Antonio Malo - Transcending Gender Ideology - A Philosophy of Sexual Difference-The Catholic University of America Press (2020)

Copyright © 2020. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.
Transcending
Gender Ideology
Transcending
Gender Ideology
A Philosophy of Sexual Difference
An toni o M a lo
Foreword by John M. Rist | Translated by Alice Pavey
The Catholic University of America Press

Washington, D.C.

Originally published in Italian as

Uomo o donna. Una differenza che conta.
Vita e Pensiero, 2017.
English translation copyright © 2020
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the
minimum requirements of American National
Standards for Information Science—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, A NSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Malo, Antonio, author. |
Pavey, Alice, translator.

Title: Transcending gender ideology : a philosophy
of sexual difference / Antonio Malo ; translated by
Alice Pavey ; foreword by John M. Rist.
Other titles: Uomo o donna. English
Description: Washington, DC : The Catholic
University of America Press, 2020. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020011702 | ISBN 9780813232799
(paperback) | ISBN 9780813232805 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex.
Classification: LCC HQ21 .M215513 2020 |
DDC 306.7—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.
gov/2020011702

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Foreword by John M. Rist ix
Introduction 1
One. Sexuality and Human Identity 8
Two. Sexuality, Culture, and Philosophy 26
ree. Two Historical Views of Sexuality and

Th
Another Option 69
Four. Sexed Condition versus Gender 92
Five. Generativity versus Homophobia 144
S ix. The Integration of Sexuality and the

Relational Paradigm 174
Conclusion 188
Bibliography 193
Index 207

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the organizers of the conference on Mar-

riage and the Family which took place at the Pontifical Univer-
sity of the Holy Cross on March 11–13, 2015. It was the paper I
gave on that occasion, and the ensuing public colloquium, that
planted the first seeds of this book. But those tiny seeds would
never have grown to maturity without the encouragement of
Prof. Stefan Mücke, who managed to convince me it was worth
developing some of my ideas, which had been mere sketch-
es up to that point. I talked things over with many colleagues
and friends while writing the book. I cannot name them all
here, but would like to mention three in particular: Prof. Ila
ria Vigorelli, Prof. Leonor Gómez Cabranes, and Dr. Antonel-

la Comito. I must also thank Prof. Gianfranco Dalmasso and
Prof. Giovanna Rossi for their invitation to publish with Vita e
Pensiero.
vii

FOREWORD
FOREWORD
by John M. Rist
One of the most serious weaknesses apparent throughout the

history of moral philosophy and theology has been the inade-
quate attention paid to la différence. Normally in primitive (and
less primitive) times men dominated women through a com-
bination of pure strength—before the invention of the hand-
gun—and women’s necessary dependence that was the price of
repeated pregnancies. Greek philosophers, especially Plato and
other followers of Socrates, began to think about sexual differ-
ence, Plato believing, it seems, that it was strictly physical and
that all minds, both of males and of females, are in effect male.
That enabled him to propose that women could and should

take prominent roles in intellectual and political life. But nei-
ther Plato nor any other Greek philosopher had anything like
an adequate concept of the person: of that unique individual
member of the human species, both male and female, which
Christianity came to recognize—at least in theory and in heav-
en—as a spiritual being created in the image and likeness of
God.
For all Plato’s recognition that sublimated sexual desire
could raise man (and woman) to transcendent Beauty and
Goodness, his first mistake in thinking that sexuality is sim-
ply bodily was compounded by a second—related to the first:
namely that we are ultimately just our souls (or minds in the
ix
Foreword
non-Cartesian sense he attributed to mind). And although

human souls are naturally immortal, their possible value lies,
according to Plato, not in their immortality, let alone in their
mere existence, but in their capacity for godlike moral and spir-
itual excellence. Sometimes—but not always—Plato suggests
that when A loves B, he loves B not as a “person,” but insofar as
he is the bearer of noble qualities; that is, that we love not “per-
sons” but abstractions.
Nevertheless, the long march towards the concept of per-
son begun by Plato was continued—but also in some respects
subverted—by Aristotle and the medieval traditions which
sailed in what they took to be his wake. If bodies are differen-
tiated sexually, so must be souls. So far so good, but then the
disastrous mistake: if there are both male and female souls,
one sort—naturally the male—must be superior to the oth-
er. Hence the tradition that females are incomplete males and
should be dominated (not least sexually) by males—and in an
analogous version, popular among some ancient “Christians,”
that women are not created in the image and likeness of God,
but can overcome that disadvantage and gain godlike status by
asceticism; that is, by renouncing the “female” “works of the
body” and the bodily senses.
Nevertheless, the concept of person gradually developed
with Panaetius, Tertullian, Plotinus, Nemesius, Augustine
(above all), Boethius, Richard of St. Victor, and Thomas Aqui-
nas adding new material to the growing synthesis. But though
persons were being recognized in their uniqueness (as distinct
from what obtains in other animal species), very little attention
was paid to la différence, and few were prepared to devote time
to investigating what Aristotle had dimly seen and then misin-
terpreted: that sexual, bodily differences should imply sexual
psychic differences and that the sexual instincts we share with
x
Foreword
other animals need to be “humanized” both in men and in

women. Probably the old mantra that men were in some sense
superior human specimens diminished the possibility (as with
Aristotle himself) of such questions being examined seriously
and without cultural prejudice. In brief, if ironically, while the
Platonic tradition (broadly understood) moved toward urging
the equal worth of the sexes, it did so for the wrong reasons!
Since the sixteenth—and, with ever more rapidity, since the
eighteenth—century, the old social markers of Western society
have been—for good or ill, or rather for both—progressive-
ly demolished: not least among them, in many philosophical
quarters, the developing thesis about the unique nature and
importance of individual persons. Since Locke, investigation of
persons has been widely reduced to the problem of the nature
and importance (if any) of personal identity over time: a shift
in emphasis apparently more and more appropriate in a seem-
ingly material and impersonal universe with no recognition of
the transcendent, Platonic or other.
The last, and perhaps ultimately most devastating of the se-

ries of revolutions which began in 1789, was the Sexual Revolu-
tion of the Sixties of the last century. Then and in succeeding
years, the last bastion of traditional Western culture, the family
composed of man, woman, and children linked by marriage,
was found to conflict with the two basic idols of the current
West: Autonomy (or “Liberty”) and its related goddess, Choice.
These two idols, divinized bastards of Locke and Kant, are in-
creasingly destroying most traditional features of “virtue”: first
truth, since truth cannot stand in the way of ideology; then
basic humanity, when the right to kill one’s own child—before
birth and hopefully if necessary after—trumps concern for
the life of millions of our follow humans sacrificed to the new
goddesses. One of the great merits of Antonio Malo’s Uomo o
xi
Foreword
Donna (Transcending Gender Idealogy) is that he cashes out the

clichés of our sexualized/phallocratic society: not least the un-
critical acceptance of the phrase “sexual orientation.”
Outside the academic and political élites, however, the claim
that it is the family itself and the recognized differences be-
tween men and women which sustain it in its traditional form
received only comparatively limited criticism until the coming,
in the mid-nineteenth century, of Friedrich Engels who sought
through political action to destroy the family as a major barrier
to the coming socialist paradise. In practical terms, his call was
for the denaturing of human beings, both male and female, so
that they might become mere component parts of the jugger-
naut of historical destiny. Malo explains how, with the aid of the
two goddesses and of modern technology, Engels’s dream of an
impersonal “humanity” (or trans-humanity) has now been tak-
en up with increasingly effective energy by those latter-day suc-
cessors of the Sexual Revolution: the totalitarian (neo-Marxist)
and therefore brutal theorists of gender ideology.
Malo explains the history of this concept since its remote

origin in the work of Engels, then via Sartre and de Beauvoir—
woman is not born but constructed—down to more contempo-
rary preachers such as Foucault and Judith Butler. In Manichae-
an mode, we can forget about (or fool around with) the basic
bodily features of male and female sexuality in pursuit of the ho-
mogenized trans-human. Instead of increasingly integrating our
sexual characteristics into the wider person—constructed of
body, mind, and spirit—we can pretend to recast the body—an
often inconvenient instrument in its present form—into a vari-
able plaything of the will. The danger in this, of course, is not
merely the construction of yet another “academic” folly: for just
as in the cult of abortion the deaths of millions do not matter, so
the effects of new-style “families”—all-male, all female, etc.—
xii
Foreword
on the children they claim the right to “educate” are disregarded

not only by the ideological successors of de Sade, but by the po-
litically correct politicians, journalists, academics, judges, and
even theologians who are complicit in what amounts to gross
child abuse: a crime with which in its more traditional forms
the same people signal their virtue by decrying it in the stron-
gest possible terms: to such public figures the words of Bernard
Mandeville, three hundred years ago, apply: “Moral virtues
[as they signal them] are the Political Offspring which Flattery
begot upon Pride” (“An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Vir-
tue”); many of these de facto criminals should be serving long
prison sentences.
We may want to ask ourselves how this extraordinary situ-
ation has arisen, and the answer is clear: it is because we have
abandoned most of our Judeo-Christian heritage in favor of be-
liefs more destructive of humanity and far less self-critical than
the older paganism. As I have noted, the concept of person was
developed under the Christian aegis; and it is being emascu-
lated in our post-Christian times, though it is one of the great

merits of Malo’s book that he shows that one does not have
to be Christian or even theist to recognize the devastation to
which the dehumanizing of sexuality and the consequent dis-
integration of the human personality has brought us. Corrup-
tio optimi pessima: taking account of sexual difference within a
fully developed concept of the person reveals more of the spiri-
tual, nay transcendent, heights within the human range; sexual
homogenization, driven by Choice, brings us down to a low-
er—certainly more debased—level than that of the testoster-
one-fueled pagans or the happily instinctual animals.
In a world governed by the twin goddesses of Choice and
Autonomy, the destruction of nature and its replacement by
fantasies of the human will, whether achievable or not, is inevi-
xiii
Foreword
table. Yet in the case of the relationship between men and wom-
en, even most Christian defenders of mere common sense have
underestimated the power of the challenge with which we are
now confronted—or, worse, have abandoned the respect for
the human being, whether male or female, which they should
and sometimes did, maintain. All that many defenders of tra-
ditional ways have been able to offer in reply to the challeng-
es of gender ideology, that is, the determination of man not to
correct nature, in the hope of bringing it to a higher perfection,
but to destroy it, is vague talk about complementarity. One of
the great merits of Malo’s book is that it offers reasoned argu-
ment—and empirical evidence—to show that the new theories
are toxic, despite their too frequent acceptance by godless phi-
losophers or mindless theologians.
It may be true that no moral, as distinct from convention-
al, code can ultimately be defended in God’s absence. What
can be demonstrated, however, even to the atheist willing to
think, is that gender ideology offers a sure road to the deper-
sonalization of human beings and to contempt for truth when

it clashes with some favored assertion. And it can further be
demonstrated that the dream that such an impersonal, that is,
totalitarian, ideology can bring happiness is about as bizarre as
are claims that the human race could have benefitted from the
transformations of man advocated by Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.
Thus we learn from Malo that those who want to be uncritical
cogs in the consumerist machine, devoid of any hope of lasting
and loyal friendship, narcissistic worshippers of themselves—
at the expense of anyone who gets in their way—should adopt
gender ideology; and that those who can see the folly of such
beliefs but cannot understand why they are so alien to human
flourishing can learn why their instincts in these matters need
not be cast aside at the whim of a few academic sophists: clever
xiv
Foreword
at times but always contemptuous of facts. And do not be de-

ceived: gender theory has thus far been imposed on us—by lies
and propaganda—by a small group of fanatics who know how
to embarrass or frighten and thus manipulate large numbers of
well-meaning but uncritical people. But if fraud will not work
for them, our new totalitarians will—of course—try to impose
their will by force—and by death-dealing.
Ideologists can always point out that the world they criti-
cize has its serious faults—and, as I have noted, in the case of
our past traditions about our sexualized selves, the relationship
between sexed individuality and the person as a whole has been
very poorly presented. But we should never be tricked into
thinking that those who see an error in social or political prac-
tice can surely see its proper correction—and we should also
remember, as Augustine pointed out long ago, that bad meta-
physics (or, we might add, anti-metaphysics) is often proposed
to rationalize moral weaknesses: in matters of sexuality, those
weaknesses are traditionally called lust and the desire to dom-
inate; that is, to objectify and dehumanize. In helping us to see

this, we now have the evidence provided by Antonio Malo’s
book.
xv
Transcending
Gender Ideology
I N T RODUCT ION
I N T RODUCT ION
The sex change of Bruce Jenner, age 65, father of a family and
Olympic athlete, was greeted with cries of enthusiasm from les-
bian, gay, bisexual, and transgender activists, as well as many
supporters, including his family. “I’m so happy after such a
long struggle to be living my true self,” wrote Jenner in his first
tweet, sent after the publication of a “sexy” photo of him on the
cover of Vanity Fair (US), following his transition from man to
woman.
In the interview Bruce, now known as Caitlyn, tells the
story of his/her facial feminization surgery, an operation that
lasted ten hours; and the panic attack that seized him/her the
following day: the fear, the “What did I just do?” repeated ob-
sessively. Yet the thought soon vanished. “If I was lying on my
deathbed and I had kept this secret and never did anything
about it, I would be lying there saying, ‘You just blew your en-
tire life.’ I don’t want that to happen.”1
According to Caitlyn, she/he was only able to pursue this
difficult course of action thanks to the help of his/her family:
biological daughters Kendall and Kylie Jenner and stepchildren
Kim, Khloé, Kourtney, and Rob Kardashian, as well as ex-wife
Kris Jenner. She/he said that none of them had abandoned her,
and that she felt blessed to have such a family.
1. Vanity Fair (July 2015), https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/

caitlyn-jenner-bruce-cover-annie-leibovitz.
1
Introduction
It might seem that Bruce/Caitlyn’s story was the invention

of a feverish mind, and that any similarity to reality is purely
coincidental, as the motion picture disclaimer goes; but it is not
so. Bruce/Caitlyn is a real flesh-and-blood person who, hav-
ing freed him-/herself from the specters of the past, had the
strength and courage to decide that the world should know the
suffering that she/he had experienced up to that point, and his/
her new-found happiness. And yet, is it really so? Would Bruce
have accepted to be just any woman—an old woman, with
masculine traits, unknown to all and rejected by his family? I
think not.
The longstanding radical feminist Germaine Greer holds
a rather similar view. In an interview with the BBC, she react-
ed frostily to the news that Caitlyn Jenner had been named
one of Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year, since, accord-
ing to Greer, misogyny plays a highly significant role in such
male-female transitions, reinforcing the old macho prejudice
“that a man who goes to such lengths to become a woman will
be a better woman than someone who was born a woman.”2

Why would readers of this book be interested in Jenner’s
story, except as it relates to the question of transsexuality? I
think the reason is to be found in the three key elements that
constitute the human sexed condition: 1) physical sexuality—
even though this story, in terms of Jenner’s “cruder” physical
features, does not yet run to the amputation of his genital or-
gans as an expression of his refusal to be male; 2) emotional
bonds, the breaking of which usually causes great pain to loved
ones—even though in this case Jenner’s family seems to have
taken the situation rather well; 3) spousal and parental relation-
ships, which in this case have ceased to exist at the behest of the
2. https://metro.co.uk/video/Germaine-Greer-talks-transexuality-Newsnight-
1255273/.
2
Introduction
husband and father—even if it appears that Jenner continues

to be on good terms with his ex-wife, who is helping to intro-
duce him to American female high society. Yet it is difficult to
imagine what Jenner’s children call him. Mom? Or perhaps still
Dad, despite the new look? Or maybe just Caitlyn, thus avoid-
ing any further identification with either of the two normally
referential parental figures?
It is certainly true that for people living in the twenty-first
century, sexuality has lost the innocence and spontaneity of the
past. Nothing seems stranger to us nowadays: the sexual revo-
lution, the sexualization of society, the sheer volume of infor-
mation about anatomy, psychology, and culture—not always
well-assimilated—have led to profound changes in the way we
understand this significant human reality. And yet, our deep-
er knowledge and variety of experience have not only failed to
eradicate sexual disorders; they actually have had the opposite
effect. For most of our contemporaries, sexuality has become
complicated, obscure, a murky business, often difficult to han-
dle. And if we add to that the constant efforts to redefine the

limits of what is human by means of scientific and technolog-
ical inventions, levels of insecurity in relation to sexuality in-
crease exponentially. For in addition to genetic and hormonal
sexual defects, repression, neuroses, and phobias, there are now
also, among other things, amputations, prostheses, and hor-
monal treatments, all of which tend to render the very nature of
human sexuality more fragile.
The aim of this book is to try to unravel this tangled skein,
with the help of the experimental and human sciences, be-
cause—and this will be my central thesis—human sexuality
should not be seen as a collection of chaotic phenomena, the
fruit of fantasy and bizarre desires, but as a reality at which
we marvel: for it is the sole origin from which we all proceed
3
Introduction
or have so far proceeded. Once the idea of origin disappears,

sexuality becomes banal and ugly, despite the glossy covers of
the erotic magazines, the seductive clothes and hairstyles . . . so
that ultimately we are left with nostalgia for something that be-
longs to us and to which we aspire, but which we are no longer
able to recover.
I think, therefore, that it is only by constantly alluding to
the origin of sexuality that we will be able to leave behind the
sterility of the present debate, amid the almost complete acqui-
escence in the dominant transgressive culture and politically
correct ways of conceiving and practicing sexuality, the sterile
arguments over what is natural or cultural in human sexuality
and in the way it is lived; because, as we shall see, everything
in human sexuality is simultaneously natural and cultural. So,
this work on sexuality will try to steer clear of any hint of ideol-
ogy, that is, any views that are built more on prejudice and rigid
concepts than on a respectful and humble analysis of reality.
Because it is always pride, the desire to be right at all costs, that
hinders learning.
Where to start? Clearly from the studies of so-called gen-
der theory, since it is their authors who have put the most ef-
fort into thinking about sexuality in its various manifestations,
especially the social one. For gender theory is particularly con-
cerned with certain aspects of how society determines sexual
difference, such as the roles assigned to each individual, which
influence the social, cultural, and political functions that he or
she is able to undertake. These roles also relate to the expecta-
tions of society in terms of the “typical” behavior of men and
women in all spheres of life, from leisure to work, via gestures,
clothes, and how we speak and act.
As we shall see, the social dimension of sexuality is one of
the keys to understanding the relations between men and wom-
4
Introduction
en both diachronically or historically, and synchronically or in

our own times. Indeed, the social dimension of sexuality may
be observed in the troubled history of relations between men
and women, in which women have very often been the victims
of unjust treatment, for instance in the refusal, until recently
in the West and still today in many Islamic countries, to grant
them the right to vote; in the disparity of their treatment in
terms of social recognition and remuneration in many jobs;
and in the underrepresentation of women in positions of lead-
ership. In the face of this inequality, feminism has supported
many civil and political initiatives, obtaining significant results
for years to come. As a result of these social and political strug-
gles, the roles of men and women have been radically changed
in recent decades; and we are still in the midst of this transfor-
mation. It may be seen in the world of work, where women and
men are now equally active; within families, where fathers have
closer bonds with their children; in the economy, culture, and
politics, where there is talk of quotas for women.
Moreover, the social aspect of sexuality is key to under-

standing current “gender mainstreaming,” according to which
all injustice stems from sexual difference. Hence the goal of
this movement: to ensure that equality is upheld in every fam-
ily, social, economic, and political situation, so that people can
make completely free decisions without feeling constrained by
social and cultural expectations linked to their particular sex.
Does this mean that men and women are completely equal,
and that therefore the differences have no social value of any
kind? Yes, according to “gender mainstreaming.” Consequent-
ly, equality is not only regarded as referring to social and po-
litical rights such as the vote, labor, a just wage, etc., but also
to the roles of husband and wife, father and mother, which, it is
said, should be divided equally between men and women; that
5
Introduction
is to say, a woman should be able to be the husband of another

woman and father to her female partner’s children; and a man
the wife of his husband and mother or “father mommy” to his
male partner’s children. It is easy to see why gender theory, in
seeking to enforce these new subjective rights, is called gender
ideology; for like all ideologies, it offers a straightforward, un-
ambiguous explanation of reality, and even tries to impose it by
every available means. Yet despite this ideological drift, there
are many studies of gender that are scientifically valid and use-
ful for a discussion of these issues.
Where does the idea of equality that permeates these stud-
ies come from? An analysis of some works by their principal
authors immediately reveals an emphasis on the personal na-
ture of human sexuality. This is a key aspect, which has perhaps
failed to gain enough attention hitherto. Indeed, as we know
from a number of experimental sciences—physiology, biology,
etiology, psychology, and anthropology—human sexuality dif-
fers from non-human sexuality in a certain number of essential
principles, such as erotic desire and love, and institutions such

as marriage and the family. As the gender ideologists them-
selves maintain, the feature that more than anything else de-
fines human sexuality is its social character.
How are we to understand the nature of human sexuali-
ty today? For gender ideologists, the answer is clear: human
sexuality is merely a sociocultural construct; hence its con-
ventional and changeable character, since neither the way we
comprehend the differences between the sexes, nor the way
they are expressed in public or private contains in itself any-
thing unalterable that transcends society and culture. Yet this
clarity of position cannot conceal an obvious objection: were
human sexuality merely social, we would be obliged to speak
not in terms of difference from animal sexuality, but rather of a
6
Introduction
radical difference, whereby animal sexuality would be natural,

human sexuality cultural. Use of the term “sexuality” to refer
to two radically different realities would amount to the use of
vague, patently unscientific language.
In my view, it is precisely the vague manner in which gender
ideologists refer to human sexuality that reveals not only the
ideological nature of their approach, but also a series of para-
doxes they are unable to address. I aim to provide answers to
these and other difficulties inherent in gender ideology, as also
in an opposing, naturalistic sort of approach. I propose rethink-
ing human sexuality from a standpoint analogous to that from
which we think about animal sexuality, but without falling
into any kind of naturalism or biologism. In order to succeed,
I must not only avoid separating sex and gender, as if they were
two contingently linked elements; I must demonstrate that this
separation, which is part of the project of gender ideology, does
not represent reality, but is rather an abstraction of a complex
and organized structure: the sexed condition, which, alongside
biological and social sex, contains many other features, such as

desire, the gift of self, marriage, and the family, or rather, gene-
alogy, generation, and intergenerationality. These must be per-
sonally integrated if we are to achieve mature identities as men
and women.
7
Sexuality and Human Identity
Ch a p t er O n e
SE X UA LIT Y A N D H U M A N
I DEN T IT Y
Who am I? This question is one of the hardest to answer, espe-

cially in a society such as ours, where the limits between what is
real and what is possible seem to be constantly receding. Mar-
tin Heidegger, one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth
century, showed that the difficulty of knowing oneself is one
of the paradoxes of our technical and scientific culture. As he
wrote: “No other epoch has accumulated so great and so varied
a store of knowledge concerning man as the present one . . . but

also, no epoch is less sure of its knowledge of what man is than
the present one. In no other epoch has man appeared so myste-
rious as in ours.”1
Why is this so? Perhaps because our knowledge of ourselves
is not the same as our knowledge of other realities, which grows
as new information is acquired. We do not depend on science
alone for what we know of ourselves, but above all on an un-
derstanding of our identity; thus, who we are, where we come
from, and what is the meaning of our lives—these are just a few
of the questions which need an answer of some sort, at least in
practice. In short, as Scheler says, if we are to know who we are,
1. M. Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. James S. Churchill
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1962), 216.
8
we need to know our place in the cosmos (die Stellung des Men-
schen im Kosmos)2—a place which appears to be special.
What the modern world shows us, is that in spite of our
technical, scientific, and economic developments, we are in
constant danger of losing our way in life, of losing our humani-
ty, when we do not know our own identity, or do not try to dis-
cover it. Indeed, despite enormous gains in knowledge, and a
proliferation of discoveries and technical/scientific inventions,
our world is incapable of addressing a whole range of phenom-
ena, such as the crisis of the environment, market globalization
or the new opportunities opened to us by biotechnology, with-
out ending in blind alleys, because we do not have an adequate
understanding of the human person.
This opens up an even more profound paradox, one which
has marked all of human history: the ability of human beings to
act in inhuman ways; that is, the ability of each of us to separate
who we are from what we do. This is why Immanuel Kant, who
had already grasped this paradox—albeit to a limited degree—
made a distinction between physical anthropology, or what na-

ture makes of man, and pragmatic anthropology, or what man
makes of his nature.3 In view of the tension between this “Who
am I?” and “What do I do?” human beings appear to wear two
hats: on the one hand, they are able to solve countless prob-
lems, but on the other they constantly create new ones, without
ever succeeding in finding solutions, as can be seen in our use
of nuclear energy, in embryo experimentation, or in the current
2. See M. Scheler, The Human Place in the Cosmos, trans. Manfred S. Frings
(Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2009).
3. “Physiological knowledge of man investigates what nature makes of him: prag-
matic, what man as a free agent makes or can and should make, of himself ” (I. Kant,
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans. Mary J. Gregor [The Hague: Mar-
tinus Nijhof, 1974], §119). Kant seems to confuse human nature with physiology,
whereas, as we shall see, human nature is personal as well as physiological.
9
world economic crisis. This is why in the end there is a tempta-

tion to think that man himself is a problem needing resolution
once and for all. This is the technical and scientific vision of
man espoused, for instance, by some political ideologues who
are convinced that they can create, to quote the title of Aldous
Huxley’s most famous novel, a Brave New World, and a new
man. But human beings are not problems to be solved, but rath-
er they are mysteries that transcend the cosmos, in that they
are able to change it, and thus relate to the Infinite as to an im-
age of themselves.4 Technology and empirical science can help
us cure people physically and psychologically, can assist them
to live with dignity and develop and improve their skills and
talents, but they can tell us nothing about our origins and final
destination, because those things go beyond their methods of
inquiry, beyond the fields of application of their hypotheses.
Human sexuality, then, the theme of this work, sits firmly
in the midst of these paradoxes: between personal identity and
action, between human and inhuman conduct, between the
mystery of our origin and our social and political problems.

So scientific knowledge and a study of the problems inevitably
caused by human action and technology are not enough for an
investigation into sexuality and its human meaning. Above all
we must look into its origin and purpose, since only thus will
we be able to get closer to the mystery it contains.
Accordingly, this study of sexuality is offered as a work of
philosophical anthropology, that is, of an anthropology open to
4. On the difference between problems and mysteries, Gabriel Marcel writes

that a problem “is something which I meet, which I find completely before me, but
which I can therefore lay siege to and reduce. But a mystery is something in which
I am myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as a sphere where the
distinction between what is in me and what is before me loses its meaning and initial
validity.” G. Marcel, Being and Having, trans. Katharine Farrer (Westminster, UK:
Dacre Press, 1949), 117.
10
transcendence and mystery. This is because, as we shall see, a

person only gains an adequate image of him- or herself through
the discovery of being more than what he or she is at any given
moment; and it is only when this image is acquired, that he or
she will be able to act in a way that is fully human, including in
matters of sexuality.
Thus, we encounter a third, even deeper paradox: a person’s
image is not made by man or by culture but discovered through
the relationship each of us has with his or her origin and des-
tiny. This implies that, unlike other creatures, human beings
need to know not only who they are, but above all in whose im-
age they are made. This is the core of the mystery of the human
person, and therefore also of his or her sexuality.
This enquiry into human sexuality will need to begin with
our origins: both the origin of the human body through the
process of hominization, and that of the human person through
humanization. There will then follow a brief overview of how
sexuality has been portrayed historically, in particular in the
thinking of various philosophers, since as I have said, sexual-

ity, like the human person, always depends on the image that
we have of ourselves. In this respect, as we shall see, the most
recent portrayal of sexuality, as propagated by gender ideolo-
gists, although it directly regards the human person, offers an
individualistic and arbitrary vision of that person, rather than
an adequate representation. Nonetheless, some of the claims of
gender theory offer the best starting points for a rethinking of
sexuality and its role in the humanization of the person, thus
helping to correct the naturalistic view which has dominated
the leading cultures for so many centuries.
For this reason, following a critical enquiry into some dis-
torted portrayals of human sexuality, I shall propose an inte-
grated picture, the only one, in my view, capable of addressing
11
our many current problems, because it takes into account the

origins and final destination of the human person.
The Origins of Sexual Difference

At a conference on the family in Rome, the British rabbi Jon-
athan Sacks—who on May 26 of the same year received the
Templeton Prize in the field of spirituality in recognition of his
contribution to the struggle against violence and terrorism—
referred to the origin of sexuality as one of the most beautiful
stories ever written. According to a recent scientific article, he
explained,
[this] took place in a lake in Scotland 385 million years ago. It was
then, according to this new discovery, that two fish came together to
perform the first instance of sexual reproduction known to science.
Until then all life had propagated itself asexually, by cell division,
budding, fragmentation, or parthenogenesis, all of which are far sim-
pler and more economical than the division of life into male and fe-
male, each with a different role in creating and sustaining life.
When we consider, even in the animal kingdom, how much effort

and energy the coming together of male and female takes, in terms
of displays, courtship rituals, rivalries, and violence, it is astonishing
that sexual reproduction ever happened at all. Biologists are still not
quite sure why it did. Some say to offer protection against parasites,
or immunities against disease. Others say it’s simply that the meeting
of opposites generates diversity. But one way or another, the fish in
Scotland discovered something new and beautiful that’s been copied
ever since by virtually all advanced forms of life. Life begins when
male and female meet and embrace.5
5. Jonathan Sacks, “The Family Is the Single Most Humanising Institution in

