{"id":19260,"date":"2023-05-09T10:40:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T09:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/?p=19260"},"modified":"2026-06-01T17:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:24:33","slug":"sexual-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/en\/sexual-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexual Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Teaching young people the biology of sex is not the same as educating them about it. Assagioli’s approach to sexual education begins where biological instruction ends.<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Roberto Assagioli<\/strong>
Conference on Psychosynthesis, Rome, 29 September \u2013 3 October 1968
Original English Document. <\/span><\/span>[1]<\/span><\/span><\/a>
Doc. #22275, Assagioli Archive, Florence
Reformatted and annotated by Jan Kuniholm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editorial Note<\/strong>
The abstract and contextual subtitle in this online edition have been added by the editor, Kenneth S\u00f8rensen, to support readability, navigation, and archival consistency. The original wording has not been altered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In this lecture, Roberto Assagioli draws a sharp distinction between sexual information and genuine sexual education. Biological instruction is necessary, he argues, but it addresses only the surface of the matter. True sexual education shapes the whole person: it helps young people develop conscious mastery of the sexual instinct rather than either repressing it or giving it free rein. He addresses teachers, parents, and educators searching for a psychologically grounded approach at a moment of cultural upheaval around sexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

It appears advisable to point out and dispel at the outset a confusion that often arises between sexual education in its true and wider sense and more instruction in the biological facts of the sexual instinct. A knowledge of the physical aspects of sex, that is, of the structure of the sexual organs and their functioning, is certainly useful, and indeed necessary. Ignorance about them has often bred, and often still breeds, an almost morbid curiosity and a quest for knowledge through questionable and detrimental channels.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, parents should be the ones to impart this knowledge at the right time and in the right way. But since so few of them are either able or willing to do so, it is both desirable for, and indeed incumbent upon, the school to assume this task. The matter is not as difficult as it might appear. The best way of going about it is by means of objective, scientific teaching on the sexual function, beginning with the vegetable kingdom and then passing through the lower and higher animals up to man. Taught thus, naturally, objectively, in a “cold” matter-of-fact way, the necessary information can be imparted, eliminating in the process the sense of mystery surrounding “something forbidden” in which the subject of sex has been generally shrouded.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good books and anatomical charts are readily available for facilitating the task of the teacher, who should be well aware of the importance of himself assuming this objective and scientific attitude. But if such teaching is necessary, it is still far from being sufficient. We have ample proof of this in the fact that medical students \u2014 and I would permit myself to add a proportion of doctors \u2014 do not solve their sexual problems satisfactorily for all their wide anatomical and physiological knowledge in this field. Emphatic confirmation is provided by what is occurring in Sweden, where sexual education is widely disseminated. I quote here what Dr. B. Linner writes: “If sex in Swedish social life exhibits one truly sad aspect, it is the increasing frequency of venereal disease. Every year sees gonorrhea and syphilis claiming a growing number of victims, especially among young people between the ages of fifteen and nineteen.” <\/span><\/span>[2]<\/span><\/span><\/a> And this is happening despite widespread education on the subject.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Malcolm Tottie of the Swedish Ministry of Public Health has expressed the official disappointment in the following terms: “In spite of all our efforts to educate the young by means of lectures, pamphlets and other media, it really appears that they are quite unconcerned about the matter. They cherish a blind faith in penicillin and many of them even consider it a sign of toughness to run risks by deliberately dispensing with preventives and choosing their sexual partners recklessly.” <\/span><\/span>[3]<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is significant that at the Seminar of the American Institute for Family Problems in July 1968, attended by teachers from many parts of North America, a number of them expressed the opinion that it seemed of little value to try to teach something about venereal disease to high school students, in view of the apparent indifference and contempt displayed by the young in general. <\/span><\/span>[4]<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difference between more information and true education concerning sex emerges clearly if the subject is given objective consideration, free from prejudice. Let us start with a simple and realistic observation: <\/span><\/span>The sexual instinct is an animal function<\/span><\/span><\/em> . In fact, we have it in common with the animals, and this is natural as the human body is in reality an animal body. From this it follows that physical sexuality is of itself neither moral nor amoral; it is simply <\/span><\/span>pre-<\/span><\/span><\/em> moral.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if one <\/span><\/span>has<\/span><\/span><\/em> an animal body, he <\/span><\/span>is<\/span><\/span><\/em> not only an animal. Man is, at least, a “psychological being,” who possesses emotions, feelings, imagination and thoughts, and also an innate moral sense, more or less developed. A continuous and intensive reciprocal action is proceeding between body and psyche, between biological and “human” life. This gives rise to innumerable complications and conflicts, and even illness, as psychosomatic medicine is establishing more and more; but it is also the source of great possibilities of experience and development. In the case of the human being, love is not <\/span><\/span>only<\/span><\/span><\/em> sexuality, and there are forms of love in which the sexual component is absent. I shall return to this point later.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All those therefore who would reduce all love \u2014 and not only love \u2014 to sexuality commit a fundamental error. The gross materialism of this pseudo-scientific conception has been shown up with blistering irony by James Hinton. <\/span><\/span>[5]<\/span><\/span><\/a> It was he, a man of free and avant-garde spirit, who, already at the beginning of this century, had said that to treat the great fact of sexual love only from the physical standpoint would be like thinking, during a Sarasate <\/span><\/span>[6]<\/span><\/span><\/a> recital, only of the catgut and horsehair used for the violin strings and the bow.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erich Fromm, <\/span><\/span>[7]<\/span><\/span><\/a> no “moralist” of the old school but an avant-garde psychoanalyst and sociologist, has stated in strong terms now “unsatisfying” is sexuality without love. “Sexual attraction,” he writes, “creates, for the moment, the illusion of union, yet without love this “union” leaves strangers as far apart as they were before \u2014 sometimes it makes them ashamed of each other, or even makes them hate each other, because when the illusion has gone they feel their estrangement even more markedly than before.” <\/span><\/span>[8]<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clinical practice provides impressive confirmation of the great and often decisive importance of psychological factors on the functioning of the sexual instinct. It has been ascertained that numerous cases of impotence in men and frigidity in women, unamenable to any form of physical and medicinal treatment, have responded to psychotherapy; that is to say, they have been cured by the elimination of the <\/span><\/span>psychic<\/span><\/span><\/em> obstacles and blocks which were inhibiting the normal functioning of the physiological instinct.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at the present time there is in the mass of the public an interest in and overvaluation of all that concerns sexual life that not only are excessive, but might be called obsessive. This situation has arisen through a variety of causes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. A reaction to the old mistaken and restrictive conception of sexuality as something sinful, forbidden and not even to be referred to among ladies and gentlemen. This produced harmful repressions accompanied by unjustified or exaggerated guilt feelings. Naturally this attitude could not suppress the sexual instinct, but merely succeeded in masking it with veils of hypocrisy and encouraging its satisfaction in clandestine ways and through corrupt practices. The reaction against all this has been eminently justified, but unfortunately, as is the case with all reactions, it has been pushed to the opposite extreme and has produced a glorification of sexuality and consequently uncontrolled license. This reaction forms part of the general reaction against the constraints of every kind to which humanity, and particularly the young, were subjected in the past.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n