of utmost gravity.

An analysis of sexuality today might well conclude that there remain as many male and female bodies as before, and the reality of their mutual physical attraction; but fewer masculine and fewer feminine persons, capable of exercising a truly human and humanizing mutual spiritual sexual attraction and inspiration.

Notes
[1] In animals, sex has an exclusively reproductive function. In humans, sex has a reproductive function; but it also has a perfective function.
[2] This applies to everyone, including those - especially Christians - who choose a celibate life. Christ is the perfect exemplar of manhood, Mary that of womanhood. In each a perfect integration of all the human virtues (whether "masculine" or "feminine") is found. In each, the Christian who freely chooses celibacy out of love finds an unsurpassed model for his or her growth in sexual identity.
[3] R. Yepes: Fundamentos ..., op. cit. p. 271.
[4] Few women, if any, would like to grow a mustache: a masculine feature that would be a feminine defect. There are other masculine traits that render women less attractive. Yet many women today seem to be losing their ability to distinguish between qualities which perfect their distinctive feminine character, and other qualities which render them more masculine and therefore less identified as women.
[5] Certain data are unquestionable: a) man is almost always physically stronger than woman; b) only woman can conceive and give birth. Are these two facts comparable? Whoever thinks so, and at the same time appreciates strength more than motherhood, will almost inevitably come to the conclusion that man is superior.
[6] One can allow, nevertheless, that the hierarchy and combination of values should be different in each case.
[7] cf. Carol Gilligan: In a Different Voice, Harvard University Press, 1982, Blanca Castilla, La Complementariedad Varón-Mujer, Madrid, 1993.
[8] B. Castilla, op. cit., 78.
[9] One psychologist suggests that "optimal mental health is reflected in psychological androgyny, or the coexistence of masculine and feminine traits which are expressed in appropriate situations (e.g. tenderness with one's children and competitiveness with one's tennis opponent)": American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 147 (1990), p. 910.
[10] op. cit., p. 318.
[11] Reunion, London, 1994, p. 41.
[12] She was a founder of the avant-garde and atheistical "Bloomsbury Group". Her A Room of One's Own (1929) is a classic of the feminist movement. Recurrent fits of depression led to her suicide in 1941.
[13] A Room of One's Own, p. 132.
[14] My Fair Lady, Act Two, Scene 4.
[15] Cf. S. Berlin and C. G. Johnson, "Women and Autonomy": Psychiatry: vol. 52 (1989) pp. 79-94.
[16] Cf. C. Gilligan: op. cit., pp. 24-39. Gilligan's later writings do not live up to the promising assumptions of her 1982 work, but rather appear to echo some of the trends and the disillusioned tones of contemporary radical feminism. This is already noticeable in the Foreword added to the 1993 edition of her In a Different Voice (where nevertheless she choose not to modify the original 1982 text).
[17] Erik H. Erikson: Identity: Youth and Crisis, New York, 1968, quoted in Gilligan, op. cit. p. 13.
[18] cf. Gilligan, op. cit. 167-168, where she gives the opinion of another psychologist, David McClelland. "McClelland reports that while men represent powerful activity as assertion and aggression, women in contrast portray acts of nurturance as acts of strength. Insofar as his research on power deals 'in particular with the characteristics of maturity,' he suggests that mature women and men may relate to the world in a different style".
[19] La Bruyère: Les Caractères.
[20] La Felicità Umana ..., op. cit., p. 333.
[21] Blanca Castilla suggests that man and woman have distinctive modes of opening and giving self: man, outwards; woman, inwards - by receiving within herself. She illustrates this in the different roles each has in procreation: "The process of procreating, although undoubtedly neither the only nor the most important way of loving, presents this in a plastic manner. Man in giving himself, comes out of himself. Coming out of himself, he surrenders himself to the woman and stays in her. The woman gives herself, but without coming out of herself. She opens herself so as to receive within herself. Her way of giving self is different from, and at the same time complementary to, that of the man, because it receives the man and his love. Without the woman the man would have nowhere to go. Without the man the woman would not be able to receive and welcome. The woman welcomes the fruit of the contribution of both and keeps it until it germinates and develops. While the man is also a protagonist in the whole process, it is carried on outside him. Later on the woman continues to 'open', giving birth to a being that possesses its own life. Through the woman and with her the man is also in the child. The man is in the woman and in the child, but as it were from outside. The woman, however, is a place of abode: home. The man is in the woman. The child, even when it is outside its mother, in a certain way continues in her. The woman too is in the child, but fundamentally they are in her" (Persona y Género, Barcelona, 1997, p. 78).
[22] "A primary truth of sexuality which our modern world seems to be losing sight of: if nothing makes a man respect a woman so much as motherhood, this is because motherhood takes her out of the category of an object to be possessed, and introduces her to that of what should be revered. Sex, divorced from its reference to parenthood, is robbed of its dimensions of mystery and sacredness; a fact which applies with special force to motherhood. Nowhere else does the mystery and glory of being a woman appear as in her capacity to be a mother. Few men are not stirred by this mystery. Yet today not many women seem to glory in it": C. Burke: Covenanted Happiness: Love and Commitment in Marriage (Scepter, 1999), p. 11.
[23] P. Urbano: El Hombre de Villa Tevere, Madrid, 1995, p. 62.
[24] cf. Julián Marías: La Felicità Umana, op. cit., p. 326.
[25] Oeuvres, II, 507.
[26] A. Trollope, The Prime Minister, Ch. 5.
[27] B. Castilla, op. cit. p. 48. Later Castilla wonders if the process of "learning the worst from the other" may not in fact be two-directional. She suggests that in consequence of the unawareness of and the failure to search for proper sex identity, "we are witnessing the spread of a type of decadent society where each sex, instead of learning from the qualities of the other, imitates it also in its defects" (ibid. p. 52).
[28] The increasing anger and frustration present in certain feminist writing could suggest an underlying self-pity; the more able the writing, the more easily the self-pity can spread from writer to reader.
[29] Willa Cather: A Lost Lady.
[30] Trousers can be elegantly cut and elegantly worn by a woman; but can they be worn with feminine grace? While the answer may not be clear it is still worth pondering.
[31] The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association lists "Gender Identity Disorder" among other psychic disorders. Given as a diagnostic criterion is, "persistent discomfort about one's assigned sex or a sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex" (DSM-IV (1994), p. 533).
[32] R. Yepes: op. cit., p. 271.
[33] B. Castilla, op. cit., pp. 88-89.
[34] In relation to the family in particular, it is not a lessening of woman's maternal vocation that is needed, but a revival of the paternal vocation of man.