History,” paper given at the International Inter-faith Colloquium “Humanum—The
Complementarity of Man and Woman,” Rome, November 17–19, 2014.
12
Sacks continued his account by listing the seven stages by

means of which, from this first act of love, we arrive at the hu-
man family, in which are united “sexual drive, physical desire,
friendship, companionship, emotional kinship and love, the
begetting of children and their protection and care, their early
education and induction into an identity and a history. Seldom
has any institution woven together so many different drives
and desires, roles and responsibilities. It made sense of the
world and gave it a human face.”6
It seems today that to these seven stages must be added a

final one: that of the disintegration of love. For a number of rea-
sons—the most important perhaps being the separation of sex-
uality from generation—new ways of perceiving sexuality, the
family, the relationship of man and woman, and parental mod-
els are spreading in our globalized world—and not only in the
West. These are being increasingly incorporated into the con-
stitutions of nations and put into practice by more and more
people. The result is that nearly everything that human sexual-
ity has successfully brought together over the centuries is start-

ing to unravel, with the more or less declared aim of producing
a new model of humanity from which the original sexual dif-
ference has disappeared, or at least ceases to have any personal
significance at all.
Is this really a case of a new model of humanity, rather than
a case of its degeneration? In my view, the answer to this ques-
tion depends on the value of human sexuality in people’s lives.
Indeed, if it is true, as Sacks claims, that sexual reproduction
implies an investment of energy and creativity in the develop-
ment of life, because it requires a difference within the same
species, we must seek to understand whether sexual difference
6. Ibid.
13
has a personal meaning or whether it is simply an ornament

more or less contingent on evolution.
I think that in order to answer this question, we need to
start with the product of sexual union: new life, the main char-
acteristic of which seems to be the enjoyment of greater physi-
cal and psychological individuality, this being, as we shall see,
the basis of personal identity. Indeed, in contrast to what hap-
pens in other forms of reproduction (budding, fragmentation,
parthenogenesis, etc.), where genetic variation depends on mu-
tation, in sexual reproduction this derives from the recombina-
tion of the male and female genetic inheritance. This is why the
offspring of sexual reproduction have a greater diversity of ge-
netic characteristics. Thus, sexual beings are not only unlike all
other beings because of their internal unity and because they
belong to a particular species, as is also the case with plants
and asexual animals; but they are unlike all the individuals of
the opposite sex as well, since a male is unlike all the females
and vice versa. Thus, in contrast to the two differences found
among asexual life forms (in terms of ontology, that is, internal
unity and in terms of species), sexual creatures possess a third,
intraspecific difference.
However, differences allow for greater individuality not
only because they distinguish each creature from the rest, but
also because they allow it to communicate in a more specific
way. This is why differences between creatures not only repre-
sent a threat to their own survival, as a lion is a threat to a ga-
zelle, but also are assets which enable them to stay alive. In fact,
individual identity is proportionate to difference, in the sense
that the greater the individual identity, the greater the ability
to communicate by means of difference. This can be clearly
seen in the example of the lion. First, we have the lion’s onto-
logical identity which, while it may mean that each creature is
14
one with all other beings, also prevents it from having an inter-
nal relationship with anything different; although this does not
apply to differences that arise from the creature’s own essence,
like the difference between this particular lion and its member-
ship in the cat family qua panthera leo, that is, the difference in
terms of its species. But the appearance of any other difference
within the creature means not simply that it is broken or can-
not be used, as for instance would be the case with the broken
engine of a car, but rather pain, illness, and, in extreme cases,
death. Second, we have species individuality, where a specific
kind of difference is needed: every species normally preys on
the individuals of the species it feeds on. Finally, within spe-
cies, greater individuality means that more specific, intense
relationships can be established with other individuals of the
same species, for instance care of the young, the group’s inter-
nal hierarchy, etc. One of these relationships, reproduction, is
achieved by means of sexual difference. So sexual difference
allows for more specific communication, since only animals
belonging to the same species can reproduce (mules are sterile,

being hybrids of two equine species, the donkey and the horse).
It is also more individual, since all animals that reproduce sex-
ually—apart from the odd anomaly—are male or female, as
the species can only reproduce as a result of their union.7 The
reason sexual creatures are the most individual of animals is
7. It is well known that there are also exceptions to this kind of sexuality among
animals. Generally speaking, phenotypic (that is, hormonal) sex corresponds to ge-
notypic (that is, genetic) sex. However, there are species where phenotypic does not
depend on genotypic sex, but on environment—for instance Bonellia viridis, a marine
invertebrate found in the depths of the Mediterranean. The larvae that imbed them-
selves in a Bonellia female become male, while those that do not, become female. In
other species, phenotypic sex varies with age, with individuals behaving first as fe-
males and then as males. In humans too, alterations in the level of masculinizing or
feminizing hormones (through illness, abnormality, or external administration) can
determine phenotypic sexual characteristics that are at odds with genotypic sex.
15
that their individuality arises from intraspecific differences

between male and female. Therefore the sexual relationship be-
tween male and female is different from an individual’s com-
munication with the rest of its environment, in that it does not
aim to assimilate “the other” (even if there are animals, such as
the mantis, whose sexual encounters end with the female kill-
ing and eating the male), but rather to keep the species going by
creating another individual, which must of necessity be male or
female. So, although this implies a further differentiation, sex-
uality is not passed down by the individual, but by the species.
In other words, being male or female is not a perfection of the
individual animal, but rather of the species, which needs to sur-
vive. Of course, we have biotechnologies, such as the one used
to clone Dolly, the world-famous sheep, that allow us to repro-
duce the same individual animal asexually and thus avoid the
extinction of species; but technology can never erase the sexual
origin of the known higher species of animals.
Furthermore, the emergence of greater sexual differenti-
ation also has made reproduction more specialized, not only

physically but also in terms of the division of labor between
male and female. Thus, the female gives birth to young, suckles
them, cares for them, while the male protects and fertilizes his
females. Yet this differentiation of behavior has no implications
which transcend the nature of the species itself. There is thus
a necessary relationship between sexual difference, specialized
reproduction, and the behavior of each individual of the spe-
cies, which makes it clear that animal sexuality is an inflexible
instinct, linked inexorably to genetics and to biological (phys-
iological and hormonal) as well as cosmic cycles. It does not
concern the individual as such, that is, in terms of its individ-
ual existence, but only insofar as it is a male or female fertile
individual within a species, without there being any form of
16
rejection by its peers on account of kinship, age, or attractive-

ness. Thus, sexuality in animals is only significant in terms of
the species; it is not significant for individual identity, either in
terms of the clan or existentially.
So, in the animal kingdom, sexual difference is merely a
strategy by which life reproduces itself in forms that are more
varied, highly developed, and ordered according to bodily and
behavioral dimorphism. Animal sexual reproduction is thus
clearly no more than a phenomenon relating to the life of the
species. Does this also apply to human sexual difference? To
answer this, we must analyze the process of hominization and
humanization of sexuality.
Sexuality in the Process of Hominization

and Humanization
The difference with human sexuality is that besides being bio-
logical, it is anthropological in origin, arising in the process of
hominization and humanization of animal sexuality. Indeed,

like other bodily characteristics (bipedalism, the freeing up
of the hands [from their locomotive function], the production
and use of tools, etc.), human sexuality is the product of a long
process of hominization that has transformed the hominid
body into the personal one.
Paleontological fossil studies have already postulated dis-
continuity between apes, hominids, and the appearance of
homo sapiens, especially in terms of the ability to travel long
distances, the sharing of food, and the first division of labor be-
tween hunters and gatherers.8 There are a number of traits par-
8. Cf. John Gowlett, “The Frameworks of Early Hominid Social Systems: How
Many Parameters of Archaeological Evidence Can We Isolate?” in The Archeology
of Human Ancestry: Power, Sex and Tradition, ed. S. Shennan and J. Steele (London:
Routledge, 2005), 159.
17
ticular to human sexuality too, such as the decoupling of sexual

instinct from natural cycles or the birth of so-called “prema-
ture” offspring, which need greater care from both parents.9
Another physiological change which makes pair bonding more
appealing is the fact that “among humans, estrus is hidden
(that is, women do not display their fertile status). Linked to
this is a broadened receptivity to sex.” From a game-theoretical
viewpoint, this would explain the importance “for both men
and women [of staying] put with the same partner, as this
maximizes . . . opportunities” to breed.10 But perhaps the most
telling characteristic is the reduction of sexual dimorphism
in humans, compared for instance with apes, among whom
dominant males must protect a harem from the other males in
the group. This prevents males from forming bonds with their
young, since their young become their rivals. Humans, by con-
trast, have a tendency to form bonds of affection with their off-
spring, and to protect them, at least when they are young. It is
this consciousness of parenthood which also explains the dis-
appearance of sexual relations between fathers and daughters.

These have endured among apes, where female offspring join
the other females in the harem.
Hominization ultimately heralds a significant change in
the typical behavioral pattern of animals, especially among the
most highly evolved, such as apes. Male apes behave aggres-
sively toward other males, which are rivals or potential rivals,
9. According to Gehlen, premature birth necessitates care in order for off-

spring to survive. Premature birth, the development of rationality, and parental care
constitute a system. It can thus be seen that these three components exist in direct
proportion one with another: the greater the uncertainty surrounding the infant, the
greater its opportunity for development, provided that it is able to form bonds with
other rational beings. Cf. A. Gehlen, Man: His Nature and Place in the World, trans.
Clare McMillan and Karl Pillemer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
10. Jérôme Rousseau, Rethinking Social Evolution: The Perspective from Middle-
Range Societies (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), 45.
18
and make sexual advances to females.11 By contrast, aggression

is more limited among human males, allowing them to divide
the tasks of hunting, protecting the group, waging war, etc.,
while their sexual activity is limited to certain women. Thus,
the activities of adult, male human beings take place in two
spheres: that of the group of male hunters and that of their re-
lations with women and, through women, with their own off-
spring. For their part, women take care of the house and bring
up the children. It seems, then, that the function of the family
is to keep the male and female worlds connected.
However, these changes in terms of instinct do not force
men and women into predetermined forms of behavior. Rath-
er, they represent mere opportunities that can be turned into
cultural norms, for instance through the prohibition of incest
or the killing or expelling by fathers of their male offspring, or
through the institution of matrimony or conjugal and parental
cares. Thus, human sexuality does not arise either exclusively
or fundamentally from hominization, but primarily from its
humanization; that is, from the emergence of a particular re-

lationship of care between men and women, parents and chil-
dren. This is something of which only human beings are capa-
ble, since only they have the ability to see things from the point
of view of others,12 to interpret their needs, feelings, thoughts,
and desires. This relationship of care, whose object, in the first
11. “Among chimpanzees and baboons this status system controlled the rather
aggressive relations between adult males, sexual relations between male and female,
and social relations between the old and the young. A family-like relationship existed
only between the mother and her young, and between siblings. Incest between moth-
ers and growing sons was not permitted; there was no corresponding incest barrier
between fathers and daughters, because the father role did not exist. Even hominid
societies converted to the basis of social labor did not yet know a family structure.”
J. Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1995), 135.
12. Cf. H. Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (Frankfurt: Suhr
kamp, 1981), 361–63.
19
instance, is the opposite sex and the family, is then extended

to any sort of person, to possessions and objects of use, and to
other living things.13 In other words, concern for “the other”
not only humanizes sexuality, but also becomes the glue that,
more than anything else, holds personal relationships together.
In the case of relationships based on sexual difference, this
concern ensures that human sexuality is personal. For it is not
so much that particular physical characteristics or deficien-
cies of instinct distinguish human sexuality from that of apes
or hominids, but rather that a biological inclination is trans-
formed into the desire for and love of another in the strictest
sense, insofar as it is up to the other person, male or female, how
they will be the one with whom I desire to build a stable, loving
relationship—a relationship which is thus already personal.
But the fact that sexuality can be humanized means that
sexual difference is not man’s most profound difference, since
it does not make him completely individual. So, another differ-
ence is needed, one which makes man, whether male or female,
completely individual, and thus truly personal. The difference

between specific individuals (male or female) and their person-
al individualization is important here, since the latter implies
yet another separation from other individuals of the human
species: not only from all other men or all other women, but
from every other person.
Now it is moral difference that allows the person to become
more profoundly individual, as it means that each of us can be-
come more than what we are at any given moment without los-
13. “It is this relationship that distinguishes the human being, when his actions
show him to be such. Only man, when he behaves as man, takes care of ‘the other’
as a person, as well as of things and other living beings.” P. Donati, Il problema del-
la umanizzazione nell’era della globalizzazione tecnologica, in Prendersi cura dell’uo-
mo nella società tecnologica, ed. Pier Giovanni Palla (Rome: Edizioni Universitarie
dell’Associazione RUI, 2000), 58.
20
ing our own identities as male or female persons; that is, we have
the ability to become “more ourselves.” Each person is therefore
unique in terms of moral difference, being uniquely responsible
for his or her own actions and to an extent for his or her own
relationships. Thus, we can say that, in a sense, the person is gen-
erated by means of his or her own actions and modes of relation-
ship. Hence moral difference, while not ontological in origin
(since ontological difference concerns the state of personhood
that differentiates homo sapiens from other animals and homi-
nids), arises from ontological rather than species difference: in-
deed, the state of being “more ourselves” represents our ability
to perfect ourselves. Moral difference is not optional, however:
without the effort to perfect him- or herself, a person becomes
to some extent less unique, given that moral difference primar-
ily concerns him- or herself, that is, his or her own identity,
rather than other individuals (unlike species difference, which
concerns other species, or sexual difference, which concerns the
opposite sex). The very life of a being that is constantly able to
individualize itself—that is, the person—is not merely the life

of an individual male or female of the species, but that of a sub-
ject capable of differentiating itself more and more from other
subjects by developing its own identity. It follows that moral dif-
ferentiation within the same species leads to the most profound
separation: that of every person, male or female, from every oth-
er person, including those who share the same sexual difference.
Yet this is not because moral difference does not take sexuality
into account; rather, it renders sexuality nonrepeatable by al-
lowing it to be integrated within the person. This, in my view, is
where we shall find the link between sexuality and ethics.
Must we then view moral difference as a mere extension of
ontological difference? Unlike ontological difference, moral dif-
ference is not a given, but merely possible. It is the possibility of
21
becoming oneself, that is, not only of being male or female but
also of being male or female in a personal way. This possibility
is essential even though it is contingent in terms of ontology.
The contingency arises from the fact that the person may or may
not achieve his or her moral identity (one may be more or less
oneself, while always remaining a person); but he or she is none-
theless obliged to achieve it, since the way he or she chooses to
respond invokes his or her origin and destiny, that is, his or her
own unique character; for over and above an ontological identi-
ty, or a species or sexual identity, what a person needs is a moral
identity, by virtue of which he or she is a unique man or woman.
Animals never lose their status as individuals of the species, and
rarely their behavior as male or female; whereas the human per-
son, while never losing his or her ontological identity, can fail to
achieve his or her uniqueness as man or woman, a project that
depends on action and above all on what response is given to a
transcendent vocation, an imperative for which neither species
nor sexual difference can be an adequate basis.
Moreover, human sexuality arises from and depends on hu-

man relationships. A person’s identity, therefore, is not merely a
matter of intention, since it depends not only on his or her own
will, but ultimately on free and unanticipated gifts, beginning
with the gift of life and of the loving care of parents or foster par-
ents, and the gifts that other people accept from him or her, es-
pecially the gift of self. All these things go beyond a person’s own
intentionality. Furthermore, if the person is to achieve his or her
objective of being him- or herself, he or she will need relation-
ships with others, especially relationships of familial respect and
love. Respect implies an ability to see and accept other people as
they are—that is, to be aware of their uniqueness. Love adds a
personal involvement to mere respect, implying concern for oth-
ers and a desire to help them become what they should be.
22
Thus, a study of human sexuality needs to look at both the

particular individual of the species homo sapiens (the human
male or female), and his or her individualization (the person-
alization of this particular male or female). For although the
person can be viewed as an individual member of the human
species, his or her individuality is not the same as an animal’s.
Firstly, this is because the person transcends the individuality
of the species through his or her own ontological difference,
that is, his or her personal being; for every man and every wom-
an is a unique person. Secondly, because it is through moral
difference that the person transcends his or her own sexual dif-
ference, by means of the ability to personalize his or her respec-
tive masculinity or femininity. In other words, rather than be-
ing possessed by his or her own species, a person possesses the
characteristics of it, in that he or she is able to use them to indi-
vidualize him- or herself. This can be seen, for example, in the
transformation of sexual instinct into sexual proclivity.14 Up
to a point of course, the sexual impulse is independent of one’s
conscience and will, as desire is kindled by hormonal secretion

from certain glands, or by the presence of particular stimuli.
However, a person may integrate his or her sexual proclivity
through love of others, either in marriage or the celibate state,
and is thereby not an individual at the service of the species, but
an end in him- or herself. These transcendent characteristics
with regard to species and sexual difference imply the existence
within the person of a form, soul, or entelecheia which, while it
has temporal existence as a principle of the human body, tran-
scends both corporeality, because it is immaterial, and the spe-
cific differences themselves, because it is spiritual.
So a person’s uniqueness and his or her individualization
14. For a discussion of the distinction between instinct and proclivity, I refer the
reader to my book Antropologia dell’Affettività (Rome: Armando, 1999), esp. chap. 4.
23
arise from being transcendent or spiritual. These qualities are

primarily possessed by the soul, which communicates them to
the body, because the soul is the form and the body is its mat-
ter.15 This explains why the human body and its sexuality are
up to a point “available to the person”; and, therefore, why the
person is able to integrate his or her own sexuality in a unique
way. The “personal” appears in the principle of transcendence
of the soul through which the person governs the human na-
ture that he or she has received, especially his or her own body;
for, since human nature has an origin, it also has a permanent
relationship with its transcendent origin and end.
Thus, although human sexuality shares a number of diverse
characteristics with that of other animals, such as a natural at-
traction for the opposite sex, the ability to reproduce, and par-
ticular modes of behavior, it is distinguished by the fact that it
does not exclude from itself anything that is part of the essence
of a human being. Thus, the structural arrangement of body,
mind, and soul, the harmonization of the various faculties
needed for action, and the relationship of the person with oth-
er people and with the world, especially through the gift of self
and concern for others; all these things belong to human sexu-
ality. This is why in human sexuality, the natural attraction to
the opposite sex is transformed into desire for the other; while
the reproductive capacity of other individuals of the species is
transformed into the procreation of new human persons; and
15. According to Aquinas, composite creatures possess a double actuality and a

double potentiality: “Primarily there is matter, which is potentiality in reference to
the form, and the form is its own actuality; then nature, constituted of matter and
form, is like potentiality in reference to its own being, insofar as it is receptive of
form” (Thomas Aquinas, Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, a. 1). See also
Summa Contra Gentiles II, chaps. 52–54; I, chap. 50, aa. 2–3. In the case of the person,
the intellectual soul is partly potentiality in reference to being, and partly actuality or
form in reference to the body.
24
the sexual relationship between male and female into marriage

and family. Hence we shall deal at some length with these per-
sonal characteristics proper to human sexuality.
But first we must give a brief historical account, primarily
of a philosophical nature, of how human sexuality has been
portrayed in major cultures—some of which still exist—and of
what image of man and woman emerges from the writings of
the major thinkers.
25
Sexuality, Culture, and Philosophy
Ch a p t er T wo
SE X UA LIT Y, CU LT U R E ,
A N D PH I LOSOPH Y
I think it no exaggeration to say that sexuality has played a vi-

tal dual role in all past cultures: on the one hand, it has been
the foundation of human society, and on the other, the origin
of many civil and religious norms. This is particularly striking
within Judaism, where adultery is likened to the infidelity of
the people of Israel to God. In my view, the social value of sex-
uality is to be found in its intrinsic link to human life and the
family, as well as in the paradoxical face with which sexuality

manifests itself in the world. According to Plato, sexuality is a
force that allows wings to grow on the soul, enabling it to soar
to the most sublime heights of virtue and of the most exalted
forms of creation; or sending it plummeting to the depths of
the most shameful desires and heinous acts.
Thus, on the one hand, sexuality presents itself as eros, a gift
of self, and the origin of life that transforms ordinary mortals
into heroic beings and, through their fertility, almost makes
them immortal. Yet on the other hand, sexuality emerges from
the abyss of the soul as a dark, destructive force that takes pos-
session of lovers, making them foes of every human and divine
law. This can be seen, for example, in the way the adulterous
relationship of Paris and Helen led to a trail of war, death, and
26
suffering; or in the disruption of domestic peace caused by the

incestuous passion of Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus.
Throughout history, societies have tried to tame this disrup-
tive force, capable of sowing life and death. They have sought to
turn it into an instrument of peace and harmony between indi-
viduals and peoples. For many centuries, this task was the pre-
serve of religions, which were able to confer a symbolic meaning
on sexuality made up of rules, prescriptions, and rites, such as
those of initiation, fertility, childbirth, menstrual purification,
etc. People also celebrated religious festivals, such as the Greek
Bacchanalia and the Roman Saturnalia, in which sexual promis-
cuity and orgies had a kind of cathartic character, in the sense
that they allowed this volcanic energy to be partially released,
thus avoiding uncontrolled explosions.1 Perhaps the most com-
mon way of imbuing human sexuality with a symbolic meaning
was by making it divine, or hypostatizing it as a deity such as As-
tarte of the Phoenicians, Aphrodite of the Greeks, or the Roman
Venus. Or sexual activity could be given a sacred character, as
seen in the prostitution permitted in many ancient temples.

Even though this project of channeling sexual energy and
conferring on it a symbolic role still continued, the situation
changed radically with the rise of the monotheistic religions,
especially Judaism. Sexuality loses its divine character, since
the God of the Old Testament, and indeed of Islam, is com-
pletely transcendent, and has neither body nor passions. De-
spite this “demythologization,” sexuality preserves its links
1. “Almost every society has festivals that have retained a ritualistic character
over the centuries. Of particular interest to the modern inquirer are observances
involving the deliberate violation of established laws. . . . Such violations must be
viewed in their broadest context: that of the overall elimination of differences. Fami-
ly and social hierarchies are temporarily suppressed or inverted. . . . As one might ex-
pect, this destruction of differences is often accompanied by violence and strife.” R.
Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (London: Continuum, 2005),
127.
27
with the sacred nature of blood and life and, above all, the am-
biguity of its power.
It is not until the coming of Christianity that sexuality
sheds any remaining divine attributes and acquires an entire-
ly symbolic meaning. For with the incarnation of Christ and
Christian baptism, the human body, male or female, becomes a
temple of the Holy Spirit, with matrimony now the image of the
marriage of Christ and the Church. This is the origin of the im-
portance in the Christian life of a range of human virtues that
become paths to holiness, such as modesty, chastity, the gift of
self in accordance with one’s state in life, and faithfulness.
But perhaps the most significant feature of Christianity is
the way it views differences between men and women, which,
far from being absolute, are relative to their being persons. A
man or a woman is not only a mode of being sexed, but above
all a mode of being personal. Insofar as they are persons, men
and women have the same absolute dignity because they are in-
finitely loved by God, who created them so as to be loved by
them in return.2 Thus, the differences between men and wom-

en depend on their vocation to love. Man and woman were cre-
ated to love one another as husband and wife, giving rise to the
human family. The love between a man and a woman therefore
leads to the union of the two different ways of being a person,
whereby sexual desire, becoming eros, allows them to share in
2. “With this anthropological baggage, we must consider every man and every
woman, the significance of their complementarity, and their spousal condition as
‘lovers,’ undertaken in their personal bodies and souls. They are each a unique, male
or female, bodily person; each has been individually ‘loved’ by the Creator, the first
lover; and, for this reason, each of them, individually and as a union, in the act of be-
ing ‘loved’ as beloved, has received in his or her own being the power of welcoming
as beloved; of reciprocating as lover, and of being a union of love.” P. J. Viladrich, “I
fondamenti antropologici dell’indissolubilità del matrimonio,” in Matrimonio e fami-
glia. La questione antropologica, ed. Héctor Franceschi and Miguel A. Ortíz (Rome:
EDUSC, 2015), 190.
28
the mutual communion that distinguishes the Trinity, in the

form of the gift of self to the other—a gift that can generate life.
Despite the radical change brought about by the Christian
paradigm of sexuality, the way in which differences and rela-
tions between men and women were understood continued
to be imbued with a naturalistic view of sexuality in which
physical and psychological differences between the two sexes
very often resulted in a failure to recognize the equal dignity
of persons.3 Of course, in religious terms, women enjoyed the
same prospect of salvation as men, insofar as they were created
by God, redeemed by Jesus Christ, and sanctified by the Holy
Spirit. But in the social, cultural, and working sphere, women
were almost always seen as inferior human beings. The factors
that perpetuated this low estimation of the female were not
just the physical characteristics of women, including those of
weakness in comparison with men and those associated with
childbearing. Over and above these was the hierarchical orga-
nization of the human world along the lines of male and female
difference in the animal kingdom.4

Of course, since no thinker recognized that the social and
cultural hierarchy between the sexes has this hidden origin
(that is, a naturalistic concept of human sexuality), efforts were
3. The Christian Middle Ages are possibly the only exception to this historic pat-
tern. Women not only had the legal right to own goods, but also to play important
roles in civil and ecclesiastical society. Examples of this include the foundresses of
religious orders, such as St. Brigit, princess of Närke in Sweden; deeply learned wom-
en such as St. Hildegard of Bingen or Heloise; and the abbesses who wielded almost
episcopal power, etc. See R. Pernoud, Women in the Days of the Cathedrals, trans.
Anne Coté-Harriss (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998).
4. Although Aquinas considered women to be equal to men, he still saw them as
mas occasionatus, or imperfect men (cf. Summa theologiae, ed. Fathers of the English
Dominican Province [New York: Benziger Bros., 1947–48], I, q. 92, a. 1, ad 1; q. 99, a. 2,
ad 1). He thought that this deficiency or irregularity should be regarded as such only
in physiological terms, not in the universal intention of nature; that is, it was a ques-
tion of a biological error entirely aimed at facilitating procreation.
29
made to explain it from a purely rational perspective. This pro-

duced an attempt to explain the differences between men and
women that can be traced right through philosophy from Plato
to Foucault via the Enlightenment thinking of Rousseau, Kant,
and Hegel. We will look at this in detail.
From Plato to Nietzsche

In Greek philosophy, the difference between men and women
mirrors the higher metaphysical order. Thus, the late Plato and
some Neoplatonic philosophers consider that the male/female
couple encompasses the same opposition that exists between
the One and the many. Like the One in which it participates
therefore, the male is regarded as immutable and perfect, while
the female is seen as changeable and defective, because of its
participation in the dyad, which is the origin of plurality. This
viewpoint puts the female, and indeed the union of the male
and the female, in a negative light, since both of these would
be distanced from the One.5 It is an understanding of sexual

difference that finds further confirmation in Platonic soul-body
dualism: the soul, like the One and maleness, is asexual, while
the body, like the dyad and femaleness, is sexual. Aristotle’s
hylomorphism represents something of a deviation from this
rationalized naturalism, holding as it does that particular psy-
chological characteristics correspond to particular aspects of
bodily sexuality.6 As is well known, Aristotle does not analyze
5. See Plato, Timaeus, 90c–91a.

6. According to Rist’s theory of development in Aristotle’s work, there are two
stages in the relationship between body and soul. In the first stage, Aristotle views
the soul as a separate substance, as in Plato’s Phaedo; by the second, he has formed
his hylomorphic account, according to which the soul is the form of a living body, as
he writes in the De anima. Cf. J. Rist, The Mind of Aristotle: A Study in Philosophical
Growth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 165–70.
30
these characteristics of the soul in themselves, either because

his knowledge of biological sexuality was deficient, or because
the stereotypes of classical Greek culture dominated the way
he understood female psychology; so that for him, sexual dif-
ference manifests itself above all in the distinct male and fe-
male roles in the sexual act, and in their roles within the family.
This is why, although Aristotle’s metaphysical approach differs
from that of his teacher,7 he continues to interpret the func-
tions and roles of men and women in a hierarchical manner.
Thus, since the man’s semen, according to Aristotle, is the actu-
ality or form of the embryo, the woman provides only the ma-
terial, which therefore aims at the actuality, that is, at maleness;
when it does not succeed in its goal, the embryo remains in the
potential stage of woman.8 As we have seen, Aquinas also con-
tinued to hold these naturalistic stereotypes,9 despite the in-
fluence of St. Augustine, who maintained that men and women
alike are made in the image of God.
Notwithstanding the political, social, and economic chang-
es of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the philosophical

tenets of the modern era continued, with some variation, to
stress this traditional concept of sexuality. It is, for instance,
7. Aristotle, Metaphysics IX, 1058b21–22.
8. According to Aristotle, the difference between men and women originates in
the male semen, which does not always succeed in completely informing its own ma-
terial. See Aristotle, De generatione animalium III, 3, 737a25.
9. “Thomas Aquinas took over Aristotelian biology, including the theory that
there is a sense in which females are physiologically defective males, and together
with that biology developed a predictably clearer account of female psychological
inferiority, problematic though that might have been for aspects of the Augustinian
version of woman’s creation in God’s image.” J. Rist, What Is Truth? From the Acad-
emy to the Vatican (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 81. For a more
thorough account of Aquinas’s anthropology including how he developed Aristote-
lian accounts of human sexuality, see Thomas Petri, “The Anthropology of Thomas
Aquinas,” in Aquinas and the Theology of the Body: The Thomistic Foundations of John
Paul II’s Anthropology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2016), 198–234.
31
surprising to detect in Rousseau, the author of Emile and The

New Heloise—two novels about the education of young people
from the upper bourgeoisie of the Enlightenment and Roman-
tic periods—some ideas about the difference between men and
women that can be found in Aristotle and the Medieval writers.
Thus, although he starts from a position of viewing the sexes in
relation to each other rather than in isolation, Rousseau reach-
es the same conclusions as the ancient philosophers; for in
their union, both sexes contribute equally to the common end,
but in differing ways: the man actively and with strength, the
woman passively and weakly. The man, therefore, must “want
and be able,” and the woman need offer little resistance, since
she is made to please the man and be submissive to him. There-
fore, according to Rousseau, “When woman complains on this
score about unjust man-made inequality, she is wrong. This in-
equality is not a human institution—or at least it is the work
not of prejudice but of reason. It is up to the sex that nature has
charged with the bearing of children to be responsible for them
to the other sex.”10

For Kant too, while the two sexes are linked by the cate-
gory of Gemeinschaft, or community based on each person’s
right to the body of the other, there are profound psychologi-
cal and social differences, resulting from an almost ontological
cause. Consequently, the spouses do not have the same rights:
the man must rule the community, and the woman must obey.
These different roles also imply different types of education:
10. J.-J. Rousseau, Emile, bk. 5, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979),
361. It is true, as Coatti claims, that men and women are mutually dependent, in that
each depends on the other in terms of desire (see L. Coatti, “Rousseau: le relazioni
di dipendenza nella formazione del legame sociale,” I Castelli di Yale 2, no. 2 [1997]:
173–94). However, since man’s desire is intermittent, there is no true parity between
the sexes: “The male is male only at certain moments. The female is female her whole
life, or at least during her whole youth. Everything constantly recalls her sex to her.”
Rousseau, Emile, 361.
32
men should acquire knowledge so as to gain a deeper under-

standing (tiefer Verstand), but women should be guided so
that their understanding becomes more beautiful (schöner Ver-
stand).11 For, women will have to make the house beautiful and
look after family relationships while men will put their talents
to use in society, politics, and scientific knowledge. Like Rous-
seau, Kant maintains that even though in the state of nature
the sexes are mutually dependent (indeed, women are superi-
or to men “through their natural gift of drawing men’s desire
to themselves”)12 in the view of society, men are superior be-
cause of their physical power, reason, and courage. This crucial
difference also appears in the feelings: men are attracted to the
sublime, women to the beautiful.
With Hegel, the relationship of the sexes within marriage
acquires an even higher value: it is not only a contract that gives
each spouse the right to possess the other’s body, but also a
permanent union between the finite and the infinite: the first
degree of the ethical life (Sittlichkeit).13 The simple, natural di-
alectical distinctions between the sexes (male/female, animal/

plant, city/house, power/piety, strength/gentleness, media-
tion/immediacy, labor/repose, knowledge/intuition, reason/
representational thought, universal/individual) gain a spiritual
11. “One will seek to broaden their total moral feeling, and not their memory,
and that of course not by universal rules but by some judgment upon the conduct that
they see about them.” I. Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime,
trans. John T. Goldthwait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), sec. 3, 80.
12. “A woman is embarrassed little that she does not possess certain high insights,
that she is timid, and not fit for serious employments, and so forth; she is beautiful, she
captivates, and that is enough. On the other hand, she demands all these qualities in
a man, and the sublimity of her soul shows itself only in that she knows to treasure
these noble qualities so far as they are found in him.” Ibid., 93–94.
13. The other degrees are society or the economic community and the state or po-
litical community. Hence Hegel’s criticism of Catholicism, which considers the vows
of chastity (celibacy and virginity), poverty, and obedience as the state of perfection.
Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood, trans. Barry
Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
33
significance within marriage, because the sexes communicate

to one another the different aspects of the ethical life. Thus,
the man “is spirituality which divides itself up into personal
self-sufficiency with being for itself and the knowledge and vo-
lition of free universality, that is, into the self-consciousness of
conceptual thought and the volition of the objective and ulti-
mate end. And the other [woman] is spirituality which main-
tains itself in unity as knowledge and volition of the substan-
tial, in the form of concrete individuality (Einzelheit) and feeling
(Empfindung).”14 Thus, according to Hegel, while women have
some aspects of universality, such as a husband and children,
they lack ethical universality, because their individuality is
linked to natural love, pleasure and contingency: “this” hus-
band, “these” children.
Finally, for Nietzsche sexual dualism is not only the origin
of the reproduction of the species, but also the source of artistic
creation. There is a conflict and tension between men and wom-
en, like the antagonism between Dionysus and Apollo, that ex-
ists prior to any subsequent and momentary reconciliation. Ni-

etzsche accepts that it is possible to speak of love between man
and woman; but each understands love in different ways, wom-
an as a gift of self, body and soul, without reserve; man as that
which he wants from a woman, that is, total love. According to
Nietzsche, this difference is so built into the sexes that any al-
teration results in the loss, to a greater or lesser degree, of femi-
ninity or masculinity. “A man who loves like a woman becomes
thereby a slave; a woman, however, who loves like a woman
becomes thereby a more perfect woman.”15 There is, therefore,
14. Ibid., §166.

