Casual sex and its consequences
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In his weekly television reflection on the program "Keys to a Better World" this Saturday, Archbishop of La Plata, Monsignor Héctor Agueda, commented on studies conducted at American universities about casual sex, and the consequences of this behavior are followed for young people and especially for young women.


But before entering the matter of the matter, the preside presented a prologue conceived in these terms: "You have probably heard criticism of the church as that for a long time she would have been obsessed with sins against the sixth and ninth commandment and that would have put in its transmission of Christian morality a dark tint on the marital or sexual problems, on the affective life, etc. Well, that critique is unfounded. I think we're wanted to instill a kind of guilt complex in this field. And is a complex of guilt that has worked, because many times there is no talk, even in preaching or catechesis, of that area of moral life. It is not the most important, and it is not the only one evidently, but the focus has shifted to other moral areas, such as relations of justice. Justice is a fundamental virtue, but there are also other virtues which make the moral constellation of the Christian; all have, moreover, their basis in conception about the human person".


After this introit, Monsignor Agueda was fully introduced in the commentary of the aforementioned studies of American universities.
He indicated that "one of these studies refers that four thousand university students have been investigated by ten American universities about the consequences of casual, unforeseen, unplanned sex, without emotional commitment or future expectations. The conclusions try to link that type of relationship with the mental health problem with very serious emotional consequences, especially in young women. The study says that it causes stress, feeling of guilt, repentance, and displeasure in young women after a sexual encounter with a stranger".
He indicated that these studies indicate "that sexual contact with strangers is more common in those who have low self-esteem, and that" University students who had participated in casual sexual encounters presented lower levels of self-esteem, satisfaction, and happiness than those students who had not had occasional relationships. Casual sex was also associated with anguish, anxiety, and depression.


In this regard, he reflected that the data "refer to the irresponsible sexual relationship, without stable affective bond and without a future perspective, which for us, Christians, is the marriage and the foundation of a family."
"They say that especially happens in young people associated with the social consumption of alcohol and drugs that are specially combined in the" previous", in which young people consume in excess, and that in that state is expected to be out of control. The next day they remember what happened, they learn by the story of others and feel bad".
He also stressed that "psychologists involved in this type of studies and assessments provide some advice that has a good share of reasonability, but is also very imperfect and, from complete and comprehensive anthropology, are deficient. They are proposing that the road to sexual maturity implies the strengthening of self-esteem, the auto care with impulse control, the dialogue between parents and children, the dialogue with the couple and the adequate protection".


Monsignor Agueda explained that "they call adequate protection to try to avoid the unwanted pregnancy and the transmission of a disease of which they propagate by way of the sexual intercourse, but they say nothing of the real care that has to do also with the self-esteem and with the full maturity of personality: it is the virtue of chastity, one of the virtues of the scope of temperance. It implies that man is a rational being, and therefore has to orient, and orient from within, towards an order according to his nature and with his condition of a person, fundamental basic impulses".


"As I said at the beginning", he said, "we have troubled that we are always talking about chastity and there may have been some strong inks and excesses in that field at other times, but now there is no talk of chastity as if it had disappeared from the constellation of human and Christian virtues. But that's what it's all about: how do you reach personal maturity without self-control, without personal discipline, without the search for an order, without the reason, in any case, orienting the most basic impulses and making them serve the full realization of the man? "
We know, on the other hand, by Christian preaching, by the commandments of God's law, that sexual intercourse has its full meaning and moral justification in marriage. Here we are talking about the opposite extreme, precisely, to what they call casual sex, which should be called appropriately "promiscuity".


Towards the end of his reflection, Monsignor Agueda said that "Unfortunately, it seems that this behavior is common among young people around the world, but these studies that relate this sexual decontrol with very specific psychological problems and alteration and thoroughness of the maturation process of a personality is very significant from education".
"Then, here, the conclusion is that we must re-consider the human and Christian virtues and, among them, in the place that corresponds, also the virtue of chastity that makes the forces that God has put in the male and the woman are oriented to that for which was thought by the Creator: the stable couple, consecrated in marriage, which is a social good and the appropriate area for communicating human life", concluded the Archbishop.