By Theresa Tram Phuong Nguyen from PROJECTeye

The fluorescent lighting inside the small class room killed any prospect of intimate ambience. Young faces reflected an innocence long gone in the contemporary world of sexual promiscuity.

Yet, every single face in that room was there to explore the very meaning of it – sex, being sexy, having sex – as a Catholic.

'Sexy - Saint or Sinner?' was the title of Thursday night's workshop, one of many events organised for pilgrims by MAGiS08, at Milson's Point. The two speakers Francine and Byron Pirola - representing the Church and its teachings on sexuality - offered World Youth Day pilgrims an insight to the meaning of sex. However, ahead of putting any ideas forward, Byron Pirola quoted a line from the late Pope John Paul II.

"The Church does not impose, the Church proposes," he said.

Church urges sexuality

One of many propositions from the Catholic faith is to find confidence and comfort in one's own sexuality.

"The Church wants us to live fully sexual, fully masculine and fully feminine lives," Byron Pirola said. "But you can definitely be sexy without being sexually active."

"Or promiscuous," Francine Pirola added. "The problem with seeing sex as just a recreational activity is that it misses the whole point. Sex is not so much an activity, it's a communication. It's not so much something that we do, it's really something that we say."

The argument supports the belief of the Church in saving oneself for marriage because sex is 'a total gift of self'. Contrasting the idea that sex can mean anything, Byron Pirola called contemporary culture a reductionist culture.

Our culture takes the human body and reduces it to a basic biology and chemistry set, saying it has no meaning. It means nothing or it can mean anything you want. Yet, the Pope's teaching on theology of the body is that the human body is full of meaning, in fact the human body expresses the spirit of the soul of who we are."

Thus far, the Pirolas served the views of the Church as expected. And so were the young faces, providing the appropriate nods and laughters. Every now and then, one in the audience would even finished off a speaker's sentence. But the consensual float broke when Francine Pirola tapped into the topic of science.

Sex outside marriage always hurts

"Everytime a couple makes love they release a hormone in their bodies called oxytocin, have you heard of oxytocin?" Francine asked.

As most young faces seemed to be requiring an explanation, Francine Pirola carried on, delivering the argument of the night.

"Oxytocin is released when men and women have an orgasm and it bonds them to each other. It's one of the reasons why sex outside marriage will always, always hurt because you're bonding yourselves to each other, not just temporarily, but biologically there is something happening in your bodies that is going to make it really, really hurt if the bond isn't carried forward."

The compelling account of the bonding hormone affected the young faces and silence stole a moment. It was clearly new information to most, if not everyone. However, the consequences of oxytocin are not rules written by the Church, Byron Pirola reminded them.

"This is what happens biologically, sex carries inherent meanings. It's like the law of gravity," he said and moved on to tell the story of a prostitute who felt she lost a bit of herself everytime she had sex.

That is the analogy, the inherited reasoning of the night's workshop. The talk was rewarded by a round of applause.

Some of the young faces walked up to shake hands with the Pirolas, but all remained quiet despite the thirty minutes set off for questions. They must have been convinced, sex is science.

ProjectEye is a content partner for SBS providing critical news coverage of WYD08 from a youth perspective.
Source: Project Eye