15. F. Nietzsche, “The Joyful Wisdom,” in The Complete Works of Friedrich Ni-
etzsche, vol. 6, ed. Oscar Levy, trans. Thomas Common (Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis,
1910), §363.
34
something non-moral in the relations between men and wom-

en, because love is, by its nature, ruthless and egotistical. For
this reason, a woman’s faithfulness should not be considered a
virtue: it is the way women love. By contrast, it is not the gift of
self that preserves a man’s bond with a given woman, but rather
the desire to possess her entirely. “As a matter of fact, it is the
more subtle and jealous thirst for possession in a man (who is
rarely and tardily convinced of ‘having’ this possession) which
makes his love continue; in that case it is even possible that his
love will increase after the surrender—he does not readily own
that a woman has nothing more to ‘surrender’ to him.”16
The Roots of the Revolution of 1968

Given this naturalistic concept of sexual difference, one can
understand the sense of liberation, especially, among wom-
en, that attended the sexual revolution of 1968.17 This may be
viewed as the last of the great revolutions of the modern era, in
that it takes the idea of revolution itself to its logical conclusion,

that is, the subversion of the entire social order. While the oth-
er revolutions had made a clean sweep of the socioeconomic
models handed down by tradition and its associated moral and
religious values, they had not yet managed to change their ulti-
mate foundation, sexual difference; because, in the opinion of
the originators of the movement of 1968, this was the root of all
inequality. For this reason, the aim of the sexual revolution was
the creation ex nihilo of a new typology of the human being,
since the revolution would not be total unless it gave rise to in-
dividuals of the species homo sapiens loosed from the shackles
16. Ibid.
17. A first version of this historical analysis can be found in my book Io e gli altri.
Dall’identità alla relazione (Rome: EDUSC, 2010).
35
of the past, their faces turned toward a perfect society in which

there would be no more inequality.18
While the French Revolution began a process of radical
transformation, attempting to build a new society on the three
rational—and, indeed, profoundly Christian—pillars of hu-
man dignity: equality, fraternity, and liberty; the discovery,
almost two centuries later, of the communist revolutionaries,
was that universal, abstract reason is not enough to bring about
the complete elimination of inequality in society. For this rea-
son, Marx prescribed that the engine of social change should
no longer be the intangible ideas of the Enlightenment, but the
new science of evolution, based on the dialectical materialism
of history. This would no longer be content with partial change
but would aim to alter society radically through its most real
and concrete attribute: the means of production of material
goods. The suppression, first of private property, then of social
class, and, finally, state collectivism, would give birth to the
perfect society, just and at peace; a veritable paradise on Earth,
where everyone would be able to develop their talents in the

best possible way.19
The first step toward achieving this utopia was the eradica-
18. Ultimately, all revolutions arise because of a crisis, in the face of which a
number of options become available: a Nietzschean nostalgia for the past, an inac-
tive Heideggerian fatalism, and the revolutionary-utopian option of 1968. See on
this theme A. Megill, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Although the author does not refer
directly to the revolution of 1968, there are some interesting pointers to it, starting
with the change that can be observed in the work of Foucault as a result of the events
of May 1968 in France.
19. In any case, for Marx, as for Hegel, history proceeds in a necessary and inevi-
table manner, as H. Arendt notes: “Where yesterday, that is, in the happy days of En-
lightenment, only the despotic power of the monarch had seemed to stand between
man and his freedom to act, a much more powerful force had suddenly arisen which
compelled men at will, and from which there was no release, neither rebellion nor es-
cape, the force of history and historical necessity.” H. Arendt, On Revolution (Lon-
don: Penguin Books, 1990), 51.
36
tion of the bourgeois family which, according to Marx, is close-

ly linked to private property, since bourgeois thinking consid-
ers women as “mere instruments of production.”20 In any event,
Marx observes, first in his juvenilia and then in The German
Ideology, that however much the bourgeoisie tries to maintain
this superstructure, compelling social change will ensure that
a new model of the family gradually emerges, both within the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie itself. Indeed, a range of eco-
nomic and social factors puts the proletarian family at risk of
elimination: women working in factories encourages sexual
promiscuity; dilapidated, cramped housing obstructs human
relations between spouses and between parents and children,
apart from those concerning nutrition and reproduction.
Meanwhile, the bourgeois family remains stable in appearance
only, since its very foundations are undermined by extramar-
ital affairs and prostitution, which transform sexuality from a
productive force into a mere commodity. Despite being very
critical of the bourgeois family, Marx nonetheless opposes free
love, since the family, insofar as it is a natural institution, re-

mains essential, both for economic production and for the re-
production of the human race.
A different line of thought within Communism, however,
was to have a still greater influence on the coming sexual rev-
olution: the view of the family as an institution that oppresses
women. This was to be, for instance, the theory espoused by
Engels. Whereas Marx accepted the patriarchal view of mar-
riage and women, Engels, in his work “The Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State” (Der Ursprung der Familie, des
Privateigentums und des Staates), rejected it as contrary to Com-
20. K. Marx and F. Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Marx/En-

gels Selected Works, vol. 1, trans. Samuel Moore in cooperation with Frederick Engels
(1888; Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), 25.
37
munist ideology. In one of the texts most cited by feminists, he

maintains that “the first class oppression that appears in histo-
ry coincides with the development of the antagonism between
man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class
oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male.”21
Thus, it was Engels’s concept of a struggle between the sexes
that laid the foundations for the coming marriage of Marxism
and feminism, which was to culminate in the revolution of 1968.
If Engels’s communism influenced the sexual revolution,
so too did Freud’s psychoanalysis. Freud famously regards psy-
chological disorders, especially neuroses, as largely hinging on
regulation by the superego, heir of the so-called Oedipus Com-
plex. Thus, the development of the superego occurs when the
father figure’s threat to castrate his son, if the latter continues
to direct his sexual impulses toward his mother, is interior-
ized. Consequently, the principal function of this late-growing
structure of the psyche is to control the subject’s sexual drive.
When this control is too rigid to allow the repressed sexual en-
ergy to be discharged or sublimated, the ego becomes a battle-

ground for various forces, giving rise to imbalance and illness.
Freud further holds that to the restrictions associated with pa-
rental authority (and especially with the father figure), must be
added those that derive from society. Of these, perhaps one of
the most significant is the prohibition on anything that distanc-
es sexuality from its essential purpose: the reproduction of the
species. This makes sexual prohibitions appear to be predomi-
nantly social constraints.22 Such a view of sexual restrictions as
21. F. Engels, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” in
Marx/Engels Selected Works, vol. 3, trans. Alick West (1884; Online version: Marx/
Engels Internet Archive, 1993, 1999, 2000, marxists.org), 35.
22. Cf. S. Freud, “‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness (1908),”
in Sexuality and the Psychology of Love, ed. P. Rieff (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1963), 25.
38
purely social construction was, as we shall see, to play a deci-

sive role in radical feminism.
Thus, the sexual revolution of 1968 was born of the inten-
tion to destroy the two key institutions of the patriarchal soci-
ety, marriage and the family; because, according to the analysis
of Engels, and to some extent of Freud, these were the cause of
various forms of social, psychological, and existential oppres-
sion. One of the first advocates of a need to integrate Marxist
social analysis with psychoanalysis was the Austrian psycholo-
gist Wilhelm Reich, a pupil of Freud who studied the social role
of sexuality. He led, first in Vienna and later in Berlin, a Marxist
campaign for sexual liberation, creating Sex-pol in 1931, an or-
ganization that promoted proletarian sexual politics and even-
tually recruited fifty thousand young people to the war against
capitalism. Reich wrote The Sexual Struggle of Youth (1931) for
Sex-pol, in which he developed his theory of the origins of
psychological disorders in young people. According to Reich,
these are mainly caused by authoritarianism and sexual repres-
sion within the family, as they prevent young people from en-
joying life and combatting social injustice. In his view, the re-
pressive role played by the family is part of the capitalist order
which aims to impose on the lower classes both the economic
dominance of the ruling class and its ideology as well; in all
this, sexuality plays a crucial role as the instrument by which
values are transmitted. Through his organization, Reich set out
to help young people liberate their sexuality, this being, in his
view, a prerequisite for the full development of their critical fac-
ulties and capacity to take part in the political struggle.
Although Reich’s thought was influential in the incubation
of the sexual revolution, it was the French thinker Simone de
Beauvoir who was to act as its intellectual guide. Inspired by an
existential and Marxist vision, she thought that another, even
39
more radical, situation of class oppression needed to be add-

ed to the one denounced by Marxism: that of the female sex.
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” she affirmed,
in words that have become famous; because “woman is in large
part man’s invention.”23
In fact, according to Simone de Beauvoir, woman is no more
than the product of man’s possessive narcissism. She reached
this conclusion by reformulating Hegel’s theory of recognition
in terms of the existentialism of Sartre, her inspiration and sexu-
al companion. Unlike Hegel, she does not accept that in order to
become unique, consciousness must be recognized by another,
who thus causes it to pass from its initial empty being-in-itself
to its final being-for-itself. According to de Beauvoir, every per-
son possesses this uniqueness in himself, without the need to be
in relationship to another. For this reason, the loving relation-
ship between man and woman should not be understood in the
Hegelian sense as an attempt to become unique, but rather to
transform oneself into an absolute, that is, to become the center
of another consciousness. This is obtained by taking possession

of the consciousness of the loved one. Indeed, in de Beauvoir’s
view, the lover claims a special type of ownership. He wants
to possess a freedom as freedom; that is, that the Other—the
woman—be reduced to the object of his own power and recog-
nize herself as a part of his own universe; or rather, he desires
that the Other recognize him as a consciousness at the center of
her being.24
23. S. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley (London: Jonathan
Cape, 1953), 273 and 210.
24. “Appearing as the Other, woman appears at the same time as an abundance
of being in contrast to that existence the nothingness of which man senses in himself;
the Other, being regarded as the object in the eyes of the subject, is regarded as en-
soi [in-itself]; therefore as a being. In woman is incarnated in positive form the lack
the existent carries in his heart, and it is in seeking to be made whole through her
that man hopes to attain self-realization” (ibid., 161). It is easy to find in this an echo
40
De Beauvoir concludes, therefore, that the lover’s posses-

sive narcissism is not a mere possibility of eros, but its sole end.
Viewed in this way, the relationship between the lover and the
beloved, far from being the joyful communion of two free-
doms, is a place of alienation, since the beloved, once looked at
and desired, becomes a trap in which the lover loses his free-
dom. For in the being he desires, the lover identifies himself
with his own freedom; while the beloved, in becoming an ob-
ject, loses his. As Sartre writes:
I demand that the Other love me and I do everything possible to re-
alize my project: but if the Other loves me, he radically deceives me
by his very love. I demanded of him that he should found my being as
a privileged object by maintaining himself as pure subjectivity con-
fronting me; and as soon as he loves me, he experiences me as subject
and is swallowed up in his objectivity confronting my subjectivity.25
It is thus only in refusing to give oneself to another that one

may avoid the objectification of one’s own freedom. Lovers
must possess each other without giving themselves if they are
not to disappear as lovers. Yet such an understanding of the

erotic relationship leaves no room for any sort of union, not
even a physical one; and for this reason, sexual relations them-
selves ought, in the end, to disappear: “Two human beings as-
sociated in their transcendence, out into the world and through
their common projects, no longer need carnal union; and be-
cause this union has lost its meaning, they even find it repug-
nant.”26
If loving relationships can only be understood in terms of
narcissism, the position of woman is a tragic one: as the victim
of Sartre’s words: “The for-itself wishes to be identified with the Other’s freedom as
founding its own being-in-itself.” J.-P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel
Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1984), 365.
25. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 376.
26. De Beauvoir, Second Sex, 433.
41
of male oppression, she can never be absolute in relation to her

partner; or, if she does manage it, her achievement is not recog-
nized by society. According to de Beauvoir, it is only by grant-
ing women the same sexual freedom as men that this unjust sit-
uation can be overcome. In order to gain this end, it does not
suffice to concede certain specific rights to women; marriage
must be abolished, since its very principle is “obscene . . . in so
far as it transforms into rights and duties those mutual relations
which should be founded on a spontaneous urge.”27 More-
over, motherhood must also be abolished, as it is the cause of
so many internal and external conflicts for women, beginning
with the conflict resulting from the invasion of their bodies by
the fetus, which robs the woman of her individuality. Indeed, in
de Beauvoir’s view, it is immediately after sexual union that the
battle between the interests of the species and of the individual
woman begins. Abortion then looks like a choice women make
in favor of freedom, a choice in which the individual woman
is victorious over the atavistic power of the species. In order,
therefore, to arrive at the final goal of the revolution, it is not

enough to abolish private property. Beyond ownership there
remain the differences between man and woman, mother and
child, which are the source of countless injustices. Hence de
Beauvoir’s conclusion that as long as the family exists, society’s
transformation will not be complete.28 It is interesting to ob-
serve that she postulates the deconstruction of human sexual-
ity well before the coming of postmodernist deconstructivism.
She thus indicated the path for the radical feminist movements
to follow: women’s sexual liberation, the recognition of this lib-
27. Ibid., 432.

28. De Beauvoir appropriated a proclamation of the Soviet Comintern (Novem-
ber 16, 1942): “The revolution is impotent as long as the notion of family and family
relations subsists.” Ibid., 180.
42
eration by society, abortion, and the abolition of marriage and

the family.
Another thinker whose ideas significantly influenced the
sexual revolution was Marcuse, one of the greatest exponents,
together with Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, of the
so-called Frankfurter Schule (Frankfurt School). This is par-
ticularly true of his attempt to establish a new synthesis of psy-
choanalysis and Marxism. His work Eros and Civilization starts
from the Freudian position that sexuality obeys the pleasure
principle. But unlike Freud, who also speaks of a reality prin-
ciple to which pleasure needs to be subordinated, Marcuse de-
fends a sexuality without rules or limits. He asserts that if the
prohibitions imposed by the reality principle are removed, far
from falling victim to the aggressive impulses that, according
to the psychoanalysts, accompany the pleasure principle, we
will bring about a new, more creative and happy society. In or-
der to achieve this, Marcuse proposes the free play of sexuali-
ty and the eroticization, not only of the body but even of labor.
This means opening one’s erotic life to a greater range of urges,

so freeing it from sexual obsession and thus minimizing “the
manifestations of a pure sexuality.” In short, this means propel-
ling eros toward a non-repressive sublimation, which will allow
it to express a sense of the entirety of human existence; this re-
quires a transformation of the historic conditions of the very
activity of one’s working life, and of its processes and mean-
ings; that activity being no longer understood as a function, but
as a free expansiveness in which the individual participates.29
A few years after the publication of this book, Marcuse had
to admit that nonrepressive sublimation had not only failed to
make the slightest dent in the foundations of the capitalist sys-
29. H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1955), 201.
43
tem, but had reduced eros to an object of consumption, a “local-

ized sexuality” in the “erotogenic zones.”30 In short, he accept-
ed that he had been mistaken: sexual freedom, even in its most
unlimited form, was not a real alternative to the repression of
eros, but actually coincided with its debasement.31 Rather than
being used for individuals’ liberation, unrepressed energy had
been transformed into an instrument of greater consumption,
and therefore of the increase of capital, not of life. Eros had be-
come, in the last analysis, a strategic function of the market.32
Radical Feminism
Aside from being the result of a synthesis of various schools of
thought from the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth
century, the sexual revolution of 1968 was the starting point for
a series of cultural movements that for the rest of the last cen-
tury were to change the customs and modes of thought and ac-
tion of Western society, with, above all, an abiding influence on
feminism.
As is well known, feminism was born in the eighteenth cen-
tury, with the aim of steering relations between men and wom-
30. H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), 75–78.

31. Here he demonstrates that Freud was correct when, in speaking of libido,
he insisted that it must be submitted to norms: “An obstacle is required in order to
heighten libido; and where natural resistances to satisfaction have not been sufficient,
men have at all times erected conventional ones in order to enjoy love.” S. Freud, “On
the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love (Contributions to the
Psychology of Love II, 1912),” in Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol.
11, ed. J. Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1961). Indeed, such a view of eros is limit-
ed, since it is not enough for it not to become pornographic or consumerist; it must be
integrated into human love, which is called to be gift.
32. As Erich Fromm noted, in capitalist societies the model or criterion of love
becomes one of exchange, and the question of love no longer concerns a way of life,
consisting instead in finding an object worth acquiring. See E. Fromm, The Art of
Loving (New York: Harper & Row, 1956), 65–84.
44
en toward a situation of complete moral and legal parity.33 This

first-wave feminism, which could for this reason be called fem-
inism of equality, was to be engulfed by a second feminist wave
whose goal was to carry out the program devised by Simone de
Beauvoir, opposing marriage and the family.
This second feminist movement is called “radical” because
it holds that the root (Latin radix) of all social inequality is pa-
triarchy, that is, the family structure in which women are subor-
dinate to men. Patriarchy, in turn, is viewed by these feminists
as the necessary consequence of sexual differentiation based
on what they see as the false belief that men and women are es-
sentially different.34 Over the past fifty years, this feminism has
given rise to a number of ever more extreme movements, from
those positing matriarchy as the only relationship between
women and men, to those that view sexuality as a mere cultur-
al and social construction. The latter contention is exemplified
by the approach of the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone.
Her major work, The Dialectic of Sex, is, as she explains in the
introduction, an attempt to rethink the feminism of de Beau-

voir, starting from Engels’s idea that the division of labor is the
origin of social class. Firestone holds that the primary division
of labor is between the sexes, especially by reason of the attri-
bution of reproduction and motherhood to women. This, in her
33. It was the first work of feminism, Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la
citoyenne [Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen], written by
Olympe de Gouges in 1791, that led to it becoming famous; as well as Mary Woll-
stonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792.
34. The transformation of early feminism into its radical form is deftly summa-
rized by the well-known Italian sociologist Pierpaolo Donati: “the idea of moral and
legal parity was transformed, to some degree, into the elimination of the differences
that men and women sense are necessary in their own personal lives; and, in other
respects, into a mistaken interchangeability of identity and roles, which has caused
distress all round, to men as much as to women.” P. Donati, “Famiglia e gender: fra
omogeneizzazione e nuove differenziazioni,” in Uomo e donna in famiglia, ed. P. Do-
nati (Cinisello Balsamo [Milan]: Edizioni San Paolo, 1997), 21.
45
view, is where the origin of sexual, and indeed social, class dif-
ference lies. In order, therefore, to ensure the eradication of the
sexual classes, she encourages the underclass (women) to rise
in revolt and take control of reproduction, regaining ownership
of their own bodies and control over human fertility, which
includes both the new technologies and the social institutions
relating to the birth and care of children. Thus, the definitive
aim of the feminist revolution is, unlike the first feminist move-
ment, the radical transformation of society: “not just the elim-
ination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: geni-
tal differences between human beings would no longer matter
culturally.”35 Firestone thinks that this is the only way in which
socialism’s political agenda can be completely realized; for up
to that point it had paid little heed to the psychosexual roots of
social class.
Although de Beauvoir had upheld the need to create a new
society without marriage or motherhood, the conditions for
achieving this did not exist, either in theoretical or practical
terms; it was a project more to be desired than capable of re-

alization. However, the situation changed profoundly: radical
feminists such as Firestone spoke not only of marriage and
motherhood as the sources of female oppression, but also of
women’s role in the “bearing and education of children,” and,
above all, of natural sexual difference itself. Because, for these
feminists, “the natural is not necessarily a human value. Hu-
manity has begun to transcend Nature: we can no longer jus-
tify the maintenance of a discriminatory sex class system on
grounds of its origins in nature. Indeed, for pragmatic reasons
alone, it is beginning to look as if we must get rid of it.”36
35. S. Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Female Revolution (New York:
Bantam Books, 1970), 12.
36. Ibid., 10. Very similar ideas can be found in Nancy Chodorow, who maintains
46
Despite their utopian character, Firestone’s words mirror

the significant changes that have taken place within Western
culture and society. For, while talk of marriage and mother-
hood as obstacles to women’s emancipation has become dated,
owing to a series of changes in legislation and custom (such as
unrestricted abortion, contraception, and complete sexual free-
dom), another gamut of changes still underway (the develop-
ment of women’s work outside the home, techniques of in vi-
tro fertilization, the existence of publicly available childcare)
seems to point in the direction of a solution to the other stum-
bling block as well: that of “discrimination” in women’s educa-
tion. However, contrary to the view held by Firestone, it is not
evident on today’s cultural horizon, except in the far distance,
that sexual difference lacks social significance.
Gender Ideology
How, then, can the radical feminists’ expectation of achieving
this goal in the not-too-distant future be explained? The an-

swer, in my view, is to be found in so-called gender ideology.37
As we have seen, this ideology is based on a vision of human
sexuality in which the difference between men and women, as
that “Social reproduction is thus asymmetrical. Women in their domestic role repro-
duce men and children physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Women in their
domestic role as houseworkers reconstitute themselves physically on a daily basis and
reproduce themselves as mothers, emotionally and psychologically, in the next gener-
ation. They thus contribute to the perpetuation of their own social roles and position
in the hierarchy of gender.” N. Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1978), 209.
37. A distinction should be made between, on the one hand, so-called gender
studies and gender theory, and on the other, so-called gender ideology. The former
relate to the study of how female and male stereotypes, which lie at the root of unjust
differences in the spheres of family and society, have been built in time, history, and
culture; the latter maintains that identity as male and female is itself a cultural and
social product.
47
it relates to the body (so-called sex), is irrelevant, because sex-

uality is merely a social construction (so-called gender). Judith
Butler may perhaps be considered the clearest exponent of the
principles of this new ideology: gender is a cultural construction
and is therefore neither a causal result of sex nor thus apparently
fixed, like sex. “When the constructed status of gender is the-
orized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a
free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man and mas-
culine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one,
and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female
one.”38 This text might seem to be taken from a science fiction
fantasy in which the dictator in charge launches his program
of re-education for the younger generations; but it is, in fact, a
paragraph from Butler’s book Gender Trouble: Feminism and
the Subversion of Identity, used as a textbook for many years in
a number of women’s studies programs at prestigious American
universities, which vigorously promote a gender perspective.
Gender ideology, then, is radically dualist, in that it sep-
arates the body from gender, ascribing the latter primarily to

the realm of freedom. Although gender ideology is used by
the feminist movement, its exponents do not, however, iden-
tify it with feminism. Feminism is concerned in the first place
with female identity and the family and social problems faced
by women. Gender ideology, by contrast, has a broader scope,
both in political terms and in terms of its personal and social
implications. On the political front, gender ideology seeks a
recognition of the right of every individual to choose how to
combine body and desired gender. In cultural terms, gender
ideology maximizes individualism and undermines the body’s
symbolic and relational signifiers. Thus, one’s sexual identity,
38. J. Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York:
Routledge, 1990), 6.
48
relations between men and women, marriage, the family, and

social ties are radically transformed.
Christina Hoff Sommers coined the term “gender femi-
nism” to describe the fusion of feminism and gender ideolo-
gy, which is to be distinguished both from preceding feminist
movements (especially that concerned with equity) and from
the radical feminist movement.39
Most American women subscribe philosophically to that older “First
wave” kind of feminism whose main goal is equity, especially in poli-
tics and education. A First Wave, “mainstream,” or “equity” feminist
wants for women what she wants for everyone: fair treatment, without
discrimination. . . . The equity agenda may not yet be fully achieved,
but by any reasonable measure, equity feminism has turned out to be
a great American success story. Heilbrun, Steinem, and other current
feminist notables ride this First Wave for its popularity and its mor-
al authority, but most of them adhere to a new, more radical, “Second
Wave” doctrine: that women, even modern American women, are in
thrall to “a system of male dominance” variously referred to as “het-
eropatriarchy” or the sex/gender system. According to one feminist
theorist, the sex/gender system is “that complex process whereby
bi-sexual infants are transformed into male and female gender per-
sonalities, the one destined to command, the other to obey.” Sex/gen-
der feminism (“gender feminism” for short) is the prevailing ideology
among contemporary feminist philosophers and leaders. But it lacks a
grass roots constituency.40
39. “Classical equality of opportunity feminism (I call it ‘freedom feminism’)

is a legitimate human rights movement. There were arbitrary laws holding women
back. Women organized and set things right. But, as I try to show in my writings, [the]
reality-based movement has been hijacked by male-averse, conspiracy-minded activ-
ists. (I call them ‘gender feminists.’)” C. Hoff Sommers, “Christina Sommers: Author,
Who Stole Feminism?” interview by Katie Tandy, Ravishly magazine (July 18, 2014),
https://ravishly.com/ladies-we-love/christina-sommers-author-who-stole-feminism.
40. C. Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 22.
49
The history of the relationship between gender ideology

and feminism is linked to the semantic change in the word
“gender” that took place around the 1970s. Up until then, the
word “gender” was a grammatical term, used to indicate wheth-
er a word was masculine or feminine; or, in languages with a
third gender, neuter. The semantic extension of the word “gen-
der” from the realm of grammar to that of human sexuality was
owing, first and foremost, to the work of John Money, a sexol-
ogist at Johns Hopkins University, who coined the expression
“gender identity” to describe the individual’s consciousness
of him- or herself as male or female.41 According to Money, a
person’s gender depends on the education received in infancy,
rather than on biological sex, and this can result in opposition
between the two. Money pushed this theory so far as to main-
tain that a person’s education could be used to change their
gender identity.42
41. For a study of how the term “gender” came to be used as a substitute for “sex,”
see D. Haig, “The Inexorable Rise of Gender and the Decline of Sex: Social Change
in Academic Titles, 1945–2001,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 33, no. 2 (2004), 87–96.
42. Money’s theories, which were highly successful among various activist
groups, seemed to be borne out by the famous case of a monozygotic twin whose pe-
nis was cut off in a botched circumcision. On Money’s advice, the boy was castrated
and raised as a girl. Money claimed in his book (co-authored by Anke A. Ehrhardt),
Man and Woman, Boy and Girl: Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from
Conception to Maturity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), that the
boy had completely adapted to his female identity. A 1997 article by Dr. Milton Dia-
mond, an expert on the effect of prenatal testosterone on brain development, revealed
that Money had not accurately reported the outcome of the case of the twins (cf. M.
Diamond and H. K. Sigmundson, “Sex Reassignment at Birth: A Long Term Review
and Clinical Implications,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 151, no. 3
[1997]: 298–304). Diamond had never accepted Money’s theory that socialization
could supersede biological identity. He had, over the years, made various efforts to
trace the twin described by Money, to establish how the boy had coped with adoles-
cence. He managed to contact a therapist from the establishment that had treated the
twin and found that the experiment had been a complete failure. The twin had never
accepted being female or adapted to a female role. He had shown suicidal tendencies
at the age of 14. One of the many therapists providing him with psychological support
had encouraged his parents to tell him the truth. No sooner had he found out that he
50
Thus, what would become the third wave of feminism, gen-

der feminism, found in Money’s theories the scientific endorse-
ment so long sought by some radical feminists such as Fires-
tone. The concept of gender as a mere social construct soon
established itself as part of their terminology.43 During the sev-
enties, the already well-established term “gender” became om-
nipresent in women’s studies programs, thus henceforth known
as gender studies. The rise of the concept of gender as social
construction also produced a change in outlook: the focus of
feminism shifted from the eradication of policies that disad-
vantaged women to the eradication of anything that might ad-
mit the existence of difference between the genders, whether
in policy, education, or family.44 The ultimate objective of this
kind of feminism may be found in Susan Moller Okin’s book
Justice, Gender and the Family, in which she looks forward to a
future without gender differences:
was a boy than he decided to live his life as a male. He underwent highly complex re-
constructive surgery and got married. The whole story of the twins was documented
in a book by John Colapinto, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
(New York: HarperCollins, 2000).
43. Commenting on Money’s work in her book Sexual Politics, Kate Millett
wrote: “Psychosexually . . . there is no differentiation between the sexes at birth. Psy-
chosexual personality is therefore postnatal and learned.” K. Millett, Sexual Politics
(New York: Avon Books, 1970), 54.
44. This change can be seen in the various documents on women’s rights pub-
lished by the United Nations. Before 1990, these referred exclusively to the eradica-
tion of discrimination against women. From 1990 on, new concepts such as gender,
reproductive health, and sexual orientation begin to make an appearance. The 1995
United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing marked a decisive change
in this respect: the final document invited the nations to “integrate a gender per-
spective” so as to eliminate definitively the sources of discrimination, since “in many
countries, the differences between women’s and men’s achievements and activities
are still not recognized as the consequences of socially constructed gender roles rath-
er than immutable biological differences.” United Nations, “Action for Development,
Equality and Peace–Platform for Action,” Fourth World Conference on Women, Bei-
jing, September 4–5, 1995, chap. 2, no. 27.
51
A just future would be one without gender. In its social structures
and practices, one’s sex would have no more relevance than one’s
eye color or the length of one’s toes. . . . If we are to be at all true to
our democratic ideals, moving away from gender is essential. Obvi-
ously, the attainment of such a social world requires major changes
in a multitude of institutions and social settings outside the home, as
well as within it. Such changes will not happen overnight. Moreover,
any present solution to the vulnerability of women and children that
is just and respects individual freedom must take into account that
most people currently live in ways that are greatly affected by gender,
and most still favor many aspects of current, gendered practices.45
Such a revolutionary future presupposes a society that metic-

ulously examines every aspect of culture, to detect, on the one
hand, evidence of socialization between the genders and on
the other, any remaining instances of discrimination based on
male-female difference.
In the 1990s, gender ideology enjoyed undisputed domi-
nance of the cultural and political scene in Western democra-
cies, sparking wide-ranging legal and social reforms that led
to a range of laws against discrimination on the grounds of

gender.46 However, the spread of some of the ideas of gender
ideology, especially in the United States and some European
countries, cannot be explained merely in terms of the wacky
theories of a few scientists or the radicalism of a band of fem-
inists. We will need to invoke an ideology whose origins lie in
45. S. Moller Okin, Justice, Gender and the Family (New York: Basic Books, Inc.,
1989), 171–72.
46. “The voices of young women should be heard since sexual life is not solely
attached to married life. This leads to the point of the right to be different, whether
in terms of lifestyle—the choice to live in a family or to live alone, with or without
children—or sexual preferences. The reproductive rights of lesbian women should be
recognized” (Council of Europe, Equality and Democracy: Utopia or Challenge? Palais
de l’Europe, Strasbourg, February 9–11, 1995). These reproductive “‘rights” include
the “right” of lesbian couples to conceive children by artificial insemination and le-
gally to adopt their partners’ children.
52
so-called French poststructuralism, in particular in the work of

the French thinker and social theorist Foucault on human sex-
uality.47
Foucault, as is well known, positioned the study of sexuality
within his analysis of power. In his view, the major seat of pow-
er does not lie with the state, or in the economy, but in social
activities such as work, medicine, psychiatry, and the scientific
and socioscientific disciplines, which, by turning individuals
into types, have created the categories of modern identity, such
as the workman, the student, the father or mother, etc. Anyone
who distances himself from the corresponding institutions
(factory, school, family) is a social outcast, such as a prisoner
or homosexual, and is forced to undergo punitive treatment—
deprivation of liberty, psychiatric treatment, or social stigma.
Thus, concludes Foucault, it is the institutions and their prac-
tices that create both social categories and marginal identities.
This productive effect of power is strengthened by the social
repetition of the norms and discourse which constructed these
categories, forcing individuals to monitor themselves, punish

themselves, and adapt to society’s norms if they are to re-enter
normal life.48
47. Both Foucault and Derrida were also influenced by the work of Nietzsche
and Heidegger, especially on the question of truth and the death of the subject. “Two
elements can be noted in both approaches. Firstly, truth does not amount to a ‘true
proposition,’ but rather to a general order of the world, a ‘historic structure,’ a form
of life or an epoch of being. Secondly, the inauguration of this new epoch does not
depend on the individual and his or her decision, for only in such a new world could
a person capable of such a decision be born. At most, the arrival of the new era and
the birth of the decisive individual can only surface together.” G. Vattimo, The Ad-
venture of Difference: Philosophy after Nietzsche and Heidegger, trans. Cyprian Blamires
and Thomas Harrison (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 55. The
two elements can be traced in the interpretive character of what classical philosophy
calls reality; in The Will to Power, Nietzsche states that there are no facts, only inter
pretations.
48. See M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York:
Vintage Books, 1995).
53
On this basis, Foucault can present “sexuality” as an “his-

toric dispositif ” of power which originates in something that
has to do, not with the body, but with an established discourse
on sexuality. By shifting sexuality’s origin from the body to
discourse, Foucault imbues it with power: what is involved in
the discourse on sexuality is not a pre-existing sexual reality,
but rather the actual generation of sexuality. Thus, discourse
on sexuality gives rise to a normative semantics of sex, which
accordingly influences the social practices with which we tend
to regulate it. In The History of Sexuality in particular, Foucault
maintained that the predominant discourse on sexuality gives
rise to practices that exclude homosexuality as a marginal iden-
tity.49 The main strategic aim of this work is to demonstrate
that this exclusion is completely arbitrary. Indeed, Foucault
counters the current discourse on sexuality and the family by
proposing one that destroys identities as hitherto recognized.
The subversive power of this kind of discourse increases insofar
as it defines itself as purely discursive and can therefore oppose
the prevailing discourse on equal terms, thus exposing its arbi-

trary character.50
But how can the dominant discourse in any particular cul-
ture be successfully given a new direction? According to Fou-
cault, a new discourse on sexuality is always possible because
no discourse succeeds in completely cementing the process of
social categorization, in the sense that the body never adapts to
49. See M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 3 vols. (London: Penguin Books,
1990–98).
50. Foucault did not align himself with the so-called “action groups,” as he op-
posed the notion of a definitive discourse. “As a thinker of crisis, he is implicitly com-
mitted to the notion that the reigning order, whatever its nature, is degraded. . . . He is
willing to ally himself with these groups insofar as they are able to mount challenges
to the existing order, attacking that order at one or another of its weak points. But
insofar as they are committed to establishing new, allegedly liberating orders, he re-
mains highly suspicious of them.” Megill, Prophets of Extremity, 239.
54
the norms that attempt to ensure its total objectification. For

this reason, sexuality can be destabilized by that same process
of repetition and practice, and this can give rise to a new sort of
discourse and new practices, by means of which the categories
still in force in society can be altered. Hence the importance of
creating alternative types of discourse as instruments of resis-
tance against sexual marginalization.
Foucault’s ideas had a profound influence on various fem-
inists who defended lesbianism, such as Adrienne Rich and
Judith Butler. They viewed the most basic disciplinary practice
of sexual discourse as “compulsory heterosexuality,” which
shaped personal identity, dividing the human population into
two kinds linked to the two sexes and with two different ori-
entations in terms of sexual desire: one being the man, with a
male body and desire for women; the other the woman, with
a female body and desire for men. In order to overcome this
legacy of the patriarchal society, Rich recommends a change
of paradigm within feminism: tolerance of lesbianism as an al-
ternative lifestyle is not enough; what is needed is “to inform

all women that heterosexual penetration is rape, whatever their
subjective experience to the contrary.”51
In a more academic, but equally vehement style, Butler also
criticizes the heterosexualization of desire, which “requires
and institutes the production of discrete and asymmetrical op-
positions between ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine,’ where these are
understood as expressive attributes of ‘male’ and ‘female.’”52
Following Foucault’s line of thinking, she maintains that these
oppositions mask the male will to power. In her opinion, fem-
inism must reveal the inheritance hidden in the discourse of
51. A. Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in Blood,

Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1979–1985 (London: Virago, 1978), 70.
52. Butler, Gender Trouble, 17.
55
sexual difference as a norm governing sexual practice; because

this difference is discursive rather than natural. In concrete
terms, it is built on a regulatory discourse hinging on the co-
herence of body and desire, like the one that exists between
the male body and desire for women. According to Butler, hu-
man sexuality has nothing to do with chromosomes or genital
organs, or with pre-established desire, but purely with its own
performance. By means of the repetition of specific acts, sex-
uality achieves a kind of ritualization, which should not, how-
ever, necessarily exclude other performative possibilities.53 For
this reason, continues Butler, we need to commit ourselves to
“re-signifying” it, that is, to accepting marginal identities (gay,
lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, etc.) as having positive value. An
example of this would be the proud assertion of a lesbian iden-
tity. Re-signification therefore contains “a double movement
to invoke the category and, hence, provisionally to institute an
identity and at the same time to open the category as a site of
permanent political contest.”54
Butler also drew on J. L. Austin’s theory of language for the

development of her performative theory of sexuality, modified
in part by the influence of Derrida, one of the fathers of decon-
struction. Alongside a descriptive theory of language, Aus-
tin famously posited a performative one, according to which
utterances not only signify what they say, but also produce it.
53. “Performativity cannot be understood outside of a process of iterability, a reg-

ularized and constrained repetition of norms. And this repetition is not performed by
a subject; this repetition is what enables a subject and constitutes the temporal con-
dition for the subject. This iterability implies that ‘performance’ is not a singular ‘act’
or event, but a ritualized production, a ritual reiterated under and through constraint,
under and through the force of prohibition and taboo, with the threat of ostracism
and even death controlling and compelling the shape of the production, but not, I will
insist, determining it fully in advance.” J. Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive
Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993), 95.
54. Ibid., 165.
56
He arrived at this conclusion having studied the meaning of ut-

terances such as “I know that . . .” and “I promise that . . . ,” in
which the truth of what is said is proven by what is “done.” If I
say I know something, but later do not know how to do it, I do
not really know it; similarly, if I promise something and later do
not do it, I have not kept my promise. Austin concludes that it
is a mistake to claim that these utterances are descriptive, since
by making them we are not describing an action but carrying
it out.55 For this reason, they should be described as performa-
tive. In his later work, How to Do Things with Words, he clarified
that performative utterances are really actions in which two
conditions must always be met: the circumstances in which the
words are spoken must be appropriate; and the speaker and his
interlocutor must generally carry out other actions as well, ei-
ther physical or mental, or must utter other words. Thus, when
a bridegroom says to his bride: “I take you as my lawful wedded
wife,” puts a ring on her finger, and promises to remain faithful
to her, he is not stating something, but making her his wife.56
Butler applies Austin’s performative theory to the question of

gender. According to her, gender does not exist prior to its re-
alization; that is, when it is played out through performative
55. J. L. Austin, “Other Minds,” Aristotelian Society Supplementary 20, no. 1
(1946): 103.
56. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures deliv-
ered at Harvard University in 1955, ed. James O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1962), 9. However, in the course of his paper, Austin goes beyond
the distinction between performative and constative utterances (such as that be-
tween happy and true as exclusive characteristics of every one of these two types of
utterance), ending up with a global theory of language as action. In fact, he holds that
the dimensions of felicity or infelicity can be detected in all utterances, including
those which are not explicitly performative; and that the dimensions of truth or false-
hood may be found in many utterances that are not purely constative. Only two as-
pects of the original distinction remain: when we speak of a performative utterance,
we emphasize its operative aspect, its capacity to produce conventional effects in
appropriate circumstances; when we speak of a constative utterance, this operativity
becomes less intense, and it is the spoken dimension that predominates.
57
language and the norms that codify it. Gender begins at birth,
with the doctor’s exclamation “It’s a girl!” and continues with
the rituals that all societies use to mold it. Butler therefore
holds that the performative acts that make gender are forms of
“authoritative speech,” because once uttered, they produce a
specific effect on individuals, exercising an unshakable power
over them. Furthermore, performative language confers power
on the action carried out. Butler infers from this that gender is a
sphere in which power acts like discourse.57
Unlike Austin, Butler does not accept the existence of a
subject who carries out these acts. In her view, “I” neither pre-
cedes nor follows the construction of gender but manifests it-
self only as a matrix within gender relations themselves.58 But
how can we speak of interpretation, if there is no actor? Butler
attempts to resolve this problem by borrowing Derrida’s con-
cept of iteration, which states that linguistic signs can be shift-
ed to different contexts and uttered and repeated in unexpected
ways, thus evading the original intentions of their author.59 In-
deed, a subject is not necessary; the signs, or (in Butler’s case)

the discourse and sexual practices suffice for the performative
character of sexuality to be realized. In short, Butler does not
regard the realization of gender as implying the existence of a
responsible agent. Since we always adapt to an existing discur-
sive practice, its interpretation is perpetuated insofar as it is it-
erable, and its effects influence the agent himself. Furthermore,
the iteration also permits us to re-signify and replace the signs;
and this, when applied to the question of gender, is tantamount
to claiming that it is impossible to achieve a final identity.
57. Butler, Gender Trouble, 225.

58. Butler, Bodies That Matter, 7.
59. Cf. J. Derrida, Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1984).
58
Despite the deluge of criticism from feminist quarters of

re-signification and its absolute arbitrariness, the theory of sex-
ual discourse as the origin of sexuality was accepted as a key
component of a type of feminism that may be termed gender
feminism. This is especially true of the discourse on compulso-
ry heterosexuality, sexual orientation, and the need to change
the terminology of sexual language.60 Fraser, for instance, sug-
gests that feminism inspired by Foucault should integrate its
emphasis on social construction with an analysis that allows
for both social criticism and a “utopian hope” that encourages
women to interpret their interests.61 For however much history
may have discredited Marxist theories, gender feminists con-
tinue to think in Marxist categories. They regard revolutionary
practice, not as the work of an individual, but of a class—wom-
en—whose target is the historical (and political) construction
of a world that does not yet exist, but which was predicted by
Nietzsche: an ultrametaphysical and ultrahuman world.62
Taking this synthesis of poststructuralism and Marxism as
its starting point, gender feminism sets out to inspect language,
60. As Nussbaum indicates, Butler is not able to explain why re-signification is

needed, or when it becomes oppressive and reactionary, since she views opposition to
power in individualist and voluntarist terms. Cf. M. C. Nussbaum, “The Professor of
Parody: The Hip Defeatism of Judith Butler,” The New Republic 22, no. 2 (1999) 37–45.
61. Cf. N. Fraser, Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the “Postsocialist” Con-
dition, (New York: Routledge, 1997), 218. Fraser thinks that the trick to achieving this
end is to imagine “a social world in which citizens’ lives integrate wage earning, care-
giving, community activism, political participation, and involvement in the associa-
tional life of civil society—while also leaving time for some fun. . . . And unless we are
guided by this vision now, we will never get closer to achieving it.” Ibid., 62.
62. In this context, it is interesting to note the overlap between this sort of fem-
inism and so-called weak thought: “After the decline of the subject, the only way to
restore meaning to the notion of testimony, as well as to that historical action on the
part of human beings to which the notion of testimony is tied, is to rid ourselves of
all residual objectivism in our conception of Being. At the same time we must stop
thinking of the bourgeois/Christian individual as the only possible subject of history
and the only center of initiative.” Vattimo, Adventure of Difference, 57–58.
59
with a view to fitting it for a new kind of discourse, opposed to

the traditional one; a discourse on gender rather than biological
sex. Hence the link between gender feminism and homosexual
activism. What they have in common is the deconstruction of
heterosexual marriage and the family, seeking, firstly, to loosen
the association of marriage with the union of man and woman,
in terms of social practice; and secondly, to adapt the semantics
of the family to the idea of gender, so that it is not the marriage
of a man and a woman that gives rise to a family, but their gen-
ders, whatever the affective union between them. The feminist
view is that differences between men and women, produced by
society, force women into dependence on men; and therefore,
freedom for women consists above all in liberating themselves
from “socially constructed gender roles.” For this reason, some
feminists advise
find[ing] ways of providing support for women to identify their inter-
ests with women rather than with their personal duties to men within
the family context. This requires the establishment of a self-defined rev-
olutionary feminist women’s culture, which can ideologically and ma-

terially support women “outside the patriarchy.” Counter-hegemonic
cultural and material support networks can provide woman-identified
substitutes for patriarchal sex-affective production, to give women in-
creased control over their bodies, their labor time and their sense of
self.63
63. A. Ferguson and N. Folbre, “The Unhappy Marriage of Patriarchy and Cap-
italism,” in Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism
and Feminism (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1981), 330. Within radical feminism, the
term hegemonic has a unique meaning, referring to current male supremacy in all
spheres of society and culture. It is therefore possible to speak of radical feminism
as antihegemonic but aiming to become hegemonic by inverting hegemony to one of
woman, or better, of a kind of woman, that is, a radical feminist. This is a kind of total-
itarian feminism, which seeks “control of morality, that is, of the means of establish-
ing what is just, while simultaneously eliminating a sense of belonging to any struc-
ture that could suggest a different morality.” A. Nucci, La donna a una dimensione.
Femminismo antagonista ed egemonia culturale (Milan: Marietti, 2006), 16.
60
Thus, they support the promotion of contraception, abortion,

and other means by which women can take control of their own
bodies in terms of reproduction. For this new feminist culture
to prevail, the so-called traditional family must be eradicated
and replaced with new forms of family. The aim is to ensure that
“male homosexuality, lesbianism, and extramarital sexual rela-
tions should no longer be seen in the liberal manner as alterna-
tive options . . . that the very institution of sexual relations, in
which the male and the female each play a clearly defined role,
should disappear. Humanity could finally take back its natural
sexuality, characterized by polymorphic perverseness.”64
The alliance of gender feminism and gay culture constitut-
ed a subversive force capable of challenging the hegemony of
the concept of the family. However, a direct assault on the fam-
ily involved risk: if its defenders felt under attack, they might
react by opposing the changes. In order to avoid a negative
social reaction, some feminists suggested presenting the new
models as alternative forms of interpreting human relations.65
This seems to have been the tactic that prevailed among gender
feminists. Sure enough, alongside the so-called “traditional”
family, gender ideologists succeeded in introducing to the col-
lective imagination the existence of, or at least the possibility
of other models of affective relationships, for which the same
rights were demanded as those accruing to the family.
The ultimate goal of the deconstruction put in place by
gender ideology is, therefore, a semantic change in the terms
used in sexual discourse: “affective cohabitation” instead of
marriage, “union of genders” instead of family, parent A and
64. A. Jaggar, “Political Philosophies of Women’s Liberation,” in Feminism and

Philosophy (Totowa, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1977), 13.
65. Cf. C. Riddiough, “Socialism, Feminism and Gay/Lesbian Liberation,” in
Women and Revolution ed. Lydia Sargent (Boston: South End Press, 1981), 87.
61
B instead of father and mother,66 etc. In order to disseminate

such ideas around the world, the promoters of gender feminism
mean to achieve gradual cultural change, the so-called decon-
struction of society, starting with the education of children
and adolescents.67 The German Uwe Sielert, one of the main
ideologues of “sexual diversity education,” maintains on the
home page of the Cologne-based Federal Centre for Health Ed-
ucation, that when a gender perspective determines curricula
and textbooks, it will be possible to separate sexuality from the
person as a “fount of energy” to be channeled independently of
marriage and love. Heterosexuality, begetting of children, and
the nuclear family will thus become “de-natured” (entnatural-
isiert). Like other LGBTQI authors, Sielert does not view either
heterosexuality or the family as natural, but rather as purely
cultural interpretations. Therefore, de-naturing here means un-
raveling the historic and social processes that have led to their
being considered natural.
However, deconstruction is not to end there. The queer
transsexual Kate Bornstein wants it to include the category of

gender itself, with a view to deconstructing the very system
of gender.68 This is necessary in order to avoid handing down
66. See J. Burggraf, “Gender,” in Lexicon: Ambiguous and Debatable Terms Re-
garding Family Life and Ethical Questions (Front Royal, Va.: Human Life Internation-
al, 2006), 399–408.
67. The well-known German sociologist Manfred Spieker breaks down the po-
litical implementation of gender in Germany into three phases: legislation govern-
ing the registration of civil unions (2001); new policies on families and births (2006);
and the compulsory teaching of “sexual diversity education” in schools (2003).
M. Spieker, Gender-Mainstreaming in Deutschland. Konsequenzen für Staat, Ge-
sellschaft und Kirchen (Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2015), 19–25.
68. Although the term “queer” has negative connotations in English (strange, ab-
normal, deviant), it has been used by feminists such as Bornstein, Butler, and de Lau-
rentis to denote something positive: any kind of sexual behavior that challenges ho-
mosexual/heterosexual binarism and essentialism. The term is used to deconstruct
identities considered natural, showing how these are merely complex socio-cultural
configurations, employed with a view to repressing all other possible identities.
62
compulsory heterosexuality to future generations, since “Gen-

der assignment happens when the culture says: ‘This is what
you are.’ In most cultures, we’re assigned a gender at birth. In
our culture once you’ve been assigned a gender, that’s what you
are and for the most part, it’s doctors who dole out the gender
assignments, which shows you how emphatically gender has
been medicalized.” 69 And thus, “gender means class. By calling
gender a system of classification, we can dismantle the system
and examine its components.”70
It is clear from what has been said, that gender ideology in-
volves deconstruction of the very category of gender, in that it
seeks to involve the genders in ambiguity and permanent in-
stability and thus ensure the elimination of any sort of closed
category. Hence the ousting by some authors of the notion of
category, resulting both in absence of gender (gender-neutral-
ity), and in the total discarding of any consideration of gender
at all. In this context, the story of Norrie Welby, an icon of the
third sex, is particularly illuminating. Having moved from
Scotland to Australia with his parents as a child, Welby decided

in 1990 to undergo surgery in order to become a woman. Lat-
er, however, Welby decided to stop hormone therapy, halting
the transition midway. After more surgery “to have no prede-
termined sexual gender,” Welby began a battle for recognition
of “his” new status. Five years ago, the Sydney registry office,
which had for some time refused to offer a third checkbox for
sex, agreed to register Welby as “non-specific.”71
69. K. Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us (New York:
Vintage Books, 1995), 22.
70. Ibid.
71. “The High Court is the highest court that we have. They’ve made very clear
indications in their judgement that people of non-binary gender identities are in
the community and they need to be recognized legally,” according to Sam Ruther-
ford of the organization A Gender Agenda (see “Gender Ruling: High Court Rec-
ognises Third Category of Sex,” ABC News, April 2, 2014, http://www.abc.net.au/
63
Furthermore, gender feminists clearly understand the role

traditionally played by women within society as mothers, ed-
ucators, and transmitters of traditional and religious values.
Hence the carefully programmed action that the movement
is pursuing on two fronts: in terms of the individual, by en-
couraging conflict between men and women in all spheres of
existence,72 and on the social front, by disseminating a kind
of recreational-experimental, or entirely hedonistic, concept
of happiness. While the support of the LGBTQI movement
is needed to do battle on the first front, the war being waged
on the second is underpinned by a radical socialist ideology,
which has replaced the old idea of the Marxist paradise with
an efficient, technological society, all the individual members
of which can satisfy their desires; for it is to this that the sole
freedom remaining to postmodern man has been reduced.73
The right to pursue this happiness brings with it the transfor-
mation of these desires (such as the free exercise of sexuality,
news/2014–04–02/high-court-recognises-gender-neutral/5361362). There are similar

cases in Europe: in Sweden, Germany, and France. The German case is closest to the
Australian one. In 2013, the German parliament enacted a law that permits the reg-
istration of children as gender-neutral. This legislation was justified in terms of the
safeguarding of minors born with both male and female sexual characteristics, and of
the defense of their right in adulthood to choose whether to give their gender as “m,”
“f,” or “x.” As in the Australian case, there had been a prior ruling of the Constitution-
al Court recognizing the individual’s right to distinguish between assigned sex and
lived sex. Yet it is the Australian case that really demonstrates all the complexity of
the subject matter, as well as the negative consequences for individuals.
72. The constitutions of many countries, such as Spain, include laws against gen-
der-based violence that regard men as potential perpetrators of crimes against wom-
en. See Ley Orgánica 1/2004, de 28 de diciembre, de Medidas de protección integral contra
la violencia de género.
73. “In these cases, individual identity is no longer linked to a self-centered view
of human nature, in which ‘I’ am seen as the ontological owner of interests and advan-
tages, but to a scale of preferences at the disposal of the subject, whose gratification is
recognized in and of itself as the source of autonomy and freedom.” L. Alici, “Il ‘noi’
come origine e come compito,” in Forme della reciprocità. Comunità, istituzioni, ethos,
ed. Luigi Alici (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004), 23.
64
surrogate parenthood and the adoption of a homosexual or les-

bian partner’s children) into rights.74 Supported by legislative
and political power, gender ideology is introducing them as
rights into the constitutions of various Western countries, by
asserting two principles inherited from the French Revolution:
liberty, understood as autonomy, and the equality of all indi-
viduals.75 In order to do this, it uses “hard” means, for instance,
legal norms, as well as “softer” ones, such as information and
awareness campaigns; since what is needed is not only a change
in the law, but also in people’s culture and convictions. In oth-
er words, society must be re-educated in gender ideology, until
the genders have been completely intermingled in all spheres of
life, at all levels, and by all available means.
Of interest here is a news story from a few years ago: from
2016, the Ministry of Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ger-
many, is to offer a million euros a year for a state program of
research into gender. The aim is to support the development
of technical colleges and schools of art and music that do not
yet have chairs in these subjects, or very few of them. In three

years, the ministry will also finance thirteen chairs in faculties
of medicine, science, engineering, and theology, for research on
gender, worth between seventy-five and one hundred thousand
euros each. Explaining the reason for this provision, Svenja
74. Council of Europe, Equality and Democracy. These “rights” also include the
“right” of lesbian couples to conceive children by artificial insemination, and the
right of lesbian women legally to adopt their partners’ children.
75. Joseph Raz, who defines himself as a liberal, is rightly critical of these forms
of liberalism, which assume that the law and the government can and should be neu-
tral in the face of conflicting ideas of moral good. As he says himself: “Monogamy,
assuming that it is the only morally valuable form of marriage, cannot be practiced by
an individual. It requires a culture which recognizes it, and which supports it through
the public’s attitude and through its formal institutions.” J. Raz, The Morality of Free-
dom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 162. Raz’s theory is that if monogamy is consid-
ered a key element in the correct way of conceiving marriage, it needs to be preserved
and promoted by means of laws and appropriate social policies.
65
Schultze, the former minister, stated with absolute confidence

that it would enhance the general level of university research,
and consequently the overall university system of North
Rhine-Westphalia.76 But is this really what is being sought?
Conclusion
At the end of this long historical survey, we may identify a num-
ber of constants in the way sexuality was understood up to the
advent of feminism. In the first place, the image of sexuality
was primarily male rather than female, as it depended on an un-
derstanding developed by male thinkers, who were addressing
other men. This was not merely the case in the Middle Ages,
but also during periods we associate with a rebirth of reason
and sensibility, or indeed of their mutual separation, such as the
Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Romantic era. Thus,
although these historic and cultural movements introduced var-
ious new ethical and political considerations concerning sexual-
ity and the family, they continued to hold a naturalistic concept

of a very male sexuality.
In the second place, while the French Revolution did not
change the status of women, it disseminated the values of
equality and liberty, giving birth to the first feminist move-
ment, which was to fight for the same political and social rights
for women as for men. With the passage of time, however, this
movement for women’s equality became an attempt to imitate
76. “I am convinced that a broad grounding in gender research in all scientific
fields will pave the way for a better environment within universities, with respect
to gender equality. Systematic attention to the gender perspective will improve
the quality of research results. This is in the interests of the universities of North
Rhine-Westphalia.” “Wissenschaftsministerium fördert 13 Professuren in der Gen-
derforschung mit jährlich einer Million Euro,” Das Landesportal, December 13,
2015, https://www.land.nrw/de/pressemitteilung/wissenschaftsministerium-foerd
ert-13-professuren-der-genderforschung-mit-jaehrlich.
66
the irresponsible sexual behavior of men, by way of a demand

for women to enjoy equal sexual freedom. Perhaps it is only
now that the feminists who lived through the revolution of 1968
are able to see the trap into which they have fallen: men have
used this supposed feminist revolution to impose their own
narcissistic model of sexuality as the only possible one, with
the result that women have lost femininity. In any event, men
are paying for their transgression, in their feminization and the
gradual disappearance of the father figure.
Thus, the differences have gradually diminished, with the
removal of anything related to the body, and, therefore, to di-
morphism, sexual attraction, love, and procreation. By this
means, the two sexes have been replaced by a multiplicity of
genders, that is, of abstract forms, unconnected to the body and
without any limit, which can therefore be arbitrarily restocked
on a whim. This results in a series of paradoxes. For example,
it is no longer clear whether sexual orientation is natural or ac-
quired, as can be seen from the debate between those who re-
gard homosexuality as genetic and those who see it as a sort of

social construction. Then there is the paradox of gender, whose
ultimate state appears to be neutral; of the replacement of the
social institution of marriage by simple bonds of affection be-
tween individuals, which, it is nonetheless held, should be rec-
ognized by society; and of the family, which is regarded as si-
multaneously having an unambiguous meaning (whatever type
of affective relationship is meant by family) and an ambiguous
one, since if everything is family, nothing is. In short, every-
thing that is essential to sexuality (dimorphism, desire, sexual
union, and procreation) is held up as a candidate for eradica-
tion or modification when it clashes with our own tastes or de-
sires for new experiences.
In conclusion, human sexuality, which society has regarded
67
for thousands of years as a constituent part of the family and

procreation, has become a problem today, because the social
and cultural consensus on how it is to be understood, integrat-
ed into the person and practiced, has fractured. Faced with a
situation of such confusion, what is needed is a rethinking of
the beauty and complexity of human sexuality, which cannot
simply be considered as a so-called naturalistic concept, nor
as a multiplicity of genders for the indulgence of our subjective
desires.
68
Two Historical Views and Another Option
Ch a p t er T h r ee
T WO H ISTOR IC A L
V I E WS OF SE X UA LIT Y A N D
A NOT H ER OP T ION
Given the criticism by gender feminists of the so-called tradi-

tional concept of sexuality, we need to examine whether the
latter view is based on a range of stereotypical images of man
and woman and the way these are fleshed out in specific soci-
eties and cultures; or whether it is based on something real.
To answer this question, we must first carefully analyze these
criticisms. According to gender feminists, the traditional view

of sexuality—the one which in historical terms has had the
most enduring impact—is the naturalistic one; this, while
disappearing in the West, persists in and dominates a large
part of the planet, for instance the Islamic countries.1 But is it
possible to speak of a traditional view of sexuality that unites
the Christian West and the Muslim world? I think not. Those
who want to do so should at least bear in mind what Alasdair
MacIntyre says about traditions concerning morality, that is,
that there is no one tradition, but rather a plurality; so that to
1. A storm of indignation and protest erupted online when it emerged that a Sau-
di academy of education was planning to organize a workshop on the question “Are
women human?” Organisers decided to cancel the workshop as a result of the deluge
of criticism from many institutions around the world.
69
speak of a traditional view of sexuality, as gender feminists do,

means entirely disregarding the existing differences between
the various cultural traditions; and in particular, disregarding
the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is profoundly personal
and therefore hard to classify as naturalistic.2 Furthermore,
if what is meant by a traditional view of sexuality is one which
depends in some way on the ideas and authors of the past, then
the term ought to apply to gender feminism as well, since, as we
have seen, it too is linked to a particular historical and cultural
concept, and specifically to the Enlightenment. For this reason,
I consider it more appropriate to speak of a naturalistic concept
of sexuality.
Naturalistic Monism
With those two provisos, a view that may be considered natu-
ralistic in terms of sexuality is one in which the difference be-
tween man and woman is absolute, and therefore fundamental
to a hierarchical distinction in all areas of life—from sexuality

to family, from civil society to the religious sphere—by virtue
of which woman is subordinate to man. While the naturalistic
concept may be more or less nuanced, depending on culture,
social setting, and period of history, it possesses three funda-
mental features: the gearing of woman’s role to the sphere of
private life; her total dependence on the generation and educa-
tion of offspring; and her almost complete dedication to work
in the home. In short, woman is not autonomous in compari-
son with man, but entirely dependent on him, initially within
2. It may be stated in this context that Christianity is unlike the other traditions,
in that it is the only one able to adopt all the others as episodes in its own story and
recount them as such. Cf. A. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Ency-
clopaedia, Genealogy and Tradition (London: Duckworth, 1990), 80–81.
70
her family of origin and then within her husband’s family. This
of course does not reflect a real difference but a prejudice, al-
though historically it was unfortunately very often taken to be
true.
But what prejudice is it that lies behind the naturalistic in-
terpretation of sexual difference? Some old-school feminists
such as Elisabeth Badinter think it reflects the exaltation of ma-
ternal love;3 because, following Nietzsche’s dubious thinking,
they view such exaltation as no more than a manifestation of
covert misogyny. Indeed, in an account similar to Derrida’s,
Badinter discerns in the mystique of motherhood the cause
of women’s confinement to the sphere of mere reproduction,
home, family, and private life.4 Badinter moreover thinks the
philosophers have reinforced these stereotypes by making
woman the negative counterpart of man. And lastly, the per-
sistence with which men have stressed the differences between
the sexes and the dependence of the one on the other is per-
ceived as indicating that this view of supposed natural inequal-
ity is in fact a sort of cultural discrimination aimed at preserv-

ing the male political order.
Whilst one may endorse many points made by Badinter in
her criticism of the naturalistic model (such as the segregation
of women, their subordination to men, etc.), having once spelled
out these injustices, they should not then be accounted for in
terms of a misogynistic culture, because misogyny is not the
3. Cf. E. Badinter, “L’éducation des filles selon Rousseau et Condorcet,” in Rous-

seau, l’Emile et la Révolution: Actes du colloque international de Montmorency, 27 sep-
tembre – 4 octobre 1989, ed. Robert Thiéry (Paris: Universitas, 1992), 285–91.
4. Derrida uses genealogical analysis to deconstruct the traditional figure of
woman and the family in three stages: the principle of reproduction, domestic and
family segregation, and lastly the mystique of motherhood (the figure of the good
mother). See J. Derrida, “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority,’” in
Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, ed. Drucilla Cornell, Michel Rosenfield,
and David G. Carlson (New York: Routledge, 1992).
71
cause of discrimination, but rather the consequence of it. I think

that the cause of these distorted images of sexual difference,
which are, moreover, highly diverse in so many ways, hinges on
a monistic, naturalistic concept of human sexuality, rather than
on a focus on the purely female phenomenon of motherhood.
For in the vast majority of animals the male appears to be supe-
rior to the female, because it is stronger and more independent,
not being subject to pregnancy and the care of young. A monis-
tic-naturalistic concept of human sexuality bases relationships
between men and women on the dominance of the male over
the female, and on their relations in reproduction and the care
of children. Of course, it could be objected that many Greek
authors, such as Plato, speak of a spiritual side to eros which ap-
pears to contradict this naturalistic culture. But it seems to me
that this spiritual account is no more than inverted naturalism;
for it interprets everything that is bodily in man and linked to
corporeality, such as sexuality and its resulting relations, as
mere brutishness, since man is only his soul.
Why the term monism? Because the naturalistic and spir-

itual accounts basically seek to reduce human plurality to the
unity of the species, and this in turn to the figure of the male,
with differences, especially femaleness, seen as distancing him
from the perfection of the species. This leads to the differences
between man and woman being understood as a sum of oppo-
site characteristics (activity/passivity, strength/weakness) to
be brought back to unity by means of the submission of woman
to man.
There are two reasons, however, why I do not think that
these differences reflect the true diversities between the sexes:
firstly, because they do not take into account the fact that in
human beings, sexual difference exists between nonrepeatable
persons and not between substitutable individuals of the spe-
72
cies; secondly because sexual difference should not be confused

with character. Thus, there are men whose character dictates a
preference for being subordinate; and there is no lack of wom-
en who want to be in charge. Something similar occurs with
activity: alongside great female entrepreneurs, it is not unusu-
al to find men, including intelligent ones, who lack ambition.
Hence, such character traits are not indicative of the difference
between male and female insofar as they are persons; such fea-
tures are accidental from the point of view of sexual difference,
in the sense that they are not necessary or contingent.
Thus, what is accidental to femaleness—such as being gen-
tle or knowing how to cook—may exist to a greater of lesser
extent in a woman without causing her to lose her difference.
Does this mean that sexual difference in the person is some-
thing accidental? I think not, because there are certain features
whose existence is essential to being a man or a woman. These,
however, are not to be found in character difference, nor in the
qualities most prized by any particular culture; but in the re-
lationships which constitute their identities. Thus, it is being a

daughter, and all the other relationships of which femaleness is
capable (wife, mother, aunt, grandmother) that are essential.
Naturalism substitutes the accidental for the substantial,
as does a certain kind of feminism—as we shall see—each ac-
cording to its own project. Thus, for naturalists, woman must
be weak and in need of male support, while for radical femi-
nists, she must be “liberated” from her bonds to man—or even
become his adversary. Treating accidental differences as essen-
tial gives rise to stereotypes of one sort or another, which be-
come caricatures when taken to extremes. One such exaggera-
tion is machismo, which views women as slaves in the service of
men, on the basis of their comparative lack of physical strength.
Machismo makes strict distinctions between what men and
73
women may feel, desire, think, say, or do, thus creating a myri-
ad of social norms and unwritten prohibitions that govern their
entire existence. At the other end of the spectrum, radical fem-
inist ideology has produced another set of stereotypes, accord-
ing to which women should never be housewives, get married,
or have children, because all of that makes them dependent on
men. In this way, radical feminism becomes a negative carica-
ture of machismo.
It may be that these and other problems with the naturalis-
tic position arise—according to the philosophers who defend
it—from the function of sexuality in human life. To them, sex-
uality appears to be merely at the service of reproduction, or
at the most, for the mutual support of man and woman or as a
remedy for concupiscence.5 Considering sexuality only in this
fashion means that we lose sight of its role in the establishment
and development of personal identity. Hence, these writers re-
veal the following paradox: the nature of every one of us, and
especially of males, is complete; but we nonetheless need the
other sex, at least to procreate, as if our nature were incomplete.

