Tonight we turned to the topic of sexual shame. Peter introduced the topic by referencing the Pope’s “Theology of the Body,” where John Paul has interpreted Genesis with profound meaning — including the passage from Genesis (2:25): “And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.”

In Love and Responsibility, Wojtyla writes that shame, at first glance, is a tendency to concealment, of facts or states of mind or emotions. Shame arises when something which of its very nature or in view of its purpose ought to be private passes the bounds of a person’s privacy and somehow becomes public. He writes that the essence of shame can only be understood if we “heavily emphasize the truth that the existence of the person is an interior one, i.e., that the person possesses an interior peculiarly its own, and from this arises the need to conceal (that is, to retain internally) certain experiences or values, or else to withdraw with them into itself.”

From an anthropological point of view, Wojtyla then explores the tendency of human beings to conceal their nakedness and comments on primitive cultures in tropical climates where instead the act of covering up is in fact shameful. He concludes that clothing the body to cover nakedness goes together with sexual shame but is not an essential feature of it.

What is an essential feature, he continues, is the tendency to conceal sexual values themselves. Young children do not express sexual shame because they have not developed sexual values.

Men and women experience shame differently. Wojtyla writes: “Since sensuality, which is oriented towards ‘the body as an object of enjoyment’ is in general stronger and more importunate in men, modesty and shame — the tendency to conceal sexual values specifically connected with the body — must be more pronounced in girls and women. At the same time, they are less aware of sensuality and of its natural orientation in men, because in them emotion is usually stronger than sensuality, and sensuality tends to be latent in emotion.” He adds, “The evolution of modesty in woman requires some initial insight into the male psychology.”

“On the other hand, a man is keenly aware of his own sensuality, and this for him is the source of shame. For him, sexual values are more closely bound up with the ‘body and sex as potential objects of enjoyment,’ this is the form in which he becomes aware of them, and experienced in this way they become for him a source of shame.... He is ashamed of his body because he is ashamed of the reaction to the value ‘body’ which he encounters in himself.” Shame is not just a response to someone else's sensual and sexual reaction to the body as an object for use, but also a need to prevent such reactions, which are incompatible with the value of the person.

Cyrille commented that Wojtyla’s use of shame is not necessarily rooted in “I did something wrong and want to conceal it” but rather a self-consciousness. Sean added that it could lead to something wrong “if I don't keep a handle on it.” Sarah said it is something exposed, something that should be concealed.

Wojtyla then explains that shame is evidence that we are persons — shame is related to preserving the value of the person. Because the person is its own master, no one can take possession of the person unless the person permits this, makes a gift of itself from love. The experience of shame is a natural reflection of the essential nature of the person. The function of shame is to exclude an attitude toward the person that is incompatible with its essential nature (not to be used by another.)

He continues:

“For this shrinking from reactions to mere sexual values goes together with the longing to inspire love, to inspire a ‘reaction’ to the value of the person, and with the longing to experience love in the same sense — the first perhaps stronger in women, the second in men, but one should not suppose that either is exclusive to either of the sexes. A woman wants to be loved so that she can show love. A man wants to love so that he can be loved.” AnaMaria remarked that Archbishop Sheen had said something in the same vein: that man searches for the love of pleasure, and woman searches for the pleasure of love. It is beautiful, she said, to inspire each other to love and to enjoy love. Sarah added that Wojtyla seems to be saying that man takes the initiative and woman is the active receiver who bears fruit. Laura commented that for women, the means is to be loved and the end is to show love; while for men, the end is to be loved while the means is to love.

Emily brought footnote 48 to our attention, which relates that Wojtyla believes that shame does not arise out of contempt for the human body, but rather out of “respect for the body and for human physical dynamism...[which] attains its full human expression by way of integration with the general dynamism of man....for the dynamisms of the body are not an independent and self-contained phenomenon, but are naturally oriented to serving the good of the integral human person.” The Pope is consistent here in his thread of thinking. Emily also remarked that this section deals with modesty in a way that can appeal to all religions. In our society (e.g., the fashion world), preaching modesty can be a challenge. We need to explain to young girls how to interact. Becky added that some young girls don’t realize that they are being looked at as an object. Rose Mary pointed out that we must show that there are other ways to be attractive, with dignity. AnaMaria added that charity comes into play on the woman’s part — since we know that men are more visual, we shouldn’t provoke. Dawn brought up a fine line of balance — when you make a woman entirely responsible for whether she is attracting a man — it works both ways, and both are responsible. Sean remarked that we dwell too much in our culture on the issue of consent. While this is an important issue, it can’t cover the entire spectrum of how we should relate to each other. It’s about more than gaining permission — we are not talking property rights, but rather the dignity of a person. Society has stretched “consent” farther than what it can cover.

“The spontaneous need to conceal mere sexual values bound up with the person is the natural way to the discovery of the value of the person as such.... It is a matter of not just protecting but of revealing the value of the person, and of doing so in the context of the sexual values which are simultaneously present in a particular person.... (In the woman, it expresses itself like this: ‘You must not touch me, not even in your secret carnal thoughts’ and in the man like this: ‘I must not touch her, not even with a deeply hidden wish to enjoy her, for she cannot be an object for use.’) This ‘fear of contact’ which is so characteristic of persons who truly love each other is an indirect way of affirming the value of the person as such, and this as we know is a constituent part of love in the proper, that is the ethical, sense of the word.”

Love, he says, is an interior matter of the soul, not just a physical matter. Here we find the confirmation of the spirituality and “inwardness” of the human person, which detects some evil in all that is not sufficiently “inwardly” felt, or spiritual, but only exterior, physical and irrational. “Given then, that when a man and a woman share an experience of sexual values all these external aspects are conspicuous, while their personal union is as it were hidden within each of them and invisible to anyone from outside, we can see why love, in so far as it is a matter of ‘the body and sex’ needs concealment.”