Sex and sensibility: a faith-based view: sex educator tackles tough issues with young teens

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 19, 2003 by Patricia Lefevere

Michael Guiliano was not put into the world to make kids uncomfortable. Quite the opposite. Talking to young teens about sex is just about as cozy as talking to them about death, he disclosed.

"Why are you making such a big deal out of it?" eighth-graders at Our Lady of Mount Carmel school here have asked him often in the seven years he has taught a course on "Sexuality and Spirituality" to the class.

For Guiliano sexuality is not a small matter. "It's probably the biggest deal in your whole life," he tells the 14-year-olds. "You may get to understand God better through your sexuality than through your intellect, prayer, meditation or years of theological study."

Talking about sex to teens is so hard because of "the weight of garbage and emotions that are thrown in by society, the media, our culture," Guiliano told NCR during an interview at his home in Englewood, N.J. That's why there's a lot of squirming and giggling during the first of the nine 60- to 90-minute sessions of the class.

Sex is such a big deal that "God uses it as an analogy for his church," he tells pupils--an idea that lets them catch their collective, embarrassed breath. But there's no holding him back. "Your sexuality is sacred. It's a beautiful, wonderful gift. Anyone who looks on it as dirty doesn't understand that God himself created it for you."

Most of the eighth-graders have seen this guy before. He's a lector at Our Lady of Mount Carmel church, a eucharistic minister and an occasional usher. He and his wife, Mary Beth, have five children, four boys and a girl, who've all been altar servers and attended the parish school. Both he and Mary Beth have taught religious education on Sunday mornings.

Michael Guiliano is a physician, a specialist in neonatology and the associate director of pediatrics at Lennox Hills Hospital in New York City. "I can put on my doctor's hat and be frank and open with the class," he says. (He also holds a master's in elementary education from the Jesuit-run St. Peter's College in Jersey City, N.J.)

The class soon settles down when Guiliano hands out his "Food for Thought"--33 questions that plumb what students believe about God, the church and its authority, what they want for their future life on earth and in the next world, how much they know about sex and how far they've experimented with that knowledge.

He asks students to type or write their answers and to return their replies, anonymously, at the second meeting. The first 10 questions deal with Christian belief, the church, prayer and the Bible. The next 10 probe areas of behavior, good and evil, sin and forgiveness with an eye to choosing a life partner. The final 13 are all about sex.

"The whole introduction is so critical," Guiliano said, illustrating it by drawing a huge circle. At its top is God, on the bottom is evil and "dead center is where we all are."

He chooses a spiral staircase to help youngsters understand that as persons "we're all going up to God and out toward him through our relations with others, or else we're going down in the direction of evil and turning inward toward ourselves, away from God and service to others."

Eighth-graders learn about God's gift of free will, and their enormous power to make choices about matters that can take them up the staircase or bring them down. He also draws a clock for them, using the theological virtues of faith, hope and love; the gifts of wonder and joy; the acts of praying, experiencing and choosing as hours of the day.

When students choose evil over good and commit sin, Giuliano points out God's unconditional love for them and shows them how to climb back up the staircase toward forgiveness and repentance by utilizing the sacrament of reconciliation.

In the "Truth and Consequences" segment of a lecture, he helps teens see how misusing their sexuality can have unwanted results. By the fourth class, he is meeting alone with the boys and then with the girls, and the comfort level between him and the students is on the rise. The doctor brings along an anatomical cutout of the female body, showing the girls exact details of their internal organs and explaining their reproductive cycle. This also aids discussion of hormones, menstruation, intercourse and pregnancy.

The boys receive Fr. William J. Bausch's chapter on masturbation from his book Becoming a Man. Bausch, a retired priest of the Trenton, N.J., diocese, assures boys that masturbation "is not as bad as they say" and "it's not as good as they say."

Giuliano agrees with Bausch. Giuliano said, "The self is always a dangerous place." He tries to help boys understand how masturbation is "petty and immature," and how "God is always drawing us out and inviting us to love others and to express our love through service to others."

While virginity is the course's "unspoken theme," Giuliano covers the gamut of possible consequences of engaging in sex before choosing a lifetime partner. No student finishes the course without knowing about pregnancy, abortion, HIV/AIDS, herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia and genital warts. They also learn that a quarter of all Americans are infected with some form of the herpes virus. The doctor also covers promiscuity, fornication and homosexuality.