There are two answers to this paradox: that of Plato, and
that of Genesis. According to Plato, none of us possesses a com-
plete nature. Indeed, as he recounts in one of his myths, orig-
inally there were no men or women, but round, androgynous
beings, half male, half female. These beings were so full of pride
that Zeus, the father of the gods, decided to punish them. He
therefore cut them in two, resulting in the males and females
5. Aquinas, IV Sent., d. 33, q. 2, a. 1, ad 4; In I Epist. ad Cor., ca. 7, lect. 1. Although

Aquinas is speaking here of remedium concupiscentiae, there are other passages where
he replaces the genitive case, speaking of remedium contra concupiscentium, because,
according to him, we do not cure our concupiscence by satisfying it, but by restrain-
ing it entirely. For further reading on this subject, see C. Burke, “Il ‘remedium concu-
piscentiae’ nella Teologia del Matrimonio: profilo-storico-critico,” Annales Thelogici
21 (2007), 299–340.
74
we know today.6 Later, seeing that each half could not survive
because of its need for its other half, Zeus had pity, and caused
to be born in them eros, a desire that led them to seek and find
each other, and, finally, to be sexually united. Despite the po-
etic beauty, and, indeed, profundity of this story, Plato seems
to confuse the origin of every person with the separation of a
part from a whole; and therefore, finds himself obliged to speak
of an origin in which sexual difference did not yet exist, since
the androgynous beings possess an undifferentiated sexuality
by nature.
From this point of view—that is, from the point of view of
the origin of sexuality—it seems to me that the Bible gives a
truer account of the creation of woman. Thus, in his desire for
Eve, Adam’s objective is not to be part of an original whole, a
sort of fusion in which his own sexual difference is lost; but
rather to unite with another person. Thus, he recognizes that
she is equal to himself (“flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone”),
in that she is created by God, and yet at the same time different
from him, in that she is woman; that is, she possesses the oth-
er sexed condition. Consequently, according to Genesis, every
person, insofar as he or she is human, has an original sexed con-
dition in intimate and original relation with another: male with
respect to the female or female with respect to the male; and
these seek union, since the desire of each is directed toward the
other. For this reason, the desire of Adam and Eve, far from be-
ing caused by a deficiency, as in the Platonic myth, originates in
the nature of good that each discovers in the other, in that each
is the confirmation of the other’s goodness.7
6. Plato, Symposium, 14–15, 189c–190c.

7. As it says in the book of Sirach, in every duality one of the terms confirms the
goodness of the other: “Look upon all the works of the Most High; they likewise are
in pairs, one the opposite of the other.” Sir 33:15 (RSV).
75
Unlike Plato, then, the Bible distinguishes between the per

sons of man and woman: man and woman are two original
modes of being persons; they are therefore different. Whereas
Plato thinks of human nature as beginning with unity, Genesis
accounts for it as beginning with difference, or rather with an
original duality. This is why it is surprising that a thinker on dif-
ference such as Luce Irigaray should criticize a vaguely defined
Greco-Christian dualism as the origin of the shortcomings in
relations between man and woman.8 Far from being dualist,
Christianity, like Judaism, presents man and woman as two
original modes of being persons. Of course, the various cultures
in which Christianity flourished found it very hard to throw off
the naturalistic idea of sexuality. It is necessary, therefore, to dis-
tinguish between cultures—originally dualist—which gradual-
ly became Christianized, and Christianity, which completely
rejects the naturalist position. For the Christian account of the
difference between man and woman is not one of metaphysical
or ethical or political opposition, but of reciprocity between two
persons of equal dignity, who are called to communion through

the mutual gift of self. From now on, therefore, when difference
and the relationship of man and woman are mentioned, we shall
revisit the account in Genesis, since, as we shall see, it implicitly
contains the various elements needed for a satisfactory under-
standing of human sexuality.
Moreover, I think that the distinction between nature and
person provides the solution to the paradox that there is a natu-
ral complementarity between man and woman, yet at the same
time marriage is unnecessary, given that every person can per-
fect him- or herself, including in the area of sexuality. Indeed,
if such a distinction did not exist, we would need to affirm, as
8. See L. Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman, trans. Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985).
76
Vladimir Solov’iev, for instance, does, that the celibate person

is imperfect, because he or she lacks complementarity with the
other sex, inasmuch as man and woman are “two differently
acting, yet equally imperfect potentialities, which attain per-
fection only in the process of reciprocity.”9 In reality, man and
woman are complete insofar as they are persons, not insofar as
they are modes of being, because every mode refers to the other
with whom he or she has an original relationship. For this rea-
son, sexual difference is not person, but a mode of being which,
in order to become personal, must be integrated into the per-
son. This mode of being male or female that needs to be person-
alized may be called sexed condition.
The model of the relationship between man and woman is
not, therefore, the relationship between the one and the many,
which tends toward the reduction of difference to an amor-
phous unity; but that between two modes of being, equally
personal, which cannot exist independently because they are
reciprocal. From the personal perspective, therefore, maleness
and femaleness can grow or diminish in direct proportion to

their mutual relations, even though, from a genetic standpoint,
they cannot be “more or less.” This indicates, for instance, that
male violence toward women is not only destructive of wom-
en, but also of men’s maleness; and that the sexual liberation of
women destroys not only men’s maleness, and especially their
fatherhood, but also women’s femaleness, insofar as it imitates
the degenerate mode of male sexuality that is narcissism.
9. V. Solov’iev [Solvoyov], The Meaning of Love (Herndon Va.: Lindisfarne Press,

1985), 85.
77
Libertarian Dualism
By maintaining that human sexuality is personal, gender ideol-
ogy corrects the naturalistic unilateralism of those who under-
stand sexuality as something merely given and specific, with-
out taking into account the influence that society and freedom
have on it. The need of human sexuality for interpersonal rela-
tionships and social and cultural models is undoubtedly one of
the characteristic aspects of its humanization, which separate
it radically from that of the other animals. The anthropological
problem is not, therefore, how to accept these differences from
animal sexuality, but rather how to uncover their roots.
According to gender ideology, the root of the difference
between animal and human sexuality may be found in the
latter’s socialization: animal sexuality is said to be genetically
given, whereas human sexuality is constructed. Those who de-
fend this theory claim that bodily sex, insofar as it is shared by
all the males and females of the human species, cannot define
our individual sexuality, because this always requires a cultur-

al interpretation and personal appropriation. These writers,
therefore, distinguish between “gender” and “sex.” The term
“gender” is used to refer to the construction of one’s own sex-
ual identity through a personal choice that takes into account
social conditioning, desires, feelings, and aspirations; in other
words, the person’s sexual orientation and actions. Sex, on the
other hand, is taken to refer only to the dimension of bodily at-
tributes, or, for writers such as Butler, to its cultural interpre-
tation, since she does not think that human sexuality can ever
be decoupled from the discourse on sexuality. It follows that
any sexual difference prior to choice and behavior is merely a
matter of biology, social factors, or culture, which can always
be changed and transformed into gender. For this reason, these
78
writers hold that men and women, who have equal dignity as
persons, should never be influenced in their choice of gender
by sociocultural pressures (such as “compulsory heterosexual-
ity”), or by sexual stereotypes and prejudices such as homopho-
bia.10 The personal mode of being man or woman should not,
therefore, be based on sexual differences, nor on two existing
bodily modes (male and female), but on cultural interpreta-
tions of sexuality, understood as a continuum between the two
poles of heterosexuality and homosexuality, between which lie
all the various possibilities, depending on sex, sexual orienta-
tion, and performance. Accordingly, even though the genders
can never be defined once and for all, they can be constructed
on the basis of the four fundamentals represented by the LGBT
acronym: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual, to which may
be added intersex, and—especially in academic circles—queer,
the term used to describe people without a defined or definitive
sexual orientation.11 Furthermore, these genders are supposed-
ly all options entirely open to free will, to the extent that one
may, according to the most extreme theories, refuse to be tied

to any form of definitive categorization whatsoever.
It would seem, then, that the radical distinction between
sex and gender succeeds in resolving the complex problem of
10. Despotic control and the ability to alter one’s physical form are constitutive
parts of what gender feminists regard as the dignity of the person. The belief in a sov-
ereign subjectivity that is the same for all individuals of the species has deep roots in
Cartesian rationalism and was politically developed by the two great ideologists of
individualism, Hobbes and Locke. The influence of this rationalist-liberal current of
thought on so-called “reproductive rights” has been thoroughly analysed by Vega. Cf.
A. M. Vega, “Los ‘Derechos Reproductivos’ en la sociedad postmoderna: ¿una defensa
o una amenaza contra el derecho a la vida?” in Derechos Reproductivos y Técnicas de Re-
producción Asistida, ed. Jaime Vidal Martínez (Granada: Editorial Comares, 1998), 9.
11. The inclusion of these last two conditions in the gender classification has led
to the acronym LGBT being gradually replaced by LGBTQI, although, as we have
seen, many people who are designated as queer deny the existence of rigid categories,
including “queer” itself.
79
human sexuality, which it holds to be not natural, but social-

ly constructed in a more or less free manner. In fact, this ap-
parently simple and clear-cut distinction precludes any under-
standing of what precisely constitutes the personal character of
sexuality. For if sexuality becomes personal for the simple rea-
son that it is free—and it is free when it chooses without exter-
nal pressure—it seems that in order to have a personal sexual-
ity, it is enough to choose in accordance with one’s own tastes,
inclinations, and preferences, since these (according to these
writers) reflect what is deepest in the person: one’s own desires.
Indeed, although these writers mistakenly identify freedom
with desire, they take a fundamentally coherent line in terms of
the abstract concept of freedom; because, for freedom uncou-
pled from the body, the only possible imperative must arise in
the context of the search by the self for “authenticity,” which in
sexual terms is understood as the alignment of sexual orienta-
tion with the choice of whatever particular gender fits best. In
short, it is through sexual orientation that we choose what we
believe ourselves to be, or rather what we feel ourselves to be;

since it is only possible to access one’s own identity—so they
claim—by means of desire. Yet as we shall see, the very concept
of sexual orientation entails an inescapable paradox. For on the
one hand, sexual orientation seems to be unnatural because it
is unrelated to bodily sex, at times failing to correspond to it;
and on the other hand, it does not seem to be personal, because
it precedes one’s own choice of membership of a specific gen-
der, insofar as it is something we have, without having wanted
to have it (at times, indeed, it is opposed to our own will). In
the final analysis, we cannot know whether sexual orientation
is given or acquired.
Moreover, the things that seem most personal, such as
choice of gender, are really the things most subject to fashion,
80
social pressure, and stereotypes; hence, the sort of gender we

choose is never purely the creation of our own freedom: we
choose a template from among those on offer (for instance,
from the more than fifty genders on Facebook);12 but there
could be many others as yet undiscovered. The mass media and
advertising thus clearly influence choice of gender. It follows
that by seeking a strictly personal sexuality we plunge into the
most impersonal thing there can be: the propaganda models
of the consumer society. What choosing one’s gender entails,
therefore, is at the very least loss of freedom. This is why some
exponents of gender feminism offer the rather unsatisfactory
solution that we change gender whenever we want, or indeed
that we change it with the sole aim of never tying ourselves to
any definitive gender.13 In this way, gender ideology slips from
an initial search for one’s own sexuality—understood as au-
thenticity in relation to one’s sexual orientation—to a denial
of the very idea of identity as something fixed and determined,
because this would hinder the actualization of hitherto un-
known possibilities, limiting one’s own creativity. The problem

is that such creativity will sooner or later end up transforming
itself into a fixed model to be offered to others, and sometimes,
indeed, to be imposed on them. Moreover, we know from psy-
12. According to Laura Bononcelli, manager for institutional relations at Face-

book in Italy, when users select a gender identity for their profile, they can choose
from more than fifty-eight options. It is no longer merely “male” or “female”: the
third, “personalized” category allows users to self-define themselves according to
the shade that best fits their own being. “Facebook, 58 identità di genere diverse fra
cui scegliere: transgender, bigender, fluido. E c’è anche femminiello,” Huffington
Post, July 4, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2014/07/04/facebook-58-identita-
genere-diverse-da-scegliere_n_5557201.html.
13. This is, for instance, Judith Butler’s theory in her book Gender Trouble, contin-
ued in Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge Press, 2004). According to Butler, the
category of gender itself is dangerous, because it disguises the constituent fragility of
every gender identity and the incoherence in regard to gender always lurking in every
reference to and repetition of the norm to which all gender identities are attributable.
81
choanalysis that sexual orientation also reflects a desire for the

model that is copied, which makes this question even more
complex. For in order to desire another, we need to identify
with a model, normally the son with that of his father (or of
whoever represents his father), and the daughter with that of
her mother. How, then, are we to explain that the son should
identify with his mother’s desire and the daughter with her fa-
ther’s desire?
I think that the paradoxes of gender ideology spring less
from what it affirms, that is to say, the personal character of sex-
uality, than from what it denies, that is, the bond between hu-
man sexuality and physicality, and the existence of a structure
and purpose independent of human will: the desire for an other,
the gift of self and generation. This makes the theory a sort of
postmodern dualism: the human body, lacking all symbolism,
becomes a space in which the will plays with its creative pow-
er; a power that the traditional authors called despotic, since it
pays no heed to reality, or specifically to the bodily condition
from which arises the freedom of the subject of the will. Thus,
according to the gender ideologists, human sexuality, in its var-
ious stages and in the relationships to which it can give rise, has
no specific structure, and consequently may be changed and
transformed, including by means of technology, according to
one’s own desires. The choice of a particular biological, psycho-
social sex, the variety of generically different sexual relation-
ships, the experience of motherhood and fatherhood; these are
all seen as opportunities that can be realized with the aid of the
great technological and scientific market.
The root cause of this new dualism is to be found in the total
separation of nature, reduced to biology, and culture, reduced
to mere social construction. Thus psychosomatic processes, ex-
periences, emotional bonds, choices, and sexual behavior are
82
not elements to be personally integrated, but to be arranged ac-

cording to the opportunities provided by science, technology,
and the market. And it is of interest here, in the context of the
subjugation of nature, to note the final wave of feminism—for
some, the fourth—that is, the post-human or transhuman fem-
inism of authors such as Donna Haraway14 and Rosi Braidot-
ti.15 This brand of feminism uses not only some of the main-
stays of poststructuralist thought, but also modern theories of
genetics and molecular biology to uncouple biology from the
structural functionalism of the linear orientation of DNA, fol-
lowing more creative blueprints of evolutionary development.
Sexuality may thus be constructed not only socially, but genet-
ically as well, meaning that the genders could have the same
genetic origin as sexual difference. These feminists also inter-
pret technology in two ways: in the classical sense, in which
prostheses offset the various organic and sensory functions;
and in the modern sense, whereby living organisms composed
of organic and inorganic materials are implanted in the body,
opening the way for the creation of “cyborgs,” and thus making
it possible to break down the morphology of the human body
and its natural dimorphism. The claim of these feminists is that
such transhuman experiments will result in the subversion of
the way we live in the world as men and women, any sort of fear
arising from hubris notwithstanding.
In any event, the random nature of the choices made by gen-
der and transhumanist feminists can be seen even more clearly
in the complete separation they would like to see between sex-
uality and procreation, to be achieved via biotechnologies that
14. Cf. D. Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-
Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in The Cybercultures Reader, ed. David Bell
and Barbara M. Kennedy (London: Routledge, 2001), 291–324.
15. Cf. R. Braidotti, “A Critical Cartography of Feminist Post-Postmodernism,”
Australian Feminist Studies 20, no. 47 (2005): 169–80.
83
allow children to be created at the margins of sexual relations

and make possible sexual relations that exclude procreation—
as predicted by Huxley in Brave New World. Such a separation
facilitates free differentiation in terms of gender, making it pos-
sible to live one’s sexuality in accordance with a constantly re-
generated identity, without fixed patterns, taboos, or any sort of
parental ties.
In reality it is more a question of diversification than free
differentiation, or still more accurately, of disintegration. We
are dealing with a very subtle semantic substitution—hard-
er, consequently, to unmask—which parallels the indifferent
transformation of identity into any typology of gender. This
technological and rhetorical project results in the creation of
a new model of person, designed with dull and sterile unifor-
mity: the gender-neutral person. Declining to be either male or
female, this person is supposedly open to any sort of diversity,
his freedom becoming first and foremost the freedom of in-
difference. And so ends the tale of modern freedom: from the
will to power of early modern times to the will to indifference

of postmodernity; along the lines of what is happening in the
world of ideas, where monological rationalism is leading to the
weak thought of indifferent difference.
Sexual Difference as Original Duality

The efforts of the naturalists and dualists to minimize sexu-
al difference are doomed to fail, because sexual difference is
not a diversity dependent on our desires, nor may it simply be
equated with bodily sex. Thus, in terms of bodily sex, sexual
difference implies experiences, personal relationships, educa-
tion, and culture; which is why it is misleading to define sexu-
al difference according to rigid categories that depend entirely
84
on biological sex, such as aggressiveness, determination, and

self-confidence in the male and obedience, passivity, and inse-
curity in the female; just as it is misleading to deny that differ-
ences exist.16 The differences are linked to the male and female
sexed condition, which permits us to enter into relationships in
a particular way as son/daughter, brother/sister, father/moth-
er, uncle/aunt, grandfather/grandmother, male friend/female
friend. . . . The differences, then, exist and are necessary, but are
neither absolute, since they depend on relationships, nor easy
to define, apart from where they exist within cultures.
Why are the differences necessary? Because the human
person is originally dual. Human persons do not identify them-
selves with maleness or femaleness; we are male and female, not
as an amorphous totality, but rather as a dual relationship, ca-
pable of acquainting us with our own identity as man or wom-
an. Indeed, without woman there would be no man-person, but
only the human person, even if he had a male body, since such a
person would not comprehend the meaning of his maleness. In
order to understand one’s identity, then, what is needed is oth-

erness, or rather sexual difference: the man is aware of his male
identity because of female difference and vice versa.
Therefore, to the extent that it substitutes for difference
diversity, gender feminism leads to the gradual loss of female-
ness/maleness, making the union of their differences difficult
and, at times, impossible: men and women regard each other
with suspicion or hate each other or remain indifferent, because
they have lost what it was that allowed them to find themselves
16. A biological view of sexuality leads to an attempt to reduce the differences to

bodily ones or to those necessarily linked to organic and functional differences. An
example of this would be Erikson’s description of the differences: “in the male, ex-
ternal organs, erectable and intrusive in character, conducting highly mobile sperm
cells; internal organs in the female, with a vestibular access leading to statically ex-
pectant ova.” E. H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (London: Vintage Books, 1995), 93.
85
in the person of the other. Woman no longer recognizes her-

self as woman in her relationship with man, but only as slave
or competitor. And, as in any dialectical relationship, woman’s
slavery entails man’s dependence on woman in an instrumen-
tal sense (man becomes an instrument of generation) and in
an objective one (man’s body becomes the object of pleasure).
This leads to the gradual disappearance of maleness, as may be
seen in the efforts of men to imitate women’s ways of behaving
and dressing; and above all in their efforts to appropriate the
power that contradistinguishes woman: motherhood. Hence
the artificial uterus.17
In short, a woman is not a non-man who needs to lose her
negative character—her femaleness—in order to become fully
human, as naturalistic monism and libertarian dualism claim
in their different ways. Rather, the opposite is true: both fe-
maleness and maleness always have a positive character, each
confirming the goodness of the other. In contrast to gender,
therefore, sexual difference is not sterile uniformity but fertile
duality. And the basis of this duality has been built irrevers-
ibly over time: for the temporal stages in the development of
the sexed condition are necessary, not only for the attainment
of genetic, hormonal, and neurological sexual maturity (bodi-
ly sex), but also so that we may be aware of our mode of being
man or woman in the world, through the eyes of the person of
the other sex; aware of his or her desire, of our own, and of re-
ciprocal gift. It follows that the experiences and relationships of
man and woman resulting from their sexed condition will nev-
er be equal or capable of assimilation. And therefore, the claim
17. “We need to challenge these findings, which can be summarized by saying
that while woman enters modernity and emancipates herself, man enters postmo-
dernity and all but dissolves himself. We need to revisit their roles, relations, and
identities, so as to correct the imbalances that have been created.” Donati, Famiglia
e Gender, 22.
86
that human sexuality begins with indifference is deceitful: in-

difference can only be the end-point to which the deconstruc-
tion of sexual difference leads.
The story of Sara Fernanda Giromin, known in Brazil and
throughout the world by her nom de guerre, Sara Winter, is par-
ticularly illuminating in this regard. In 2012, after a period of
indoctrination in Ukraine, she founded the femen movement
in Brazil, leading a trio of young women in a series of topless
protests. Three years later however, following her conversion
to Christianity, she wrote a book, Vadia não! Sete vezes que fui
traída pelo feminismo, in which she tells the story of the grim or-
deals of abuse, brainwashing, and sexual harassment she expe-
rienced while a member of this organization.
In a December 28, 2015, interview with LifeSiteNews, fol-
lowing the birth of her son, she explained how “for the feminist
sect, women are not the inspiration, they are the prime mat-
ter in the worst sense of the term. They are convenient objects
useful for the purpose of inflaming hatred against the Chris-
tian religion, hatred against men, hatred against the beauty of

women, hatred against the equilibrium of families. That’s what
feminism is, and I can guarantee it is like that because I was on
the inside!”18 Of course, as we have seen, this is not the only
sort of feminism; it mainly corresponds to the particular kind
I have called “radical,” and especially to gender feminism. In-
deed, Sara Giromin indicates that lesbian and bisexual women
had much more voice and enjoyed greater authority within the
movement; so that in the search for recognition by the oth-
er women, she deconstructed her heterosexuality, substitut-
18. Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, “Ultra-feminist Founder of Femen Brazil De-

clares Herself Pro-Life, Apologizes to Christians,” LifeSiteNews.com, December 28,
2015, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ultra-feminist-founder-of-femen-brazil-de
clares-herself-pro-life-apologizes.
87
ing it with an artificial bisexuality. Yet even though this was a

false identity, she needed the help of a psychologist and also of
motherhood in order to make a successful return to her origi-
nal identity.19
Thus, the person is originally man and woman, not gender;
that is, two bodily and temporal but also transcendent modes
of being, by means of which the person is able to love and be
loved. The differences between man and woman, established
partly at birth, partly as the result of culture, are necessary be-
cause it is through the various forms of relationship that the
person is born, develops, and matures, becoming in his or her
turn capable of generation.
The fact of being generated means that the person can
be seen as contingent, in that he or she is not necessary, orig-
inating in a series of sexual encounters; yet also “necessary,”
in that he or she is the final result which depends on those
encounters, and those alone. Indeed, each of us depends on a
very long chain of sexual relationships, and on them alone. In
other words, the cornerstone of human generation is genealo-

gy. Thus, the birth of every person brings together contingence
and necessity, freedom and origin; and this implies that the
choice of sexed condition depends on my origin, prior to any
of my human actions. In other words, my freedom is rooted in
the origin that has been given to me via a history of generative
encounters.20 Therefore, the aspects of sexuality that are es-
sential (sexual difference) and existential (desire, choice, and
gift of self) should not be separated from the historical aspect,
which characterizes generation and genealogy. And this syn-
19. See Sara Winter [S. F. Giromin], Vadia, não! Sete vezes que fui traida pelo fem-
inismo [Bitch, No! Seven Times I Was Betrayed by Feminism] (FICM 2015), e-book.
20. Cf. P. Ricoeur, Fallible Man: The Philosophy of the Will, trans. Charles A. Kel-
bley (New York: Fordham University Press, 1986).
88
thesis of genealogy and embodied freedom, with its social and

cultural conditioning, able in turn to generate through union
with a person of the other sex is what I call sexed condition.
Thus, every person is preceded by an encounter between
two persons of a different sexed condition who generate a new
one (the son or daughter) and then, in union with the other,
can generate them both (as father or mother of male and fe-
male persons). Human sexuality has a very beautiful ambiva-
lence: it can become both sexed conditions, but “become them”
through a relationship with a person who has the other sexed
condition—rather than in the self-referentiality of the single
individual—and in the diachronic time of a personal history,
not the synchronic time of a moment of the will.
Sexual duality, then, stands at the origin of the person, and
for this precise reason the person needs the other sex, in order
to be the origin of other persons, that is, to become generative.
Thus, the transmission of human nature to the person is not
direct; that is, it is not from one person to the other, as would
for instance occur in hypothetical human cloning, because

it needs to be mediated by sexual difference and generation
through the union of this difference.21 For the constitutive and
indissoluble terms of human sexuality are that it is originated
by a generative relationship of persons with genealogies and
possessing different sexed conditions.22
21. “The decline in the value of gender difference may be located in the loss of the
value of parentage (that is, of the generational line) as the central core of domesticity
in favor of ‘parenting.’” V. Cigoli and E. Scabini, “Sacro e tragico familiare: il caso del-
le omogenitorialità,” Quaderni degli Argonauti 27 (June 2014): 29.
22. “The concept of ‘parent,’ which is relational in origin, in a sense cannot take
the singular form: it is always ‘parents’ in the plural, because there are only fathers in
relation to mothers and mothers only in relation to fathers, just as there are children
in the flesh and in symbolic relationships only in relation to parents. But ever since
it has been possible to decouple the body from desire, and from the flesh of which
each one of us is made, and to produce it by means of biological and physiological
complexities that relate to a technological enterprise rather than any generative act,
89
Conclusion
The postmodern paradigm of gender combines the naturalis-
tic idea of sexuality with a secularized account of the equality
and dignity of the person which come from Christianity. For,
gender ideology claims that the foundation of the dignity of
the person is no longer his or her origin—the love with which
we are infinitely loved by God and which is extended in paren-
tal love and the love of so many persons with whom we form
relationships—but rather that it is his or her freedom: the
ever-greater ability to choose, thanks to science and technolo-
gy.23 The balance of necessary origin and freedom is lost in the
radically dualist postmodern paradigm, since it does not grant
the body any sort of significance. Furthermore, like the natu-
ralistic account, dualism reduces sexuality to something entire-
ly material, and to the extent that it can be controlled, dominat-
ed, and transformed by an instrumental rationality, it no longer
imposes required behavior, linked to the origin of the person,
such as generation and genealogy. For this reason, for gender

feminists the construction and deconstruction of one’s own
sexuality becomes a choice, even though in reality it is merely
the appearance of choice. For the model to be copied is always
the same: it is the male one, characterized by freedom from
generation and the duties relating to the care of children. Wom-
an’s identity therefore seems alienated in a radical way on ac-
count of her sexed condition. Maleness, by contrast, the cause
the ideology of the ‘pure individual’ has been strengthened: the anthropological
gender-neutral person, who can make life into, or imagine it as an object of noble con-
sumption, shrouded, of course, by sentiment, anxieties, and worries, but stripped of
that relational history which is the source of the human condition.” A. Pessina, “La
creazione del neutro e l’identita genitoriale,” Medicina e Morale 64, no. 1 (2015): 13.
23. Despotic control and the ability to change one’s own physicality are part of
what gender feminists regard as the dignity of the person.
90
of this alienation, suffers an opposing sort of estrangement. By

eradicating the original difference, and starting from the male
model, the equality of men and women gives way to a diversifi-
cation of sexuality, which thus becomes a meaningless game of
interchangeable roles. Ultimately, identity becomes confused
with the mere desire to exist in countless and, indeed, change-
able ways. By contrast, as we shall see, “being oneself ” does not
mean “directly seeking to be oneself,” but rather giving oneself,
because the being of the human person resides in his or her or-
igin, that is, in being generated. The construction of one’s own
identity, therefore, should be based on the acceptance of one’s
origin, that is, the acceptance of being generative. Sadly, “our
individualistic age seems to have lost this meaning; yet the
lengthy genealogies in the Bible are meant precisely to indicate
the generational line in which our identities are rooted.”24
The difference between the sexes, then, is more than a priv-
ilege or a means of discriminating the one from the other: it is
an opportunity for mutual enrichment, as well as a responsibil-
ity that we have toward persons, to help them become perfect.
24. S. Belardinelli, “Il bene della famiglia e le sue funzioni sociali,” Metafísica y
Persona 6 (2011): 91, http://www.revistas.uma.es/index.php/myp/article/view/2785.
91
Sexed Condition versus Gender
Ch a p t er Four
SE X ED CON DIT ION

V ER SUS GEN DER
We must always bear in mind that in human sexuality, not

only do origin and freedom not oppose each other, they mu-
tually imply one another with a view to their integration. Di-
morphism, sexed tendency, erotic desire, emotional affinity,
intimacy, and generative love are by nature elements that can
potentially be integrated into the gift of self, both in marriage
and the celibate state; just as, for instance, the speech organs
and the perception and reproduction of sound can potentially

be integrated into the use of the tongue by the speaker. Fur-
thermore, voluntary openness to a third person, that is, a child,
as well as to its care and education, constitute a further integra-
tion of these elements through a new gift of self: that of father-
hood or motherhood. This implies that when these elements
close in on themselves instead of being integrated, they cannot
reach maturity; or, having once reached it, they lose it again. An
important part of the process of integration or disintegration is
played, not just by personal experiences and relationships with
oneself and others, but also by culture, because, as we have
seen, human sexuality is simultaneously natural and cultural.
We must now tackle the question of the bodily, psychologi-
cal, and spiritual structure that constitutes the sexed condition,
92
so that we can explain how its integration takes place. Before

starting, however, I would like to propose a theory as to how
such apparently different elements can integrate at all. The ba-
sis for this is undoubtedly the unity of the person, insofar as he
or she is the subject of this structure, capable of experiences,
agency, and relationships; but also the fact that each element
reflects in itself the composition of the structure itself—bodily,
psychological, and spiritual. For, tendency, erotic desire, falling
in love, the gift of self, and the ability to generate all contain in
themselves this triple dimension; and the differences between
them depend both on how great a degree of openness there is to
the other elements, and on the time needed for their develop-
ment and integration; as well as on the degree to which the sub-
ject is able to control them. This is why an explanation of the
nature of these elements and the way in which they can be inte-
grated serves to invalidate the meaning given to certain terms
used by gender ideologists to transform or even abolish person-
al sexuality, such as “sexual orientation,” “polymorphous per-
versity,” “compulsory heterosexuality,” “gender construction,”

and “homophobia.” We shall offer a detailed analysis of all this.
Sexed Tendency versus Sexual Orientation

