Sex talk is on the agenda at Ryerson’s Catholic Chaplaincy Centre.

As posters around campus explain:  “Want a great sex life?  Come learn about the theology of the body, Pope John Paul II’s teachings on Catholic sexuality.”

In the old days, Catholics didn’t talk about sex.   But according to an American preacher who’s been inspired by the former pope’s writings about sex, that’s got to change.  

Christopher West is popularizing what’s becoming known as the theology of the body. An American, young, married father, West interprets Catholic sexual ethics for the masses. 

West’s DVD series on theology of the body is spreading.  Ryerson’s Catholic chaplaincy has been screening West’s DVD series, and holding discussions about his lectures.

West upholds traditional Catholic teachings such as sexual abstinence outside of heterosexual marriage or advising against masturbation.  But he talks in a straight-up way that assumes that we live in a sex-addicted culture and that it can damage people.

But if no sex outside marriage still holds, what do unmarried students have to talk about?

Plenty, according to the five men and four women students who showed up to the second workshop, and presenter Diane Janisse. She’s a theology student and legal aid lawyer who facilitates the DVD series and discussion.

Janisse minces no words in introducing West’s message. 

“Sexuality is not just orgasmic exchange,” says the 37-year-old Janisse. “It’s about the whole person, self-giving of the whole person,” she says. 

Throughout the DVD, West refers to one version of the Judeo-Christian Garden of Eden story, where God creates Adam first, and Adam is lonely. 

The point, says West, is that the word Adam actually means humankind.   Human beings are alone, but they long to be close to another human and to God, he says. God’s original plan for humans is about nakedness and desire without shame – and without objectification. 

“The woman was not an object for the man, and the man was not an object for the woman,” says West.

For both married and celibate people, says West, purity isn’t just about refusing sex, but about learning to see in a way that firstly recognizes every person’s inherent dignity.  He says we should thank God for sexual desire, but masturbation is out. 

Instead, people should attune desire towards growing in relationships.

Lisa Santos, a 21-year-old fashion design student at the event, says that John Paul II’s message as taught by West revolutionized the way she sees sex and sexuality.

“The sexual revolution told women to go for it,” but years later, says Santos, many are finding that something is amiss.

After encountering West’s ideas a few years ago, says Santos, she undertook a wider study of women’s low self-esteem because of negative experiences with sex. 

Now, Santos is writing her undergraduate thesis about modesty, marketing and sex.

“It’s blowing my mind,” says Santos.

John Zamska, a Ryerson PhD student in mechanical engineering who attended the event, says West makes John Paul II’s thought accessible. 

“Christopher West has a real gift in being able to dumb it down, to make it easily presentable to people with similar experiences.”

But some critics say West simplifies a little too much.

John Garabowski is an American professor who wrote the introduction to the collection of writings by John Paul II called The Theology of the Body.     

“Some (of West’s view) distorts a little the pope’s insights,” said Garabowski.   

Garabowski applauds the fact that West “draw(s) people to the teachings of John Paul II.”  

But, theology of the body is not just about sex, said Garabowski.  Rather, it comprises the vast collection of writings by the former pope concerning the human person, including writings about suffering, work, the vulnerable, and medical ethics.  

Others raised Catholic say it’s too late for the church to reach out about sex.

Armen Shahnazarian, an outreach co-ordinator at RyePRIDE who was raised a Catholic but who now feels distanced from organized religion, said in an e-mail interview that he wouldn’t feel welcome attending a sexuality workshop in a Catholic milieu.  

Shahnazarian said he believes that “religious organizations have been successful at closing all doors on sexuality, either heterosexual or homosexual.”  

But for some, West’s presentation of John Paul II’s teachings opens doors.

Marvin Esquivel, a 21-year-old graphic communications major at the workshop, said
West speaks to the problem of feeling like there’s a “media strategy on men,” explaining that he means that sexually explicit images of women in advertising influence men to desire women as sex objects.  

Esquivel said he was looking for a “good grasp of what our faith is teaching us to do, not to feel as though you’re being bullied, but to have a ground work.

“This is relevant to me in the sense that I’m in a relationship,” he said, smiling.

“It’s my first one.”