H7. Liberal tolerance and traditional wisdom in sex education

Omschrijving

One would be hard put to think of a topic of greater general human interest and concern than sex. Indeed, one need look no further than to the literary and artistic heritages of popular and high culture to appreciate the sexually implicated nature of much if not most human agency and endeavour, and the extent to which the heights and depths of human weal and woe, hope and despair, tragedy and farce, have been so often measured by the fortunes of sexually motivated desire. On the one hand, of course, sex undoubtedly underpins much that is positive in human affairs: not only is it a source of intense sensual pleasure, and functionally reproductive of the species – and hence productive of offspring who may themselves be sources of joy and fulfilment for parents – but it has informed the profoundest
experiences of human love, thereby also inspiring some of the highest creative art and literature. On the other hand, sexual impulses – in the forms of disordered or obsessive desire, frustrated or unrequited love or unrestrained violence – have often been more negative sources of human disappointment, humiliation, degradation and harm. Indeed, in much past and present theorising about human sexual association, it often seems that the glass is either half full or half empty, and that it is hard to arrive at any normatively well balanced view of the significance and function of sex in human affairs.