Gender feminists consider sexual orientation to be the person-
al character of human sexuality, since it does not match genet-
ic and bodily sexuality. Since gender ideology recognizes no
form of nature beyond the biological, it does not regard human
sexuality as natural. As a result, the existence of various forms
of sexual inclination (heterosexual, bisexual, transsexual, and
homosexual) is seen as a manifestation of personal sexuality,
rather than natural in the biological sense. Can this claim be
accepted as true?
93
In the first place, we have already seen that sexual orien-

tation contains an internal paradox: that which seems most
personal, being unconnected to the reproduction of the spe-
cies, can in fact become a sign of depersonalization—even
more than following one’s own biological structures—since
the consumer society offers and propagandizes the models of
sexual orientation without our being aware of it, from fashion-
able models to those which can be invented by endlessly com-
bining various elements. A person can therefore be deluded
into thinking he or she has a determined sexual orientation,
when in reality this merely corresponds to an external model.
Of course, this criticism might seem baseless to feminists such
as Butler, who considers it impossible to distinguish the model
from the copy, so that we are always imitating models, whether
the traditional ones of compulsory heterosexuality or those of a
sexuality that attempts to unravel the very categories of gender.
Secondly—and this is the question we now face—is it ten-
able to hold that sexual orientation is not natural? If it is not
natural, is it a construction? It may be deduced from these

questions that what is at stake is the distinction between “giv-
en” and “constructed,” which can be reduced to a fundamental
differentiation: that between nature and culture, according to
which nature is something unbending, determined, and abso-
lute, while culture is flexible, indeterminate, and relative.
I think such an understanding of the ideas both of human
nature and culture is mistaken, because it reduces nature to bi-
ology. Human nature in fact exists within cultures as a neces-
sary substrate, while culture always shapes nature in a certain
way. For just as we must agree that there is no natural language,
but only the natural capacity to speak (languages are contin-
gent and subject to development over time), so may we hold
that what we have is not a natural sexuality in the sense of in-
94
stinct, but rather a poorly defined inclination that must be per-

sonalized through the integration of its different elements.1
What is the natural substrate of human sexuality? I think
it is the existence of a perspective and a sexed tendency, both
of which normally require a lengthy process of personalization
in a series of stages: desire, falling in love, and gift of self. Of
course, just as the tendency can remain undefined to a greater
or lesser extent, or desire can close in on itself, or falling in love
can fail to give place to the gift of self, so it is also possible to
move from desire to falling in love and the gift of self without
any great difficulty; which implies, on the one hand, that per-
sonalization is a process whose success is not guaranteed, and
on the other, that these stages tend in one direction: the gift of
self.
However, this does not mean that sexed tendency does not
have a quality analogous to the sexual instinct of animals. In-
deed, both sexual instinct and sexed tendency have a number
of key features in common: they are the potentiality of all liv-
ing things (animal and person); they are oriented toward an

end (the reproduction of the species and the generation of per-
sons) and they are open to determined actions (mating in ani-
mals and conjugal union in people). These, then, are the char-
acteristics they both share.2
On the other hand, the differences are to be found both in
1. The Franciscan Salimbene de Adam (1221–88) recounts in his Chronicle how
the Emperor Frederick II wanted to know what the natural language of man was.
To this end, he took a group of orphans and carried out an experiment on them. He
forbade their nurses—the only people looking after them—to talk to them. The em-
peror thought this would mean they would speak Greek, Latin, or Arabic. Shortly
thereafter he learned to his surprise that not only had the children failed to learn any
language, they had died. See Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam, ed. Joseph L. Baird, Me-
dieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 40 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medie-
val & Early Renaissance Studies, 1986).
2. Cf. A. Malo, Essere persona. Un’antropologia dell’identità (Rome: Armando,
2013), 80 ff.
95
the kind of potentialities involved and the way they are actual-
ized, because they correspond to two distinct beings; the ani-
mal being and the being who is a person. Among animals, the
potentialities are merely bodily and mental in nature, which
is why they are spontaneously linked to determined behavior.
For once an animal has reached physical maturity, it will—pro-
vided it has no organic defect and lives in a suitable environ-
ment—necessarily be led by instinct stimulated by hormonal
changes and cosmic cycles to seek out and identify a sexual
partner and then mate with it. Animals cannot inhibit, direct,
or sublimate this instinct, because they do not possess it, but
rather are possessed by it, given that it is the species that is act-
ing in and through them.
In the person, by contrast, sexed tendency relates not only
to physical and psychological characteristics, but to spiritual
ones as well. By this I mean the ability to be open to the other:
to his or her love and interpretative reason, which allow us to
discover the loving meaning of sexuality, so that we can shape
it by means of our own actions and relationships; for the initial

tendency is merely a potentiality.
Thus, when we speak of the tendency as a potentiality of the
whole person, we mean this not just in the specific, individual
sense, but above all in terms of relationships. For the role of
the other in the formation of our sexed tendency is just as im-
portant as our genetic, hormonal, and neurological sexuality;
for the meaning of human sexuality is to be found in the bodily
and symbolic relationship with other persons who always be-
long to one of the two sexed conditions. Sexed tendency, then,
does not at first lead to specific acts, but rather to identification
with persons of the same sex and to differentiation from those
of the other, since, by recognizing the other in relation to our-
selves, we recognize our own identity. It is this which, accord-
96
ing to the story in Genesis, Adam discovers in his desire for

Eve: in Eve, Adam finds the woman who enables him to under-
stand his male perspective on the world and on others; and as a
result, his own identity as a man. In short, the sexed tendency
facilitates psychological identification among infants, so that
they can begin to feel and act as male or female persons, well
before they have experimented with any sort of sexual desire.
Thus, the tendency toward the other is sexed before it be-
comes erotic desire: it is male or female insofar as male and fe-
male infants have a still-unconscious intentionality to be rec-
ognized and loved by the other in accordance with their own
mode of being, which makes them able to recognize and love
themselves and the other. We can say that in this sense, sexed
tendency is not just physical and psychological, but also spiritu-
al, because it arises from the person’s need to love and be loved.
Sexed tendency therefore exhibits the two features that Plato
ascribes to the logos: rhema, or the communication of some-
thing to others, in this case the need for love; and onoma, or the
designation of something or someone, in this case the orien-

tation toward the subject of our love, who always has a deter-
mined sexed condition.3
It is precisely, then, in our relationships with others that
sexed tendency becomes desire; which is why the person dis-
covers him- or herself by desiring specific persons, despite be-
ing unaware of the origin of the desire. The lack of awareness of
the means by which sexed tendency takes shape through iden-
tification and differentiation would explain why erotic desire
always seems spontaneous and natural. This is why André Gide
could sincerely state that for him, attraction to other men was
natural, leading him to write in Corydon, his defense of homo-
3. Cf. Plato, Sophist, 262.
97
sexuality, that “what’s important is to realize that where you say

‘against nature’ the phrase ‘against custom’ would do.”4
Thus, use of the term “sexual orientation” does not imply
that desire depends on unchangeable genetic factors, or indi-
vidual choice—as some LGBTQI apologists claim5—but
rather that it develops through relationships with others, es-
pecially with parents or those in a parental role, before we de-
velop our own self-awareness. For this reason, it is more chal-
lenging for a boy to achieve his own psychological identity as a
man than it is for a girl; for he has to separate himself from his
mother, with whom he was at first in an almost symbiotic rela-
tionship. This separation is not only, or indeed primarily, physi-
cal—the end of breastfeeding—but above all psychological: for
instead of orienting himself toward his mother, the male child
must turn toward his father, so that in this way he can develop
his own psychological identity as a man. The relationship with
the parents works differently for the female child, who does not
have to separate herself from her mother to develop her female-
ness, but may rather identify psychologically with her, even
4. A. Gide, Corydon (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1983), 27.
5. The scientific literature does not seem to support the view of those, homosexu-
al and otherwise, who hold the origin of homosexuality to be genetic. The most recent
studies, carried out since the mapping of the human genome, have not discovered the
so-called homosexual gene, but have rather found that in 20 percent of dizygotic and
50 percent of monozygotic twins, certain variations in some genes can give rise to a
predisposition to a homosexual orientation. This implies that while genetics can in-
fluence sexual orientation, it always does so to a limited and contingent degree (cf.
J. M. Bailey, M. P. Dunne, N. G. Martin, “Genetic and Environmental Influences
on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 78, no. 3 [2000]: 524–36). Thus, sexual orientation
does not appear to be genetic in origin, or at least genetics appears to be just one of
its causes. In any event, the search for a gene for male homosexuality or lesbianism
is highly informative, especially when it is supported by defenders of gender studies.
For it ought to produce amazement that the very people who deny the decisive na-
ture of biological sex should be so keen to find a gene that explains the polymorphous
character of human sexuality.
98
though she also needs a father figure in order to feel valued and
loved as a woman.
For a well-adjusted psychological sexuality to develop in
the case of both the male and female child, the common de-
nominator appears to be the role played by emotional attach-
ment and identification with the parental figure of reference.
The theory of mimetic violence developed by the late renowned
cultural anthropologist René Girard provides further support
for this theory from an anthropological perspective: his view
is that in order to desire, we require appropriate models.6 As
this is not the place to explore this theory, I merely note that
by linking Freud’s ideas on the Oedipus Complex to Girard’s
ideas on mimetic desire, we can see how sons’ and daughters’
relationships with their respective models take on a trian-
gular shape, by means of which is forged the deepest desire
we have as human beings: to be ourselves.7 This triangular
relationship can bring about integration; but disintegration
and violence also. For, as Girard points out—though perhaps
without the universality or necessity that he attributes to this

phenomenon—in imitating the model, the imitator repeatedly
approaches and distances him- or herself from the model, in a
manner that can eventually lead to a destructive conflict. In the
6. “The Oedipus complex is what Freud invented to explain triangular rivalries,

when he failed to discover the remarkable possibilities of the principle of imitation,
precisely in connection with issues of desire and rivalry.” R. Girard, Things Hidden
since the Foundation of the World, trans. Patrick Gregory (London: Continuum,
2003), 353.
7. Although Girard does not explicitly address the question of identity, it is clear-
ly present in all his books, since imitation is the basis for all forms of identification,
positive and negative; which is why hate also masks the subject’s identity. “Only
someone who prevents us from satisfying a desire which he himself has inspired in
us is truly the object of hatred. The person who hates first hates himself for the secret
admiration concealed by his hatred.” R. Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and
Other in Literary Structure, trans. Yvonne Freccero (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1965), 10–11.
99
case of imitation by a son, this can occur if the father does not
allow his son to imitate him, if he holds him at arm’s length or
repulses his attempt to become a man, for instance by requiring
his son to do something he will never be able to, such as a job
that he hates or for which he is unsuitable, or which he cannot
yet do for lack of qualifications and experience. Father-son con-
flicts can end tragically with the symbolic killing of the father
figure. The loss of a secure point of reference can lead the male
child to identify with the figure of his mother, causing him to
experience homosexual desires.8 For her part, the mother
must allow her son to identify with his father, permitting the
boy to distance himself from her, without trying to keep him
tied to her apron strings. The absence of the triangular relation-
ship between parents and children also explains why the chil-
dren of lesbian couples have a greater tendency to be homosex-
ual; for in the absence of a father-figure, it is easier to identify
with a female model.9
8. Meloni perceptively criticizes Girard’s apparent failure to attribute sufficient
weight to initial relationships: “In Girard, the specificity of the parental relationship
disappears. . . . If, as Girard maintains, the Oedipus complex is a crystallization of
mimetic desire in action, one could overturn the theme and reply that those perva-
sive forms of mimetism which Girard takes as the foundation of the social mecha-
nism—that proliferation of rivals and obstacles—could be the projection into adult
life of an intra-familiar conflict which has remained open.” M. Meloni, “A Triangle
of Thoughts: Girard, Freud, Lacan,” trans. Tristram Bruce, JEP—European Jour-
nal of Psychoanalysis 14 (Winter–Spring 2002), http://www.psychomedia.it/jep/
number14/meloni.htm.
9. Sociological studies indicate that only 61 percent of children raised by a les-
bian mother self-define as heterosexual, compared with 90 percent of those born or
raised in a family. See M. Regnerus, “How Different Are the Adult Children of Par-
ents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures
Study,” Social Science Research 41, no. 4 (2012), 752–70, http://www.sciencedirect
.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610. Italo Carta, formerly professor of
psychiatry at the University of Milan, who studied the adoption of children by ho-
mosexuals, was of the same view, considering that homosexual couples, and lesbian
couples who not only adopt a child but also get themselves pregnant or inseminated,
are putting their offspring at serious pathological risk of illnesses such as depression,
and personality and identity disorders; there is also a higher incidence of borderline
100
In short, sons and daughters not only take on the psycho-

logical qualities of one of their parents, but also the qualities
that depend on the type of triangular relationship that has been
established between the parents and their children. Thus, a par-
ent who feels insecure in his or her marital relationship might
display jealousy of his or her own child, and so create conflict
with him or her. A woman who has a turbulent relationship
with her husband, or who does not feel that he loves her, might
vent her stress on her child, who is thus caught in an unhealthy
relationship, with possible negative influences on his or her be-
havior. This can be glimpsed, for instance, in the story of Cain
(qayin in Hebrew), in the name that Eve gives him when she
gives birth to him, which means “I have had (acquired, qaniti)
a son from God.” Eve views Cain as an acquisition rather than
a gift. It is interesting to see how the sad story of Cain appears
to have caused Eve to reflect on the mistaken way she has lived
her motherhood: the name she gives to Seth, the son she has af-
ter the death of Abel, means “I have received a son from God.”
This new name seems to show that Eve does not want to repeat
the error of being a possessive mother.10
It is true that boys and girls born and bred in the bosom of
a family can experience considerable tensions and occasionally
dissociation between their bodies and their psychological sexu-
ality. An explanation for such conflicts, beyond the possible ge-
personality disorder, so that they become people who no longer know who they are.
All these problems indicate the collapse of the symbolic function of the father. Ita-
lo Carta, “Adozioni ai gay. ‘Ma la crescita rischia di essere squilibrata:’ 6 domande a
Italo Carta, psichiatra,” interview by La Stampa, September 12, 2012, as reported by
Amici dei Bambini, September 13, 2012, http://www.aibi.it/ma-la-crescita-rischia-di-
essere-squilibrata-6-domandi-a-italo-carta-psichiatra/.
10. “Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying,
‘I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord’” (Gen 4:1). “And Adam knew his wife
again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, ‘God has appointed
for me another child instead of Abel, for Cain slew him’” (Gen 4:25). Emphasis added.
101
netic or hormonal one, may be found in a failure to achieve an

adequate degree of sexual identity, because family dysfunction
or an immaturely lived emotional life can give these children
a confused image of themselves and how to build emotional
relationships with others, particularly friends of the same sex.
Nevertheless, when healthy relationships exist between family
members, sons and daughters learn to establish a bond with the
other that, far from being a source of conflict, allows them to
discover the meaning of sexuality, not as a possessive, victimiz-
ing, or aggressive impulse, but as a gift of self.
The distinction between sexed tendency and desire, then, is
of great heuristic significance, not only in order to understand
the origin of so-called sexual orientation, which would be bet-
ter called erotic desire, but also to establish the existence of a
sexed condition that needs appropriate interpersonal relation-
ships and a favorable social environment in order to develop—
just as language does.
Perhaps these subtle but necessary distinctions are missing
from the classic philosophical discussions of sexuality, pre-

senting us as they do with some lacunae which the debate with
gender ideologists now allows us to fill. For instance, in Aristo-
telian and Thomistic philosophy, animal and human sexuality
is seen as orexis11 (Aristotle) or appetitus sensibilis12 (Aqui-
nas), insofar as it is thought to be a necessary inclination that
depends on knowledge of the desired object: the sexual part-
11. Aristotle, De anima, 432b5–8. Skemp maintains that orexis is a very broad
term in Aristotle, as it brings together moral, psychological, and biological meanings.
Hence it may be understood in two ways: as a faculty or as a desire; the first interpre-
tation emphasizing the biological, the second the moral and psychological aspects.
See J. B. Skemp, “Orexis in De Anima III, 10,” in Aristotle on Mind and the Senses: Pro-
ceedings of the Seventh Symposium Aristotelicum, ed. Gwilym E. L. Owen (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1978), 181–84.
12. Cf. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, III, chap. 69.
102
ner. This concept of sexuality is not wholly adequate, as it fails

to account for the springs of appetite (“dynamization”)—that
is, of instinct or tendency—that are prior to knowledge of the
object. For not only does the tendency spring naturally from
hormonal causes or cosmic rhythms; the very perception of the
other as sexual partner or person with another sexed condition
depends on such a wellspring. Because of this analytical flaw,
these writers do not distinguish between “dynamization,” or
the spontaneity of the instinct or tendency, and its actualiza-
tion or desire once the sexual partner or person with a deter-
mined sexed condition to whom an erotic attraction exists, is
known. The distinction between “dynamization” and actual-
ization of the sexed tendency, for instance, allows us to estab-
lish the difference between a vague inclination that precedes
desire and is directed toward a model with which we identify or
from which we differ; and real, true desire, which does not exist
among animals, whose instinct necessarily leads them to find a
sexual object with which it is satisfied.
In short, these writers do not take account of the distinc-

tiveness of human inclinations: they are the potential of the
whole person, not only of his or her body; and therefore, they
always express his or her spirituality in some way. As we shall
see, this is particularly significant in terms of the characteris-
tics of eros and gift.
Three objections could be made to this critique. Firstly,
it could be said that there is no shortage of passages in which
Aristotle and Aquinas speak of a vegetative dynamism inde-
pendent of knowledge, for example, growth, nutrition, and re-
production.13 While this is true, neither Aristotle nor Aquinas
takes into account the role that these inclinations play in the es-
13. Cf. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-I, q. 17, a. 8.
103
tablishment of consciousness and of knowledge itself, which we

need in order to understand the origin of our desires. Because,
since our inclinations orient us toward particular realities, they
acquire a very specific meaning for us. For example, our sexed
tendency orients us toward the other who, let us not forget, is
always sexed (as man or woman), before we even know him or
her and ourselves as desiring subjects. Consequently, our sexed
tendency appears in our consciousness as an intentional incli-
nation (it is directed at a man or a woman) without however be-
ing objective, since we do not yet recognize him or her intellec-
tually, that is, as belonging to one of the two sexed conditions.
Hence the need for the tendency to be interpreted by the other
at whom it is directed; but also for appropriate relations with
the other, according to his or her sexed condition. All of this is
lacking in the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas, because they
give no account at all of any awareness existing prior to desire.
Accordingly, the only kind of inclination they mention is orexis
or sensible appetite.
A second objection to my critique could be based on the fact

that both Aristotle and Aquinas regard sexual appetite as a hu-
man inclination; thus, Aquinas also speaks of a kind of reason
of the sexual appetite. While we must acknowledge the truth of
these assertions, they do not invalidate my criticism, because
neither writer regards sexuality as rational in itself, but only as
a reproductive dynamism common to plants and animals; it is
rational only by participation, that is, through the cogitative
power—the inner sense that connects reason and perception.14
My view, by contrast, is that human sexuality must be consid-
14. “Virtue and vice, praise and blame do not affect the acts themselves of the
nutritive and generative power, that is, digestion, and formation of the human body;
but they affect the acts of the sensitive part, that are ordained to the acts of generation
and nutrition; for example the desire for pleasure in the act of taking food or in the act
of generation, and the right or wrong use thereof.” Ibid., II-I, q. 17, a. 8, ad 3..
104
ered rational, or even better, relational in itself, because it corre-

sponds to a potentiality of the whole person. By a rational or re-
lational character, I do not mean that it participates in reason by
means of a half-sensible, half-rational knowledge; I am referring
to its malleable nature in terms of our first encounters with the
other, of our relationships with internal family models, and of
language and culture. In short, sexed tendency is not mere vege-
tative dynamism, but a structure of body, mind, and soul that is
relational in character: a sexed condition.
Finally, the third objection would be that Aquinas also
speaks of natural inclinations that are rational in themselves,
such as our directedness toward good, truth, and friendship;15
hence it would seem that this directedness might be considered
a potentiality of the whole person. I disagree, since in saying
that the tendency is a potentiality I am not thinking of pure-
ly spiritual tendencies which, initially at least, do not have any
bodily dynamism. Rather, I am referring to tendencies such
as sexuality, which possess a physiological and psychological
dynamism, the formalization of which in desire for the oth-

er chiefly depends on our earliest interpersonal relationships.
In reality, the “spirituality of this tendency” has nothing to do
with purely spiritual inclinations, rational consciousness, or
personal intentionality, but with interpretation, openness to
human actions, and symbolic character, as well as with its for-
malization through relationships16 and their virtues.17 Given
this spiritual character, sexed tendency does not lead humans
15. Cf. ibid., I-II, q. 94, a. 1.

16. The symbolic character of family ties “concerns the presence of prima-
ry sources of good that we recognize in the presence of trust, hope, and justice (in
particular taking responsibility, including for faults, and for reasonable behavior) in
bonds between human beings.” Cigoli and Scabini, Sacro e tragico familiare, 24.
17. For a discussion of this thesis, see my article La antropología tomista de las
pasiones, Tópicos 40 (July 2011): 133–69.
105
necessarily to actualization, desire, and the sexual act, as it

does among animals; but rather contingently, by means of eros.
In conclusion, sexed tendency includes the unity of the per-
son in his or her physical, psychological, and spiritual makeup;
but also the subject’s sexed perspective and relationship with
the other, especially the other who is also “other” in terms of
his or her body, and hence psychologically and spiritually: that
is, in his or her sexed condition.
Desire for the Other versus

Perverse Polymorphism
Unlike sexed tendency, eros implies awareness of ourselves and
of the other as desiring subjects; and of the other also as object
of desire. In contrast, therefore, with sexed tendency, erotic de-
sire is an immediately first-person human experience: it is not
unconscious, nor is it present in infants.18 Hence the criticism
that can be made of Freud: the reference point of sexual desire
is the other, not pleasure or emotions linked to the accomplish-

ment of specific actions. True, desire can be separated from
desire for the other; but doing so destroys it, leading as it does
from desire for the other’s body to desire for his or her sexual
organs, and ending with their visual depiction, as is the case
with pornography.19
18. Freud, by contrast, thinks that sexual desire begins with a child’s first experi-
ences of life: “So far as I know, not a single author has clearly recognized the regular
existence of a sexual instinct in childhood.” S. Freud, “Three Essays on the Theory
of Sexuality” (1905), in Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 7, trans. and ed. James
Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1953), 173.
19. It is interesting, here, to note the phenomenon of autogynephilia, which takes
various forms: some men are sexually aroused by the idea of dressing in women’s
clothes and are primarily interested in wearing them; others are aroused by the idea of
having a female body and take steps to acquire one. See R. Blanchard, “The Origins of
the Concept of Autogynephilia,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 34, no. 4 (2005), 439–46.
106
In Freud’s account, desire becomes libido—that is, pure,

stored-up physical energy which every so often needs to be dis-
charged—and seems to appear unconsciously at first; only later
is it said to be directed at specific objects that satisfy it, and fi-
nally, once the process of maturation is complete, at a person of
the opposite sex.20 As we have seen, this account differs from
the psychological dynamism of the sexed tendency, which is
directed right from the start at the other, whom we love and
by whom we wish to be loved in return. Furthermore, were
the tendency only physical in origin, or directed at objects, its
transformation into desire could not be explained; thus, among
animals, where the sexual instinct is always linked to specific
signals perceptible to the senses, which stimulate it in a neces-
sary way, there is no desire for the other, but only for a female or
a male with which to mate.21
But what does desire add to sexed tendency? I think desire
is the awareness of feeling oneself attracted to certain persons
because they have another sexed condition,22 this being made
20. According to Freud, there are two stages in this process: in the first, libido,
initially directed at the self, is then oriented toward the object, allowing narcissism to
be overcome. In the second, the object of libido, the parent of the other sex, is aban-
doned, and desire opened to an object outside the family. “At the same time as these
plainly incestuous phantasies are overcome and repudiated, one of the most signifi-
cant, but also one of the most painful, psychical achievements of the pubertal period
is completed; detachment from parental authority, a process that alone makes possi-
ble the opposition, which is so important for the progress of civilization, between the
new generation and the old.” Freud, “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,” 227.
21. Scruton holds a similar view: “Freud, under the guise of a theory, has smug-
gled in his conclusion: that the libido—that very instinctual force—might also be
exemplified as a desire for this person, and in the pursuit of this person. But that is
precisely what the basic moves of Freud’s theory give us reason to doubt. For those
moves situate the libido outside the realm of interpersonal attitudes; it remains whol-
ly inexplicable how this appetitive force could acquire the intentionality of such an
attitude, or even some other form of genuine object-directedness, and still remain it-
self.” R. Scruton, Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation (London: Phoenix Press,
2001), 204.
22. As we have seen, desires may be typified by a degree of indifference to the
107
possible by the processes of identification and psychological

differentiation we have already explored. Thus, eros is an out-
going to the other, starting from the identity of one’s own self.
Moreover, this outgoing, even if conscious, is not voluntary, or
at least not wholly so. Desire consists precisely in this involun-
tary awareness of being drawn to persons of another sexed con-
dition. Therefore, “desire does not show me my way of being
affected, nor does it shut me up within my desiring self. It does
not speak to me at first of myself because it is not at first a way
of being aware of myself, even less an ‘internal sensation.’ It is
an experienced lack of . . . , an impulse oriented toward.”23 Eros
thus involves an involuntary intentionality for a relationship
that attracts us to other identities, from a sexed perspective.
Why do we have an erotic desire for another? According
to Plato, it is because desire is a demigod, the son of a mortal
woman, Penia—lack—and a god, Poros—plenty. Thus, on the
one hand we recognize in our desire our own poverty, since we
have need of the other (desire as lack, or Penia); on the other
hand, insofar as we can desire only that which we possess in

some way, we recognize our own abundance (desire as rich-
ness of the self, or Poros). This inseparable synthesis of lack and
plenty is part of the very essence of eros, as Plato very clearly
shows.24
The aspect of poverty that concerns desire, or, in modern
parlance, lack of autonomy or dependence on others, was ren-
dered absolute by the revolution of 1968. Many radical feminists
therefore interpret the relationship between men and women
as essentially dialectical. Desire is thus viewed as a struggle to
other’s sexed condition; or an inclination may not correspond to one’s own sexed
condition.
23. Ricoeur, Fallible Man, 53.
24. Cf. Plato, Symposium, 203b–203e.
108
the death against the other, so that one may be recognized as an

autonomous subject. The phenomenological analysis of Sartre
on the exchange of looks between lovers reflects this conflict-
ual view of eros: the lover’s desiring look makes the beloved a
being-for-itself, while the lover founds his being in a condition
of slavery (a being-for-other); but, if the lover is looked at with
desire, he becomes the beloved, and the relationship changes
radically: the beloved loses his needy character and becomes
autonomous, while the new lover becomes a slave.25 There
seems to be no solution to the tragic condition created by eros;
hence Simone de Beauvoir concluded—as we have seen—that
in order to avoid slavery, the difference between lover and be-
loved created by desire must be denied: man and woman must
possess each other without giving themselves, indeed without
desiring one another; otherwise, they disappear as autonomous
subjects.
Does this view of desire as the cause of relationships of slav-
ery and domination reflect what eros really is, or is it a perver-
sion of eros? In Plato, of course, it is desire that allows us to rise

above the beauty of bodies to love of the Ideas, until we reach
the Good; for desire contains in itself a transcendent impulse.
This is lacking in the writings of the sexual revolutionaries and
radical feminists, where desire loses this capacity to allow us
to escape our immanence, and hence enslaves us the minute it
brings us pleasure.
This novel view of desire can perhaps be most clearly seen
in the work of the Marquis de Sade; for whereas the radical
feminists put up a screen to conceal their drift toward narcis-
sism, he does not seek to hide that for him, eros is merely de-
sire for pleasure. Two whole centuries before the revolution of
25. Cf. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 499–530.
109
1968, Sade understood that the final aim of revolution involves

the reduction of persons to bodies to be bartered as objects of
pleasure. He knew that eros is initially desire for the other, but
this prevents us from enjoying bodies to the full, given that al-
terity limits our search for pleasure for its own sake.26 Sade,
then, makes eros into pure desire for its own sake, that is, desire
for one’s own pleasure, completely doing away with its internal
dynamic of openness to the other. In this sense, Sade is the au-
thor who more than any other radically deconstructs eros, be-
cause desire, when seeking pleasure alone, turns back on itself
in total immanence. Moreover, he grasps more clearly than the
radical feminists the relationship between desire for pleasure
and the commodification of the body, perceiving that this way
of understanding eros implies that the only possible freedom
consists in just one thing: “the universal obligation to enjoy
and be enjoyed.”27 He therefore demands for woman the right
to dispose of her own body in complete freedom, so that it can
become the instrument of someone’s pleasure.
Sade’s corruption of desire entails the destruction of the

nonrepeatability of the woman: her femaleness; for it induces
her to imitate the baser model of male sexuality—narcissism.28
26. This leads Sade to try to destroy anything that is natural, because it opposes
the greatest pleasures. As he writes in one of his novels: “Nothing very out of the or-
dinary befell me in the course of the next two years; I lived higher than ever before,
my debaucheries multiplied, and finally brought me to the point where I lost all taste
for the simpler pleasures of Nature; to the point where if there was not something ex-
ceptional or criminal in the frolics which were proposed to me, I could not even feign
an interest in them.” Marquis de Sade, Juliette, trans. Austryn Wainhouse (New York:
Grove Press, 1968), 1136.
27. C. Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing
Expectations (New York: Norton, 1991), 70.
28. This is why Luce Irigaray maintains that woman needs to be in relation-
ship with her difference, through the symbolic relationship with motherhood: “We
also need to find, rediscover, invent the words, the sentences that speak of the most
ancient and current relationship we know—the relationship to the mother’s body. . . .
If we are not to be accomplices in the murder of the mother we also need to assert that
110
Thus, without femaleness, male desire can solipsistically close

in on itself, including during relations with the other sex.
What Sade and the radical feminists forget is that desire,
whether male or female, is always for another; indeed, female-
ness is part of the intentionality of male desire, just as maleness
is part of that of female desire. As we shall see, this intention-
ality implicitly contains the other’s response. For this reason,
when desire is stripped of its male or female intentionality, it
becomes polymorphous, and ultimately amorphous.29 The dis-
appearance of the other from the essence of desire thus implies
a profoundly inhuman way of understanding and practicing
sexuality. We thus discover in desire an intentionality proper to
both the two sexed conditions and for which we are responsible
despite its initial involuntary character. How is this possible?
The apparent paradox resolves itself when we analyze the
intentionality of male and female desire. Thus, it is through his
male desire that man relates to woman as other than himself,
external to himself, separate, and yet recognized as being part
of himself insofar as she possesses the other mode of being a

person; a mode that calls for consideration, care, and love. Ac-
there is a genealogy of women.” L. Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies, trans. Gillian C.

Gill (New York: Columbia University Press 1993), 18–19.
29. The connection between the liberation of desire from relationship with the
other and the polymorphous character that can be taken on by desire is made abun-
dantly clear by the following words from one of the Italian theorists of the homosexu-
al movement: “The only way we can comprehend the importance of the contribution
made to the revolution and to human emancipation by the progressive liberation of
sadism, masochism, pederasty properly understood, gerontophilia, necrophilia,
zooerastia, autoeroticism, fetishism, scatology, urophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism,
etc., is by moving in the first person toward disinhibition and the concrete expression
of such tendencies of our desire; by referring to the works, practices, and theories of
those who already openly live out one or many forms of so-called ‘perverse’ desire,
without forgetting that often, it is those who are called ‘schizophrenic’ who are the
most ‘perverse.’” M. Mieli, Elementi di critica omosessuale, ed. Gianni Rossi and Paolo
Mieli (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2002), 243.
111
cordingly, in an effort to bridge the gap with the other mode of

being, male desire leads man to physical contact, to caresses,
embraces, and union.30 By contrast, female desire perceives
the other from within, primarily on an emotional level and in
terms of relationship, since woman looks for emotional, physi-
cal, and spiritual acceptance from man.31
A key feature of the intentionality of desire that is common
to man and woman is the propensity to find the signs of one’s
own desire in the body of the other. For instance, caresses and
looks involve the anticipation, and sometimes the discovery, of
the other’s desire, which therefore serves to arouse one’s own
desire: one’s gaze reveals one’s awareness of the other’s desire,
and a caress the consciousness of the other’s pleasure. This con-
sciousness proper to desire is intentional without having an ob-
jective. Of course, there may be an objective intentionality: we
may seek to ensure that our own desire is recognized or show
the other that his or her desire has been recognized; the expres-
sion of desire then becomes objective, and reflexive as well.32
30. In this context, the manner in which Ricoeur, a man, describes desire phe-
nomenologically, is interesting: “My flesh of desire is wholly anticipation, that is, a
prefigured grasp or hold, over there, elsewhere, nowhere, outside myself.” Ricoeur,
Fallible Man, 53.
31. Some difference feminists, such as Nadia Fusini, speak of female behavior as a
cum vertere, a turning so as to be-with, to be-granted “with her face turned to that first
other who is for everyone mother, beginning, and roots,” N. Fusini, Uomini e donne.
Una fratellanza inquieta (Rome: Donzelli, 1995), 66.
32. Although Scruton always refers to the thought on which desire depends in
terms of objectivizing, this passage seems to reveal various degrees of awareness (my
interpretation in italics): “We should expect the glance of desire to involve, first, an
intention to arouse sexual interest [not objectified]; secondly, the intention that this
first intention be recognized [objectified]; thirdly, the intention that, through being
recognized, it play a part in precipitating what is intended [reflexive]. However, al-
though there are grounds for thinking that the intentional structure of meaning may
sometimes exist in the glances of desire, reciprocity is normally of a lower order. In
the normal case, the intention is that the other’s desire be precipitated, not by a rec-
ognition of my intention, but by a recognition of my desire.” Scruton, Sexual Desire, 24.
112
Normally, though, desire has an initial intentionality without

an object: the outgoing from the self, from one’s own sexual
identity toward the desired man or woman; as also the desire to
feel oneself desired.
It is precisely the existence of the other as desiring subject
that renders the subject responsible for his or her desires, since
their ultimate intention—even if it is not always obvious—is
to influence the other’s desires. The moral character of desire
is to be found in precisely this point—that is, in its relational-
ity. Thus, erotic desire, far from being perverse, is profoundly
moral, because it concerns the other’s desire; for by desiring the
other, we influence his or her desire. “Thus we see . . . that the
first-person perspective enters into the intentionality of a feel-
ing only by making the subject answerable for what he feels.
As soon as I suffer such an interpersonal emotion, my respon-
sibilities are engaged. It does not matter that the emotion is not
something that I do—it matters only that it has the kind of in-
terpersonal intentionality that leads me to ‘have designs upon’
another.”33
As a result of this responsibility involved in eros, we can dis-
tinguish between two sorts of situation, one having personal
significance, and involving desire directed at the other, because
he or she too has desires; and another as spontaneous inclina-
tion toward the other. This explains the difference between the
polymorphism sometimes experienced when a desire that is not
yet personal is spontaneously ignited, and the choice and love of
one who desires, which, by contrast, has personal significance.
This is a similar difference to that which we can see, for exam-
ple, between the movement of the face and eyes when we see
a person, and those same or other movements when we cast at
33. Ibid., 62.
113
another (female or male) a look of interest or complicity. In any

event, spontaneous and involuntary movements can reveal the
direction of our desire even before we intend them. For this rea-
son, once they have been observed, they must be personalized
through acceptance or rejection, because a smile or a glance for
instance, are significant factors in the arousal of desire in others.
Erotic desire, then, always includes the other’s perspective
according to his or her sexed condition. Of course, culture
molds desire too, and can also create stereotypes, such as male
activity and female passivity in desire. Therefore, woman was
for many centuries in the West, and still is today in Islamic
countries, the object of male desire—the single focus of activ-
ity in the erotic relationship—but she must not reciprocate by
expressing her desire. In point of fact, active or passive behav-
ior in terms of desire is not the prerogative of just one of the
sexes; it belongs to them both. When the sexed tendency does
not lead to a relationship between desiring subjects, it loses its
personal character, descending into the objectivization of the
other, and in the final analysis, into narcissism. It is therefore

quite right that men and women should seek reciprocity in the
realm of desire. Perhaps this is one of the most positive aspects
of the equality of relationship that characterizes young couples,
where men and women have mutual desire one for the other.34
Of course, this reciprocity demands responsibility on the man’s
part, to avoid reducing erotic desire to desire for pleasure; and
on the woman’s part, to be aware of the sort of desire she is
arousing in the man, indicating how she wishes to be desired by
the way she desires the man.
Desire, then, requires transcendence toward the other, as
34. Cf. M. Cusinato, La competenza relazionale. Perché e come prendersi cura delle
relazioni (Milan: Springer-Verlag, 2013), 154–57.
114
well as reciprocity. Aquinas’s cycle of love-desire-pleasure is

therefore only appropriate for animals and for humans’ physi-
ological needs such as nutrition; but not for sexuality.35 Apart
from cases of immaturity, pathology, or perversion, this should
not be satisfied with orgasm, where the person is merely an
instrument of one’s own pleasure.36 Desire should always be
desire for the other’s desire. And it is here that we find the sig-
nificance of sexual difference, insofar as the man desires the de-
sire that the woman has for him as man, and vice versa. In this
game of discovery, recognition, and further discovery, desire
grows until it brings man and woman to union.
What, then, is the aim of desire? Despite the common de-
piction of desire in films or literature, the sexual act is not its
immediate aim. Rather, it is directed toward the other’s desire,
in an attempt to make him or her resonate in unison with one’s
own desire, which is, therefore, more a means of conveyance
than an end-project. It is only in its being carried by its own
momentum that we find that desire naturally leads to the physi-
cal, emotional, and spiritual union of the two persons involved.

The aim of desire, then, is sexual union in marriage. This
does not mean that there are no other, more or less conscious
ends, just as there are in other interpersonal relationships.
Thus, if the players on a soccer team were to be asked what
they were doing on the field, some would say “playing,” others,
“enjoying the game,” still others, “trying to qualify or win the
game,” and others, finally, “gaining meaningful experience for
their sporting career or indeed for their life.” There are, then, at
least four intentions: “there is the immediate aim (scoring), the
longer-term project (winning), the motive (enjoyment), and
35. Cf. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 23, a. 1.

36. Cf. Ricoeur, Fallible Man, 109.
115
the fulfilment (an experience of ‘meaning’).”37 Before they im-

plement a life project that transforms man and woman’s identi-
ty into husband and wife, and into parents, their desire is “de-
sire for the other,” but also desire for the other’s desire, desire
for union with the beloved and desire for the pleasure of union.
Despite the many intentions that may be found in desire and in
the dynamic that leads it to the gift of self, there are basically
two stages from beginning to end: falling in love, or personal-
ization of eros, and the perfection of eros in married love.
Desire, then, is not merely for a body, and still less for the
pleasure to be experienced from using it as an instrument as
Sade thinks. Were this true, Kant would be correct in viewing
the marital act as the right to use the body of the other, since he
thinks desire for the other is always tantamount to the desire to
use him or her, to transform him or her into an object of one’s
own pleasure. On the contrary: desire is essentially relational
(directed toward the other’s desire, to make him or her reso-
nate), and therefore does not seek even an abstract and cold re-
spect for the self and the other, but mutual participation.38 This
can best be seen in the discovery of the other, initially through
the beauty of his or her body, and especially his or her face,
which is the least sexual part of the human body and yet the
most erotic, because it is the most personal. Thus, as Plato ob-
served, beauty plays a central role in the origin of eros, because
it involves an initial appreciation of the transcendental value of
the other, which therefore draws us toward him or her.39 How-
37. Scruton, Sexual Desire, 88.

38. Scruton thinks Kant errs in identifying the end-in-itself with the feeling of
esteem, and the means to this end with desire. Esteem does not concern the individ-
ual, but rather the reason that is common to all human beings; while desire and love
always concern the person. Cf. Ibid., 111.
39. According to Diotima, the priestess of Mantinea, eros is desire for the beauti-
ful, in order to generate in it. Plato, Symposium, 201d–212c.
116
ever, we are not dealing here with an “absolutely transcendent

other,” such as the Platonic Ideas, and not even such as Lévinas’s
epiphany of the Other,40 but rather with an image of the Infinite
that we discover in the other’s flesh, and that seems to us to be in
some way intimately bound up with our happiness. This should
not be confused with the idolatry of difference, of the sort es-
poused by Irigaray, because it is not difference as such that is
absolute, but that to which it refers. For Adam, Eve—loved in
her nonrepeatability—points us back to God. In this sense, we
can speak of desire for the other as an imprint or icon of the
Absolute.41 The other’s nonrepeatability is felt, prized, and pro-
claimed. Thus, desire for the other is essentially evaluative of his
or her qualities.42
Of course, besides feeling attracted by the other’s value, de-
sire includes, or can include, in a more or less hidden way, what
40. According to Lévinas, there is a close relationship between the Other and
the logos. “The relationship of language implies transcendence, radical separation, the
strangeness of the interlocutors, the revelation of the other to me. In other words, lan-
guage is spoken where community between the terms of the relationship is wanting,
where the common plane is wanting or is yet to be constituted. It takes place in this
transcendence. Discourse is thus the experience of something absolutely foreign, a
pure ‘knowledge’ or ‘experience’ a traumatism of astonishment.” E. Lévinas, Totality
and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1979), 73.
41. This is the only sense that alterity has in Lévinas, and also in Marion, accord-
ing to whom “I see not the visible face of the other, an object still reducible to an im-
age . . . but the invisible gaze that wells up through the obscurity of the pupils of the
other’s face; in short, I see the other of the visible face.” J. L. Marion, The Crossing
of the Visible, trans. James K. A. Smith (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
2004), 56–57.
42. Although he rejects desire, always considering it egotistical and self-serving,
Kant is aware that between objects that have a market price and the subject that has
no price, but has dignity, there is a category of objects that have no price at all, and,
although as objects they have no dignity, they have value, that is, an affective price.
“That which refers to universal human inclination and needs has a market price; that
which, even without presupposing any need, is in accord with a certain taste, that is,
a satisfaction in the mere purposeless play of the powers of our mind, an affective
price.” Cf. I. Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. and trans. Allen W.
Wood (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 52–53.
117
Kant calls the three fundamental human passions: possession,

domination, and honor.43 Thus, desire tends to be possessive,
to establish power games between the subjects, and to demand
recognition and respect. These tendencies may seem to hu-
manize desire but can also corrupt it. This is demonstrated by
contrasting the transcendence of human desire with animals’
instincts:
All the richness of sexuality is here in this complex interplay of the vi-
tal and the human, itself so disparate. It follows from this that sexual
satisfaction can no longer be simply a physical pleasure. The human
being, through pleasure, beyond pleasure, and sometimes by sacri-
ficing pleasure, pursues the satisfaction of the quests with which “in-
stinct” becomes overlaid; a certain indefiniteness thus enters into it
while it is being humanized. Instinct becomes open and without end
instead of cyclic.44
On the other hand, despite the multiplicity of passions and

indeed perversions to which eros can give rise, it can be inte-
grated once it has been personalized, opening itself up to the
total gift of self, both in marriage and the celibate state, through
the virtue of chastity; whereas abstinence or simply continence
are not the same as the integration of eros, since they lack both
the formal structure of love and its proper purpose. Thus, love
does not imply the mortifying of erotic desire, but rather its
elevation; it intensifies erotic desire until it leads to the gift of
self, which is always the acceptance of the other as gift. Unlike
sexual polymorphism or the repression of desire, chastity is
thus revealed as the ability to personalize desire; but lust as the
cause of its disintegration. For on the one hand, lust produces
43. Kant speaks of three uniquely human desires: Habsucht (mania for posses-
sion), Herrschsucht (mania for domination) and Ehrsucht (mania for honor). Cf. An-
thropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 172–74 (§85).
44. Ricoeur, Fallible Man, 128.
118
an objectified view of the other’s body, which prevents us from

gaining access to him or her as a person; on the other, it caus-
es desire to lose its erotic impetus toward the other, reducing it
to mere desire for pleasure. The integration of our erotic desire,
then, plays an important part in our personal identity, enabling
it to establish an enduring bond, an emotional investment, a
personal engagement, and the capacity to generate.
Falling in Love with the Other versus

Compulsory Heterosexuality
Gender feminists regard compulsory heterosexuality as the
dominant idea that constructs gender, with reference to bodi-
ly sex and desire that is heteronormalized by norms and social
practices.
In reality, as we shall see, the erotic relationship between a
man and a woman has nothing to do with social constraints, but
with a further personalization of desire—that is, with falling
in love. Of course, like every other relationship, being in love is

regulated by society, since the way it is formalized varies from
one society to the next. All of which means that desire is not
personalized in a vacuum, but always within a socio-cultural
framework. Nonetheless, desire is born of the encounter with
a male or female person, and not of prohibitions or gender per-
formance. Thus, if desire has been characterized as dragged out
of us by specific persons of another sexed condition, because we
have discovered specific male or female values in them, being
in love must be characterized by desire for another, by whom
we desire to be desired. The object of love is not the sexed con-
dition of the other, viewed in an abstract way, but the tangible
embodiment of this condition in an individual person, which
joins together the “here and now” of a bodily presence, a sexed
119
perspective, a desire, and a responsibility which establishes the

other as “desired subject.”
Falling in love is a spontaneous feeling that we can accept
or reject; it is directed at some man or woman other than our-
selves, not because we have singled him or her out as distinct
from others through any individualizing thought—that is to
say, through an objective intentionality, insofar as this person
and no other has all the characteristics needed to satisfy our
desire; but rather because we feel ourselves spontaneously at-
tracted to him or her.45 Falling in love involves desire for the
other before we are even conscious of it. Despite occasionally
failing to be altogether aware of it, one who is in love desires
his or her love to be returned by the beloved. The individual-
izing thought, therefore, arises after we have objectified our
own desire and its content, and is expressed most intensely in
the beloved’s name. Hence, to those in love, the name of the be-
loved man or woman is not merely the individualization of the
idea of someone, but rather an expression of having in his or her
regard a desire capable of individualizing him or her as unique

among all men or women. To one in love, the very name of the
beloved is paradoxically unique and nonrepeatable, however
much it may refer to other people. Writers of every age have ex-
perienced this; thus, in the Castilian tragicomedy La Celestina,
45. Cf. Scruton, Sexual Desire, 76: “The desire was, and is, for Mary, and Eliza-
beth serves as an ‘instrument’ in its expression. In any account of what Mary would
have ‘done for’ John (any account that is faithful to the intentionality of his desire)
the term ‘Mary’ (or some term with equal reference) designates the individual object
of desire. Its function is to pick out an individual person, by expressing an individ-
ualizing thought. It is arguable that no proper name really can convey an individu-
alizing thought, and even that individualizing reference is never secured merely by
the content of our thought.” In my view, Scruton’s theory that desire depends on an
individualizing thought does not reflect the reality of desire, which is prior to any sort
of objectification. Scruton’s contention that desire depends on this type of thought is
attributable to the fact that he is an analytical philosopher, and therefore discounts
any sort of non-propositional thought.
120
written at the end of the fifteenth century, Calisto, in love with

Melibea, delivers a sort of proclamation of faith in his beloved
when the servant, Sempronio, asks him if he is a Christian:
“Me? I’m a Melibean. I worship Melibea, I believe in Melibea,
and I adore Melibea.”46 Something similar occurs with the be-
loved’s body: although it is a body—male or female—of a kind
shared by all men or all women, it is individualized to the point
of becoming unique and nonrepeatable.
So, as we have seen, one who is in love desires not only the
beloved person, but desires above all to be desired by him or
her. Even though this intentionality is always potentially im-
plicit in desire, it is only falling in love that makes it explicit,
because this requires the presence of the beloved, at least in
thought and in the affections. And, provided this falling-in-love
is not merely platonic, the presence of the beloved in thought
gives way to their real presence, because the other is not an idea
or an ideal, but a desiring subject who wants to be involved in
the beloved’s desire. This special intentionality of falling in
love—the desire to be desired by the other—makes possible a

new, more profound discovery of the self: of the self in the oth-
er and the other in the self, which is a potent attraction. This
is the mystery of falling in love: that to be able to become our-
selves, we must go out from ourselves toward the other, and
this, far from being a cause of alienation, is personally enrich-
ing, because the other is somehow present in us, just as we are
in the other. It is through the meeting of desires that one who is
in love can enter into the other, starting to share his or her own
life with the other.
What does this sharing of life consist in? To answer this,
46. F. de Rojas, Celestina, trans. Peter Bush (London: Penguin, 2010), 4. In this
book, famously, the love between the protagonists is a kind of idolatry, which leads to
the suicide of Melibea after Calisto’s sudden death.
121
we must first identify the goal of falling in love. Like desire, the
goal of falling in love is to bring about the union of two per-
sons.47 Although we are used to seeing the marriage bond as
something natural, it actually involves considerable difficulty
from a theoretical point of view, since man and woman are not
only originally different, but also independent; or, as we have
seen, each of them is a whole person. The platonic myths about
the androgynous beings and eros are attempts to resolve this
difficulty: union is said to precede separation, so that the de-
sire that leads to the union of what is separated simultaneously
displays need and abundance. But what happens if union does
not precede the differences, but the differences precede union?
Man and woman should then be viewed as mutual riches, or,
better still, as a gift: the woman as gift for the man and vice ver-
sa. As a result, their union would be a gift in the fullest sense
of the word, because it would bring about a reality that did not
at first exist. I think that it is this second scenario that best de-
scribes human love; that is, union is not prior to differences, as
Plato thought, nor is it the consequence of some personal defi-

ciency or, as the radical feminists hold, of some sociocultural
dependence; rather, it is gift, and gift par excellence.48
But from an initial position of distance, man and woman
47. The ambiguous character of love is well illustrated by F. Botturi, who points
out its dual nature. On the one hand it is prophetic, because, it speaks of a love that
will occur; on the other, it is a source of seduction, since its spontaneity makes us
expect an effortless response in kind from the other and instant congeniality. See
F. Botturi, La generazione del bene. Gratuità ed esperienza morale (Milan: Vita e Pen-
siero, 2009); esp. chap. 4, “Il desiderio trascendentale.”
48. Tillich explains this in a similar way, although he tends to think of union as
belonging to the very essence of the person: “Love is the drive towards the unity of
the separated. Reunion presupposes separation of that which belongs essentially to-
gether.” P. Tillich, Love, Power and Justice: Ontological Analyses and Ethical Implica-
tions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), 25. In my view, rather than speaking
of conjugal union as part of the ontological essence of the person, we should see it as
part of his or her personal vocation, insofar as vocation, unlike essence, is personal
rather than specific.
122
must move closer to one another if they are to achieve union,

starting from those very differences in order to be able to en-
rich each other. A first step toward closeness is the exchange of
looks. For even though the story of how Adam fell in love does
not explicitly mention the looks that must undoubtedly have
been exchanged by the two protagonists, it is clear that such
glances are the first feature of all encounters between those
who have fallen in love. It is only after having looked at Eve, and
having been looked at by her, that Adam is certain that he has
found another person, but one who belongs to him as gift; and
his feelings of tremendous joy burst forth in consequence. Like
Adam and Eve, when lovers recognize one another through
their glances, they do not merely discover one another as man
and woman, nor do they discover one another in their mutual
desire; rather, they find one another above all in the sharing of
the gift that each is for the other. Of course, unlike the actual
belonging to the other revealed in the case of Adam and Eve,
falling in love only discloses the possibility of belonging. The
exchange of looks by those in love, then, brings about neither

Hegel’s master/servant relationship, nor Sartre’s subject/object
one, but a relationship of gift. For since the look of one in love,
born of joyful surprise in the face of the unexpected gift of the
other, expresses a shared perspective, it is unlike the look prop-
er to an Hegelian or Sartrean dialectical relationship, in which
the aim is always to subjugate the other, in order to turn him
or her into a mere reflection of the self, or mere object of my
desire.
But what do we mean by a shared perspective? It is not a
synthesis of the two perspectives, but rather a particular sort
of complementarity that perfects our way of seeing and loving
reality. It might perhaps be better to speak of an in fieri comple-
mentarity: for this is about starting to reach for the other’s per-
123
spective without ever entirely attaining it, since it is, precisely,

another’s. Given that the shared perspective of a couple in love
is marked by their sexed conditions, they see the other in terms
of a bodily subjectivity, and, moreover, one that is part of a his-
tory, a society, and a culture. For this reason, no one can have
a purely sexual perception of the other, common to all men
and women. Here, in my view, lies the error of the naturalistic
account, with its various stereotypes. But nor can we view the
personal and shared perspective as entirely cultural, as gender
ideologists do. The personal and shared perspective is sexed
and integrated to a greater or lesser extent. Be that as it may, it
is through the shared perspective that a couple in love begin to
see reality (themselves and the world) with the eyes of the be-
loved, and therefore love all that exists in a new way: no longer
from a closed perspective, but an open one, meaning one that is
able to encompass the other’s perspective. The shared perspec-
tive of being in love consists in this looking at the other and be-
ing looked at by the other with the same love that is extended
to everything that they both love. This is one of the most beau-
tiful manifestations of human greatness: the ability to put one-
self in the other’s perspective, without this implying the loss of
self, but the relativization of one’s own point of view, which in-
volves opening up one’s own existential horizons thanks to the
beloved person. In the case of persons of the same sex, the per-
spective cannot be shared, since the relationship lacks the oth-
er’s sexual difference. They can have many things in common,
but not difference, which permits this shared prospective. They
will have the other’s sexed perspective without going out from
the self, because there is no difference.
The looks, the mutual discovery and shared perspective
give rise to the intimacy of the couple in love, which eschews
the looks of others; they therefore seek separation from oth-
124
ers, and solitude. This intimate environment brings to birth

and develops the relationship of the couple, in which they plan
their shared future; the greatest of these plans is the creation
of a family through marriage. Falling in love, then, involves not
only the inclination of eros and the desire for the other’s desire,
but also the beginning of love. Thus, falling in love is an attrac-
tion to a person, which gradually changes from involuntary
to deliberate, because far from being viewed as a shackle, this
attraction is seen as an enlargement of one’s own freedom, in-
deed, as the joy of feeling oneself intimately bound to another
person.
Nonetheless, falling in love is not yet mature love, since the
latter is not only the possibility of being gift for the other, but
real gift.49 This is owing to the fact that when we fall in love,
the relationship between need and gift is not yet in equilibri-
um: we love the other because we need him or her; that is,
when we fall in love, love is basically born of need. This could
look like a contradiction—for how can we need the other, if he
or she is a gift? In fact, this apparent contradiction depends on

the structure of the sexed condition, and specifically on its po-
tential relationality: every man and every woman is in a poten-
tial relationship with the other mode of being a person. But this
does not become an actual relationship without the gift of the
other, for which reason the gift of the other becomes necessary.
In short, falling in love is more a tendency to receive the gift
of the other than a conscious and free act of giving of the self;
49. It is interesting in this respect to recall Scheler’s distinction between abso-

lute love and conditional love, a property of eros: “the love which has moral value is
not that which pays loving regard to a person for having such and such qualities, pur-
suing such and such activities, or for possessing talents, beauty, or virtue; it is that
love which incorporates these qualities, activities, and gifts into its object, because
they belong to that individual person.” M. Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy, trans. Peter
Heath (London: Routledge, 1954), 166.
125
therefore, falling in love does not require the virtues, whereas

giving oneself does. For love to mature, the one who is in love
needs to grow in possession of the self, and at the same time in
trust of the other. Without possession of the self, it is not pos-
sible to give oneself, since we cannot give what we do not pos-
sess. And without trust in the other, we cannot receive the gift
of the other, since we always suspect ulterior motives or simply
do not consider it a gift, but something we are owed because we
desire it.
Furthermore, when we fall in love, we must be completely
honest with ourselves to avoid mistaking love for those selfish
tendencies that so often lurk beneath the fires of sexual passion
(desire for possession, power, and respect); otherwise we can
want the other not as an end, but as a means of satisfying an
end. Indeed, when these sorts of tendencies guide romantic re-
lationships, they can produce a range of psychological phenom-
ena that are the opposite of love, such as conflation, alienation
from the self, or confusion with the other; for instance, when
the other is viewed as an object to be guarded or a juvenile to

be kept safe (as with jealousy or paternalism or maternalism);
or as a servant to be commanded or a master to be obeyed (as
in relationships characterized by morbid dependency); or as a
mirror held up to the self (as with narcissism) or a superman or
superwoman to be idolized (as with sexual insecurity).
It seems to me that when these tendencies to possession,
power, and respect are exchanged for two ways of loving that
correspond to sexual difference, they result in stereotypes: of
the female beloved as an object to be possessed and guarded
and of the male lover as a master; but they also result in male
narcissism being mistaken for the only way of loving. Thus, fem-
inism has concluded that these apparently natural ways of lov-
ing are really sociocultural constructions. Alas, the radical fem-
126
inists have “thrown the baby out with the bathwater”; that is,
discarded sexual difference along with the stereotypes, which,
of course, are no basis on which to build the relationship of man
and woman. In any event, when the true differences between
man and woman are recognized and integrated, these tenden-
cies, far from being obstacles to achieving union with the other,
are the engine that brings about the transformation of the self
through the other, for the other, and with the other. Possession
of the other is transformed into protection and care, power into
service, and, finally, respect into love and faithfulness.
The fact that these tendencies exist when we fall in love
should not, however—pace de Beauvoir and many radical fem-
inists—lead us to think that a lover’s possessive narcissism is
the sole outcome of eros, and that loving consequently means
possessing the beloved and imposing my will on him or her,
making him or her reflect my self. It is true that the trap into
which those in love are likely to fall—as, generally, are those
whose love is immature—is that of seeking possession of the
other, thinking that this will bring about their own growth, or
the growth of the other; but by this means alterity is destroyed,
and so, as a result, is the very possibility of growth in love. The
lover’s absolute uniqueness cannot be achieved by taking pos-
session of the other, that is, by destroying his or her identity,
but by allowing the other to draw out of him- or herself what
he or she truly is, so that the positive in the relationship can
come to the surface. For falling in love makes lovers unique,
not by means of dominance over the other, but because it ac-
tualizes the real—but hidden—potentialities of lovers, which
without a beloved would remain in the realm of the merely pos-
sible. Hence, the relationship between a couple in love serves
to differentiate them as man and woman. In this further differ-
entiation between them, we see how the loving relationship, al-
127
though it requires little in terms of identity, brings about the re-

inforcement of lovers’ identities. This is the mystery of identity:
that in order to be ourselves, we need others. In short, the male
and female perspectives of a couple in love perfect persons and
their relationships by uniting them in a shared perspective.
In order, then, for falling in love to become love, it is both
necessary that there should be distance between the lovers, and
that they should draw nearer to one another. On the one hand,
lovers must preserve their identities, and, accordingly, respect
the beloved—his or her feelings, outlook, tastes, preferences,
affiliations, family history, etc.; all this is part of the first small
steps of love. On the other hand, a couple in love must build
and share the same private space, avoiding anything that might
jeopardize it, particularly through deceitful relationships based
on gestures, actions, and behavior that reflect neither what the
lovers are nor their relationship. Truthfulness therefore plays a
significant role in their growth in love.
Thus, the distinction between love and its false imitations
primarily consists in the existence of a straightforward, candid

relationship between the lovers. It is only when persons meet
and reveal themselves to each other in all their reality, with
their limitations and virtues, that there is no risk of falling in
love with a phantasm, or even with one’s own feelings. The ap-
pearance of the other, then, far from being a filter that protects
us from a real encounter, becomes the means of making this
possible. To appear as we are, however, requires that we accept
and love ourselves; for when such self-esteem is lacking, we
would rather cover our own faces with a mask, for fear of our
own ugliness. This explains the current tendency to substitute
personal relations with virtual emotional relationships on the
Internet, or to change our profile or gender in an effort to ap-
pear attractive. In this way, we not only hide or erase our identi-
128
ty, but also avoid the reality of a relationship we simultaneously

desire and fear. The greatest advantage offered by dating web-
sites and chatrooms to people who are insecure and have low
self-esteem is the ability to end the relationship immediately,
without trouble, fallout, or recrimination. People seek out re-
lationships that are long-distance and to a greater or lesser de-
gree impersonal like games, with all the hazard and adventure
they bring with them.50 Basically, they are more willing to be
ensnared in the web of chance than to build a relationship face-
to-face, with the wise and prudent use of their own freedom.
The need for a straightforward and candid relationship be-
tween lover and beloved also helps us to understand the impor-
tance of a second feature of intimacy: mutual understanding.
The other must be known and loved for what he or she is, not
for what we would like him or her to be or for what we imagine
he or she could become; otherwise we run the risk of exchang-
ing love, first for an illusion, and then, when unvarnished real-
ity intervenes, for disillusion. For the idealization of the oth-
er, which elevates him or her and prevents us from perceiving

what he or she is like, and the refusal to see and accept his or
her shortcomings or those traits that annoy us, both mean that
the loving relationship is built on the shifting sands of fantasy
rather than on a secure foundation.
What does mutual understanding mean? Mutual under-
standing amounts to telling one’s own story, so that the beloved
has access to the deepest roots from which our own feelings,
thoughts, and actions spring. This story encompasses every-
50. “A reduction of the risks coupled with the avoidance of option-closing is what
is left of rational choice in a world of fluid chances, shifting values, and eminently
unstable rules; and Internet dating, unlike the awkward negotiation of mutual com-
mitments, fulfils such new standards of rational choice perfectly (or near perfectly).”
Z. Bauman, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (Cambridge, UK: Polity
Press, 2003), 65.
129
thing that is part of the origin, faith, education, culture, and

tastes of the couple in love, and, above all, of the very existence
of their love, with their hopes and fears. In this way, not only
is the beloved known, but his or her actions and gestures are
also positively interpreted, since there is faith in him or her, in
his or her honesty. “Only one who loves knows the secret ways
to reach the other’s intimate depths and engender reciprocity,
because intus legit (he reads within) the mystery of his or her
person, intuiting the deepest nuances.”51 We are dealing here
with the intelligence of love, which is by nature personal, con-
siderate, and trusting: it leaves the beloved free to make him- or
herself known and to know the lover without defense mecha-
nisms. Thus, the degree of intimacy increases, and the bond be-
tween the lovers is reinforced.
Mutual understanding means that the sexual and emotion-
al aspects of falling in love must be taken seriously, in an effort
to integrate them within a more mature loving relationship.
Such understanding is the opposite both of Platonic or spiri-
tual love and of the banalization of the sexual relationship into

something necessary to the couple in love. For love to grow, we
need to get to grips with eros, which appears in the exchange
of looks, in the perception of the male/female difference in the
various aspects of the relationship, and in the manner in which
attraction to the other is felt. These facts are not to be denied
(it would be contrary to the very man-woman relationship) or
divinized or devalued into a mere game. Even though it is per-
haps not observable at first glance, there is a subtle line from
Platonic love to pornography, via the banalization of sexuality.
A predominantly spiritual love runs a greater risk than might
be supposed of transforming into sex without love. The swing
51. G. P. Di Nicola and A. Danese, Amici a vita. La coppia tra scienze umane e spiri-
tualità coniugale (Rome: Città Nuova, 1997), 94.
130
of the pendulum between these two extremes—a fashionable

phenomenon in today’s Western culture—is perhaps a clear
indication of the resigned hopelessness of so many of our con-
temporaries on the question of the very possibility of integrat-
ing sexuality with love.
In order for falling in love to become love, it must, however,
achieve the union of two persons in shared intimacy and com-
munity of life. The spouses’ real belonging, which is proper to
married life, should not be mistaken for falling in love, in which
no lover yet belongs to the other. Otherwise the risk is that we
live falling in love in a false way. When falling in love is lived
as mutual belonging, we lose sight of the differences between
the various stages of the loving relationship, so that not only is
falling in love mistaken for real love, but vice versa: real love is
confused with falling in love.
Thus we see how the beginning of the circular relationship
of need, possession of the self, and gift can already be discerned
at the stage of falling in love: when we fall in love, we feel the
need for the other, so as to be ourselves; but if a lover is to be

able to grow in his or her love, he or she must never destroy the
alterity of the beloved, but rather must respect and love the be-
loved as he or she is, otherwise their relationship will be incapa-
ble of influencing them in a positive way.52 Physical and emo-
tional intimacy and love can only be integrated through the gift
52. The paradoxical relationship between self-control and gift was pointed out
and developed by K. Wojtyła: “By its nature, because it is what it is, the person is its
own master (sui juris), and cannot be ceded to another or supplanted by another in
any context where it must exercise its will or make a commitment affecting its free-
dom (it is alteri incommunicabilis). But love forcibly detaches the person, so to speak,
from this natural inviolability and inalienability. It makes the person want to do just
that—surrender itself to another, to the one it loves. . . . What might be called the law
of ekstasis seems to operate here: the lover ‘goes outside’ the self to find a fuller exis-
tence in another. In no other form of love does this law operate so conspicuously as it
does in betrothed love.” K. Wojtyła, Love and Responsibility (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 1993), 125–26.
131
of self that is open to generation, otherwise these things can

easily degenerate into their opposites: mutual self-pleasuring,
voyeurism, and exhibitionism.
The Gift of Self in Marriage versus the

Construction of Gender
Although the gender feminists’ account of sexuality as a mere
social construction is erroneous, there are two ideas worth pre-
serving in their approach: the importance of choice in the per-
sonalization of sexuality and the active engagement required
by sexual identity.
These two features basically speak to us of the need to use
our own freedom. For the root of the separation between sexu-
ality and love is (apart from despair at our inability to reach an
objective—integration—that seems impossible) our laziness
in the face of an arduous exertion with ourselves, the fruits of
which take a long time to come to maturity, and consequently
to be discovered. Love is not achieved in a moment, nor do we

possess it once and for all; rather, it must be sown and cultivated
with patience day in, day out, and we must avoid discouragement
in the face of internal and external difficulties, while not want-
ing to enjoy its rewards instantly. The virtues demanded by love
(honesty, faithfulness, hope, patience, industriousness, etc.) can-
not be acquired in our current romantic supermarket, in which
the consumers want everything instantly, and therefore neglect
the patient endeavor needed to weave deep, fruitful relation-
ships, limiting themselves to physical encounters or at the most
ephemeral attachments that prevent relationships from develop-
ing their potential for perfecting persons and their intimacy.53
53. On the relationship between the market economy and the role of the consum-
er in the realm of romance, see Sennett, who asks: “how can a human being develop
132
Far from being mere action unrelated to reality (as in the

construction of gender), the labor that needs undertaking in
the realm of sexuality concerns the existence of the gift of self,
capable of bringing about a new good in the relationship be-
tween a couple in love—union in marriage and the founding
of a new family—which is able to provide an overview, both of
the stages to be traversed and the direction of this progressive
union between the couple in love. Love, which is present from
the moment we fall in love, is its own end, that is, its becoming
so strong and pure that it can—as the poets tell us—conquer
death itself. For while eros can disappear in the face of illness,
old age, and death, love—based on the spouses’ self-gift—does
not know these limits, since it invariably manages to recognize
the face of the beloved. Death may destroy erotic attraction and
the feelings linked to it, but not love, as may be seen in the grief
for the loved one and sometimes in the decision not to remarry.
This is the deepest understanding that comes from love.
In order to give rise to the good of marriage and the family,
as well as the prospective community and mutual understand-

a narrative of identity and life history in a society composed of episodes and frag-
ments? The conditions of the new economy feed instead on experience which drifts
in time from place to place, from job to job. . . . Short-term capitalism threatens to
corrode his character, particularly those qualities of character which bind human be-
ings to one another and furnishes each with a sense of sustainable self.” R. Sennett,
The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998), 26–27. More recently, Eva Illouz has
expressed similar ideas: capitalist society introduces to our minds a number of cli-
chés about what our relationships with others should be like, especially romantic re-
lationships (see E. Illouz, Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Con-
tradictions of Capitalism [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997]). Without
subtracting anything from the value of the reflections of Sennett and Illouz, it seems
that the contemporary model of the lover should not be understood as a projection of
the economy into the existential romantic environment, but rather as a further man-
ifestation of the same phenomenon: man’s dehumanization in a technological age, a
dehumanization encouraged by the speed and variety of links to the world and to oth-
ers, which paradoxically result in a lack of time for building stable relationships with
our neighbors.
133
ing for which falling in love is the impetus, what is needed is the
faithful gift of self. It is the unfolding of time that is the guaran-
tee of a true love. Just as it is impossible to love for only a min-
ute, so is it impossible for a time-limited love to be true. Eter-
nity is the condition of possibility of love: love comes from and
tends toward eternity. And yet, it needs time in order to grow;
but time which is shrouded in eternity, because created by the
gift. In the act of giving, the person opens him- or herself to a
new relationship with the other, allowing him or her to share
the gift of the self. For this reason, the time of the gift and of
the acceptance of the gift is marked by its opening to eternity.
For it is not the time of the gift that is opposed to eternity, but
rather the closed moment of egotism, either of the individual
or of the couple. Closed time, or immanent time, can, however,
seem like eternity, as in the myths of the eternal return of the
same thing, or of infinite progress. But this is a false eternity
belonging only to the moment, an eternity detached from the
other and professing to be independent of him or her. In order
to move from one moment to the next in closed time, we need a

technique that ensures higher and higher speeds, so as to make
the moment ever shorter and more fleeting, but without ever
managing to obliterate it. Instantaneousness means the imme-
diate acquisition of everything possible, but also the immediate
loss of interest in what has been acquired, insofar as it has been
overtaken by the new state of reality. In the radically fleeting
moment, there is no opportunity of settling in, and still less of
forming a personal relationship, where mutual understanding
is gained and deep ties established. In the moment, the rela-
tionship with the other is built as if it involved an object rath-
er than a person; for instance, in a pure sexual relationship, the
beloved is used, consumed, and replaced by another, because
the person of the beloved is not an object of affection; rather,
134
it is solely their attributes that are wanted. Not only do illness,

old age, and death dissolve bonds which are founded on the
fleeting moment; acquaintance with other people who have
better qualities or expectations of greater things does the same.
When we fall in love, there is an imbalance between need
and gift in favor of the former; whereas equilibrium is achieved
in the marital gift of self. However, we are not dealing here with
equilibrium based on a correct mathematical proportion, but
rather on a continuous transformation of need into gift, until
a mature love is achieved, in which the very need for the other
is born of love; that is, the other is needed because he or she is
loved. When love is mature, the other is loved in the deepest
way, whereby the lover’s only desire is the desire of the other,
and vice versa. In order to reach this deep union of two wills, it
is usually necessary to go by way of other sorts of union: emo-
tional, physical, the union of mutual assistance, of the sharing
of joys and sufferings related to the upbringing of children,
of shared successes and failures, of struggles, health, and ill-
ness. . . .
Why is it that the gift of self is able to give rise to a new rela-
tionship? Because unlike desire, the gift of self not only involves
emotions and ends, but also projects, rational assessments,
commitment, and self-sacrifice; and above all, dedication to the
other as the goal of one’s own life. Attraction, therefore, is not
enough: our own existence must be joined to the beloved, be-
cause we consider him or her “necessary” to us. In order to be
able to do this, we need first and foremost to respect him or her;
for while we can, for instance, feel attraction to and desire for a
person whom we do not respect, but who is very good looking,
intelligent, or likeable, without respect or trust we will not be
able to love him or her. This does not mean that love is respect
or trust: for respect is merely the condition of love, but is not
135
yet sexed love, because the latter is a sort of concern; appreci-

ation; and physical, psychological, and spiritual care vis-à-vis
the beloved as man or woman, because he or she has trans-
formed him- or herself into the center of our existence. The
central role that care for the other plays in the couple’s relation-
ship could explain why Freud confuses the parent-child rela-
tionship with sexual love. For at first glance, it could seem that
the essence of sexual love is care; but in reality, it is not so much
any sort of care, as a care of a particular kind: the care of the
other as husband or wife, because, to borrow Adam’s phrase, he
or she is flesh of my flesh. It is true that from the outside it is
not always easy to distinguish between the caresses and kisses
parents give their children—especially when the children are
grown up—and those between spouses when they are not giv-
en in passion; because the difference is not to be found in the
physicality of these actions, nor in their Gestalt, or figure, but
rather in the relationship out of which they arise, so as to ex-
press and strengthen it. Although they may be somewhat
modified according to cultural context, expressions of love are

always the same; what is not the same is the intention, which
should be appropriate to the relationship in which they flour-
ish: kisses for a son, a mother, a spouse, or a male or female
friend should be different because they arise from different re-
lationships.
This being the case, it is clear why the use of one’s sexuality
does not necessarily imply love, and vice versa; that is, abstain-
ing from the use of one’s sexuality when the relationship or
the situation demands it does not imply a lack of love; indeed,
it is sometimes love’s highest expression. Sadly, contemporary
Western culture tends to equate the two things, to the extent of
using them synonymously, for instance in the expression mak-
ing love, which has since been downgraded to having sex. In all
136
relationships apart from the marital one, the sexual act is either
contrary to the sort of love that ought to characterize the rela-
tionship—as in the case of incest, which is contrary to parental,
filial, or fraternal love, or in the case of homosexuality, which
contradicts the love proper to friendship and the married state,
insofar as it requires the exchange of one for the other—or it
is contrary to the dignity of the person, as in prostitution; or is
downright inhuman, as with violence.
Love, then, is not to be sought in the actualization of the
generative potential, but in another direction: in our response
to the call to the gift of self. Male/female human duality is,
from the personal point of view, the form that originally ex-
presses this call. Therefore, it is not only biological generation
that arises from human paternity and maternity, but above all
the gift of self as male or female.54 There are two consequences
of this: in the first place, only man and woman are capable of
the conjugal gift, because only a man is capable of accepting the
gift of self that a woman makes him on the basis of her female
sexed condition, and only a woman is capable of accepting the

gift of self that a man makes her on the basis of his male sexed
condition. In the second place, the generation of the person
should not be detached from the mutual gift of the parents,
which, far from being a function of the species, represents (for
those who have received this vocation) the highest personaliza-
tion of their sexed condition. In the case of celibates, the capac-
ity for self-gift and generation is purely spiritual, even though
this also implies the integration of their sexuality in all its di-
mensions. Of course, we are dealing here with a different inte-
54. The gift of self can be given in two ways: in terms of the marital relationship
and in terms of the celibate state. What these have in common is the ability to gener-
ate, including physically in the case of marriage, since the spouses’ self-gift is fertile in
the physical sense, in view of the involvement of the body; and spiritually in the case
of the celibate state.
137
gration from desire and emotional bonds, firstly because the

celibate needs to orient him- or herself toward a paternal or ma-
ternal love without the mediation of a spouse, that is, of anoth-
er who gives him- or herself to the celibate—female or male—
as man or woman; secondly because the celibate must accept
that he or she will not have either a sexual experience of his or
her love, which, however, will always be sexed (of this man or of
this woman) or a bodily experience of his paternity or her ma-
ternity. Therefore, the gift of self is at the origin of paternity and
maternity, and in a broader sense of all human relationships,
starting with those that constitute the family.
We see from all this that the conjugal act is an expression
of a relationship and love that are unique: the gift of self as hus-
band or wife. For which reason, even if performed by a man
and woman who desire one another but are not married to each
other, or are married to others, it is false, insofar as it expresses
something that does not exist: either because there is no joint
project or no commitment to giving the self totally and forever
to the other, or because the person has already given him- or

herself to another and no longer belongs to him- or herself. The
conjugal act, then, gives a special significance to the gift of self:
a man and a woman come together in the conjugal act because
they are committed to love each other faithfully, according to
the husband-wife relationship. In the conjugal act, the willed
moment of personal affirmation (he and she will it) is linked to
a special nominal sense of the verb “to love,” namely “conjugal-
loving,” a new kind of reciprocal love; the married relationship
has its origin in the giving of the self as a male person to anoth-
er, female person, who can receive his gift. The special signifi-
cance is the reference-point of the real intention of the spouses;
it can affirm or deny the meaning of the gift, and therefore give
rise to or preclude the relationship.
138
From the phenomenological viewpoint, the essence of the

conjugal relationship reveals two things: 1) how mature the
spouses are, since this relationship, if it is a true one, implies a
sufficient degree of integration of their sexed conditions (joint
perspective—their own and the other’s—well-defined sexed
tendency, desire for the other, and gift of self); 2) how far the
person has the capacity to use his or her own will to transform
the physical approach itself and the emotional bond into ac-
tion, or better, into a relationship of love, which always involves
reflection and reciprocity: the person who gives him- or herself
in the conjugal act, and is received in it, knows about loving
and being loved in return. It is the person’s self-knowledge and
self-mastery that make this reflection possible. Indeed, even if
the desire and love of another is acceptable, it is still his or her
own act: the individual identifies him- or herself deliberately
with the desire and will of the other, thus showing mastery over
his or her own will. This mastery, however, is relative, for two
reasons: firstly, because the act of giving oneself to the other
and being received by the other as husband or wife, even when

declined by one or other of the spouses, is irrevocable once it
has validly taken place, insofar as it brings about an original re-
lationship (by being original, this relationship transcends the
will and actions of the subjects who have brought it about); and
secondly, because the goodness or evilness of the act depends
not only on whether the person acts freely (which forced com-
pliance would preclude), but also on its relation to truth; that
is, to the very possibility of giving oneself and being received
in accordance with this original relationship. Therefore, it is
this truth, and not mere self-mastery, that is the source of per-
fection of conjugal love. In effect, we see in the conjugal rela-
tionship both the self-mastery of the persons in their sexed
conditions, and their capacity to desire and want, as something
139
of their own, what is desired and wanted by the other, who is

loved as husband or wife.
The gift of self in the conjugal relationship, then, should not
be understood as a natural and necessary transition from po-
tentiality to actuality;55 rather, it should be thought of as the act
that generates a pivotal option for a person in his or her sexed
condition: the gift of self as husband/wife and possible father/
mother, whereby his or her own sexed condition is integrated
in accordance with the marriage-state. The bond cannot, there-
fore, consist merely in taking on “as a duty that which is in one’s
nature as inclination,”56 but rather in originating a relationship
which is not only inclination but true possession of the self in
accordance with one’s own sexed condition and gift. For this
reason, once the gift of self has been accepted by the other, it es-
tablishes a duty to the other spouse, and to one’s own identity,
which from the moment of consent is intimately linked to the
other, thus giving rise to the conjugal relationship. This is why
the object of consent is not the person of the other in his or her
conjugal condition, but rather the conjugal relationship with

the other. This could appear to be a mere word game, but it is
not: in the conjugal relationship, the other is present not only as
possible object but also as free subject, given that he or she can
accept or reject the gift of the other as husband or wife. Thus,
the husband not only wants to give himself to this woman as
her husband; he also wants this woman to accept him as such,
but this second part of his intention does not depend on him.
Thus, unlike other forms of consent, marital consent cannot be
55. Hervada, for instance, regards spousal consent as able to “take the other as
spouse, to want him or her as such here and now, thus triggering the act of unity in
their natures, which had previously been a potentiality.” J. Hervada, “Essenza del
matrimonio e consenso matrimoniale,” in Studi sull’essenza del matrimonio (Milan:
Giuffrè, 2000), 275.
56. Ibid., 290.
140
understood in terms of the typical structure of human action,

where every subject has his or her own intentionality which
depends only on him or her, so that the union of two subjects’
two acts can only be achieved by their wanting a single object.
In marital consent, by contrast, union is not achieved by want-
ing an object, but rather by wanting with a single intentionality,
that is, by wanting to be loved by the other as husband or wife,
that is, in the conjugal relationship with the other. For the con-
jugal relationship to exist, therefore, an act of will on the part
of just one of the spouses is not enough, and nor is any act on
the part of the other: two acts with a single intentionality are
necessary. The conjugal relationship therefore becomes a reali-
ty when consent is given, even though it is consummated in the
conjugal act.
The union of two acts of will with the same intentionality
(the gift of self) causes a new reality to emerge in the sexed con-
dition: the conjugal relationship, which, because it is based on
the reciprocal relationship between the sexed conditions of two
persons, lies beyond the power of the wills that have brought it
into existence; indeed, it is no longer capable of being revoked
by any human will, because an original relationship has been
put in place. It is interesting to note the reciprocity between the
two sexed conditions, starting with their different perspectives,
as this is the best way to observe how the nature on which mar-
riage is based is simultaneously personal and relational, this be-
ing made possible via the mediation of the sexed condition. Just
as, for example, the man’s desire is to be desired by the woman
as man, in the conjugal relationship the husband’s intention is
to be loved by his wife as a husband, and vice versa. Thus, we
find something mysterious in marital consent: in addition to
being able to give him- or herself to another person who can
receive him or her—which implies the highest degree of pos-
141
session of the self—the human person is able to have the de-

liberate intention of a relationship in perpetuity with another
person as his or her husband or wife; and this, far from leading
to the alienation of his or her own freedom, gives rise to a com-
pletely new reality capable of perfecting the persons: the conju-
gal relationship.
This is why it is by means of marital consent that the recip-
rocal relationship of desire between two persons with distinct
sexed conditions becomes a conjugal relationship. The promise
of the gift of self and ongoing faithfulness are part of the inten-
tionality of married love, which is normally based on desire for
the other. The mutual promise of faithfulness is part of the in-
tention proper to married love, just as the desire to give oneself
and to be received by the other is part of the intention to give
oneself as husband or wife.
For as the virtue of chastity allows a person to achieve ma-
turity in terms of his or her own sexual identity by integrating
desire into the gift of self, so the virtue of faithfulness helps
spouses to grow in this process of personal integration by

means of their mutual love. Therefore, faithfulness has not one,
but many faces: sometimes it manifests itself as the sacrifice of
one’s own tastes for love of the other; sometimes as forgiveness;
sometimes as passionate desire . . . according to the various
phases that the relationship passes through.
Faithfulness, like the other virtues, must continually grow:
this is the only way to prevent love dying, and hence the break-
down of the conjugal relationship. Since even if it is a natural
habit, faithfulness can easily disappear, perhaps even more
easily than other virtues, because the principal obstacle is to
be found in desire itself, “in the element of generality which
tempts us always to experiment, to verify, to detach ourselves
from that which is too familiar in the interest of excitement and
142
risk. Virtuous desire is faithful; but virtuous desire is also an

artifact, made possible by a process of moral education which
we do not, in truth, understand in its complexity.”57 Hence the
need to impregnate desire with love of the other. This leads the
lover to desire to be worthy of the beloved’s love, to be lovable
toward him or her and accountable for the marriage bond. Con-
sequently, faithful lovers improve: each seeks to behave accord-
ing to the loving perspective that the beloved has of him or her.
The other’s perspective also helps to integrate one’s own desire,
by leading the lover to accept the other’s timescale in love.
57. Scruton, Sexual Desire, 339.

143
Generativity versus Homophobia
Ch a p t er 5
GEN ER AT I V IT Y V ER SUS
HOMOPHOBI A
Had there been a survey a hundred years ago featuring the

question, “Do you think that there is one type of family or
many?” the great majority of respondents would have evinced
bewilderment, because the very idea of there being different
models of family would have seemed a somewhat bizarre no-
tion. How have we got to this point?
As has already been explained in the section on history, this
is the result of the interweaving of a number of theories, some

more peculiar than others, with historic events, which have
crystallized into a dominant mode of thought—political cor-
rectness—as a result of which the family, like sex, is merely a so-
cial construction. Hence the belief that the modern family is a
multifaceted reality that can take any form whatsoever, as it de-
pends entirely on the polymorphous character of human desire.
According to this line of thought, these models of family result
in a tolerant society, in which no type of emotional relationship
is subject to discrimination, apart, of course, from nonconsen-
A first version of my analysis of generativity may be found in the article “Fami-

ly or Families? Toward a Better Understanding of Humanization and Generativity,”
conference organized by Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, February 5,
2014, https://www.familyandmedia.eu/educazione-ai-media/famiglia-o-famiglie/.
144
sual ones. It is interesting to note how this idea of tolerance may

be observed in various documents published by government
ministries of the family in Western countries. Thus, Germany’s
former family minister Ursula von der Leyen, currently pres-
ident of the European Commission, published a report titled
Family between Flexibility and Reliability—Perspectives for a Life-
Cycle-Related Family Policy. Although this report did not figure
large in the public debate, it has had an enduring impact on fam-
ily policy in Germany, and especially on childcare provision.
One of the premises of this study is that gender roles are socially
constructed. This means that the family is no longer viewed as
a relationship between a man, a woman, and their children, but
rather as a union of individuals with their rights.1
In reality this new society, constructed of many models of
family, is anything but tolerant, because by imposing a false
homogeneity on its citizens (all modes of living together are
family), it makes the very possibility of dialogue—the root
of all true tolerance—problematic. Such a very blunt claim as
this could seem dogmatic and above all discriminatory, like

homophobia. For it might appear that political correctness is
more tolerant than the existence of a single family structure:
we should just let everyone choose the model they find most
congenial. But this is to forget that if only one family reality
exists, a choice of models would not only cause damage to the
persons putting them into practice, but above all to the family
itself, which would be exchanged for one model among many.
The family is not a mere construction that depends on the will,
or better, the whim of persons, in order to require its mem-
bers to be capable of participating in a vibrant relationship,
1. See Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (BMFSFJ),

Familie zwischen Flexibilität und Verlässlichkeit. Perspektiven für eine lebenslaufbezo-
gene Familienpolitik. Siebter Familienbericht (Berlin: Siebter Familienbericht, 2006).
145
whose emotional, normative, symbolic, relational, and gener-

ative aspects are connected systematically—that is, are non-
substitutable.
For conjugal, parental, filial, and fraternal relationships can
only arise within the context of a relationship based on the
union of two sexed conditions, in a way that means they cannot
be exchanged. Therefore, only conjugal relationships are genera-
tive in physical, symbolic, and relational terms, and until very
recently, also normatively; sadly, the introduction of same-sex
marriage, with couples having rights to children, and the legal-
ization of techniques such as in vitro fertilization and surrogacy
have begun to destroy the generative aspect of relationships,
causing as-yet-unknown levels of harm. The systemic character
of the family derives not only from the fact that different rela-
tionships are involved—that is, from the way persons connect
with each other (the paternal or maternal relationship concerns
the child; the fraternal one concerns both father and mother as
well as brother/sister)—but also from the identities of its mem-
bers, which permit or prevent certain types of relationship. As

we have seen, a mother, for instance, should not lavish her erotic
desire on her son, because doing so transforms the maternal re-
lationship into an emotionally confused relationship that can
cause serious damage to the son’s identity. There is, therefore, a
certain intrinsic circularity to its systemic character: only a per-
son capable of interweaving these relationships (conjugal, pater-
nal/maternal, filial, and fraternal) is actually in a familial con-
text, and only a person in this context is able to establish some of
these relationships in accordance with his or her identity.
[For] each component of the family gives meaning to one’s own ex-
perience and acts on relationships with others from a collection of
premises and personal beliefs derived from one’s specific position in
the group, from previously lived experiences or in external relation-
146
ships, but the family also develops a system of premises or shared be-
liefs that constitute a symbolic context which gives meaning to indi-
vidual experience and joins and organizes the behavior of the family
members, both internally and externally.2
As we have seen, the need of every person (especially in-

fants) to belong to a family in order to develop his or her identity
is a clear indication of the privileged nature of this institution
in the process of the humanization of persons and consequently
of their sexed conditions. The idea, then, that family structure
can change because it is a sociocultural construction derives
from a mistaken concept of what it is to be human, as if its ac-
tualization or perfection consisted in the realization of every
possibility contained in the essence of the human. This confus-
es actualization with human reality, an error which leads to the
idea that the diversity of actualizations and experiences corre-
sponds to greater human richness. It is true that the possibilities
inherent in human nature can be realized in a range of enriching
ways, as can be seen from the different culinary traditions. But
this does not mean that all actualizations are truly human in the
sense that they complete whatever is human in us. To take an
extreme example, which is nonetheless an actualization of how
to eat, cannibalism cannot be considered appropriate. Despite
the obvious differences from this example, we can derive a simi-
lar conclusion about the various models of family: for of course,
unlike with cannibalism, we are dealing with consensual inter-
personal relationships; but they are not appropriate because
they fail to respect the original relationship between man and
woman. Therefore, even if the laws of some Western countries
recognize and sanction them as families, this does not make
them so in reality. The fact that these models exist “like fami-
2. A. Campanini, “Famiglia o famiglie nel terzo millennio,” in Alternativas.
Cuadernos de Trabajo Social 12 (2004): 20.
147
lies” (though only nominally) does not mean that they are fam-
ilies, that is, the reality signified by this name; because identi-
ty of name and existence does not indicate identity of essence
here. Neither the mere establishment of a relational model nor
its spread across society is therefore enough to make it ipso fac-
to family. Human realities and, therefore, the family, are such
when they bring about what is human, that is, when they hu-
manize persons. The family does not, then, as some might wish,
originate with the mere exercise of freedom of choice; rather it
is the family that shows us how to use our freedom in the vari-
ous human relationships.
Perhaps the primary and most conspicuous humanizing
characteristic of the family is the continuity of this institution
over millennia. The studies of Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of the
fathers of cultural anthropology, point out that the family, or
rather the “more or less durable union, socially approved, of a
man, a woman, and their children is a universal phenomenon
present in each and every type of society.”3 Evidence for the
necessity of this union is provided by biological data on the hu-

man person, such as “premature” birth, which means that in-
fants must remain dependent on their parents for longer than
other animals, thus favoring an enduring bond between the
couple; psychological data such as emotional attachment and
the separation of the child from its parents, which are necessary
if it is to model its identity, especially its sexed condition; and
sociological data such as the need of human persons for a suit-
able environment to begin their socialization, etc.
All these data indicate that the family is a complex social re-
lationship which, in addition to sexual, emotional, and relation-
al dimensions, possesses a deeply cultural dimension in legal,
3. C. Lévi-Strauss, “The Family,” in Man, Culture and Society, ed. H. Shapiro
(London: Oxford University Press, 1956), 262.
148
economic, and social terms. Therefore, the various dimensions

of which the person is constituted, and his or her relationships,
are expressed within the family, making it not only a human re-
ality but the specific place where humanization begins.
This is why the so-called models of family mentioned
above—cohabitation, homosexual couples, and polyamory—
which imperfectly express these dimensions, are not family;
for instance, because legal bonds do not exist (cohabitation),
because there is no sexual difference (homosexual unions), or
because of lack of faithfulness in the relationship (polyamory).
Consequently, these models are not a suitable locus for the hu-
manization of persons.
In any event, aside from these reasons, I think that the in-
compatibility of these models with the family depends even
more on their structure than on their deficiencies, because, as
we shall see, the deficiencies are only the manifestation of this.
We must therefore seek the structure common to these so-
called models of family.
According to Giddens, one of the sociologists who has tried

to identify the nature of the structure of the modern family, the
life of modern couples is characterized by a “pure relationship.”
The purity refers to the fact that the existence of this relation-
ship rests on just one condition: a parity of accounts of giving
and having between its subjects.4 Thus, insofar as it is found-
ed on the advantages that the parties can each derive from a
continuing relationship with the other, the “pure relationship”
is born and dies to the extent that this foundation—that is,
pleasure or utility—is present or absent.
4. A. Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in
Modern Societies (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), 58. “For what can be derived by
each person from a sustained association with another; and which is continued only
in so far as it is thought by both parties to deliver enough satisfaction for each individ-
ual to stay within it.”
149
In my view, Giddens’s theory has two limitations: on the

one hand, it excludes other relational goods such as affection
and love; on the other, it presents the lack of relationship be-
tween the subjects as a relationship. For there are cohabiting
heterosexual and homosexual couples who take factors besides
pleasure and utility into consideration, such as desire and af-
fection and sometimes also a certain kind of love. By contrast,
what all these models seem to have in common is symmetry,
so that the relationship is built on the will of the subjects and,
therefore, on the rights that each one asserts vis-à-vis the other.
Thus, the rights of each become the responsibility of the other,
rather as happens in the public sphere. This is perhaps the most
characteristic feature of the various models of “family”: the
transformation of the relationship into a symmetry between
individuals.
Although this symmetry appears to protect the family mem
bers, it actually brings with it the destruction of the institution
of the family. This can be seen, for example, in the singular ex-
tended Dutch family composed of Jaco, Sjoerd, Sean, Daantje,

and Dewi, who are expecting their first child. The relationships
between them are extraordinary to put it mildly: Jaco and Sjoerd
are two “married” homosexuals who live together with Sean, an-
other gay friend. Then there are Dewi and Daantje, two lesbians
who are also “married.” All five have been friends for years. One
of the lesbians has conceived a child from a sixth person. Since
all of them (apart from the sixth person, who is the real biolog-
ical father) want to educate the child, they have decided to go
to the registry office to sign a contract: “Five parents with equal
rights and responsibilities, divided across two households.”
This Dutch story may seem to have been taken from a work
of the theatre of the absurd, but is in fact highly significant, be-
cause—besides uncovering the aberrations being brought to
150
society courtesy of gender ideology—it clearly shows how this

theory, in an effort to free us from any rule that does not accord
with our tastes, leads to an endless transformation of relation-
ships. For this story, though crazy, depends on an iron logic,
which once accepted leads to the legitimization of polygamy
and multiple paternity and maternity. For if the essence of mar-
riage is love, why limit it to two? Why not allow the marriage
of three, four, or more people, if they love one another and are
happy? Moreover, if two homosexuals or two lesbians, whose
love is not fertile, can have or adopt a child, why prevent three,
four, or more gay and lesbian people from being parents of the
same child?
The symmetrical relationship which characterizes these
models does not, however, help to explain the distinctiveness of
the family, in particular its humanizing character. For besides
fulfilling its social duties through education, the family intro-
duces the person to an even more fundamental relationship,
that of gift, which is fundamental to all justice based on the
symmetry of rights and duties. Within the family, we not only

learn to love the other for him- or herself, independently of his
or her qualities and achievements, but to accept the other’s
love, his or her services and care as a free gift. Loving the other
for him- or herself and being loved for the same reason means
that the basis of the family relationship is not the pleasure, util-
ity, and affection I find in the other; rather, his or her happiness
is also mine, since I love him or her.
This derives from the fact that the family is founded on an
original asymmetry: the gift of each spouse to the other, so that
the other can give him- or herself in turn. For although it also
involves personal emotion, desire, and intentionality, the origin
of the family is more than pleasure and utility and even desire
for the other and his or her good (I want to be a good for you
151
and to have you as a good), because it requires marriage, that is,

a bond built on the spouses’ mutual gift. When the conjugal gift
is missing, the relationship with the children changes too. They
are no longer the fruit of the spouses’ mutual gift, but a chance
occurrence or a product—however precious they may be—to
be acquired with the aid of the new biotechnologies. Therefore,
in all these models of family, the child tends to seem no longer
a gift, but a fact of nature or a right to be claimed. But if this is
how things stand, then there is an indissoluble bond between
marriage and generativity which requires accurate analysis.5
The Family as a Generative Environment

Thus, it is only marriage that is generative in itself. This is not
only because it is the physical origin of offspring, but above all
because it is open to offspring as a gift. For this reason, there
is a systemic relationship between sexed condition, marriage,
the family, and generativity. For not only does the “premature”
birth of the child make the family essential; it is also requisite

for the human person’s sexed condition and the development of
his or her very identity and generative capacity.
In order to see this connection, we must return to our dis-
cussion of the distinctive origin of the human person. Unlike
5. Contrary to what is often supposed, a pluralist, liberal society cannot live on

exclusively contractual relationships. Contracts are certainly a sign of autonomy and
freedom gained; the same can be said of laws of which the legitimacy no longer comes
from above, as in the past, but arises from free discussion and the agreement of the in-
terested parties. However, we must not forget that for the discussion and contractual
agreements to take place, society needs to be imbued with a particular spirit, made of
trust, a sense of the common good, tolerance, responsibility—which cannot be pro-
duced contractually, but only through the slow process of socialization that begins in
the family and then continues in school and in all the other institutions and social re-
lationships. See Famiglia e capitale sociale nella società italiana, ed. P. Donati (Cinisel-
lo Balsamo [Milan]: Edizioni San Paolo, 2003).
152
animals, human beings do not reproduce as interchangeable

individuals of the same species, but rather as nonrepeatable
beings; consequently, we speak of generation or procreation,
rather than reproduction. Generation is thus the origin of new
persons, since every person brings newness into nature and
history—indeed, a chain of new realities. Hannah Arendt ex-
pressed this splendidly:
The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from
its normal “natural” ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which
the faculty of action is ontologically rooted. It is, in other words, the
birth of new men and the new beginning, the action they are capable
of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity
can bestow on human affairs faith and hope, those two essential char-
acteristics of human existence which Greek antiquity ignored alto-
gether, discounting the keeping of faith as a very uncommon and not
too important virtue and counting hope among the evils of illusion
in Pandora’s box. It is this faith in and hope for the world that found
perhaps its most glorious and succinct expression in the few words
with which the Gospels announced their “glad tidings”: “A child has
been born unto us.”6
I think that Arendt’s “newness” is founded in the non-

repeatability of the person, only the seeds of which, however,
are present at birth. The human infant needs to enter into re-
lationships with other persons—its parents and relatives, and,
through them, with the world of human beings, because its
nonrepeatability is not that of a monad, but rather of a being in
relationship: born of love and destined to love. Premature birth
must, therefore, be connected to the requirement for parents
who will meet the infant’s needs, the most important of which
is to love and be loved. The newborn thus begins to develop its
6. H. Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958),

247.
153
nonrepeatability through its relationship with the world and

with others, through its desires and emotions. This relationship
forms the basis of knowledge and love of self and others as non-
repeatable beings.
Human generativity, then, is linked to the origin of the
person, and especially to his or her nonrepeatability and his or
her development through knowledge and love. It is therefore
concerned with both the education and formation of the sexed
conditions of persons, and their very identity and generative ca-
pacity, because that is precisely where the perfection of the per-
son’s nonrepeatability is to be found: that is, in the gift of self.
It follows that the concept of generativity, besides being very
complex and structured, is intimately linked to the existence of
the family and the nonrepeatable value of every person.7
To understand education as generativity, we may turn to et-
ymology, which also helps us banish some of the prejudices that
the revolution of 1968 managed to introduce into contempo-
rary culture. For, many of our contemporaries consider educa-
tion directed toward good, truth, and beauty to be an assault on

the freedom and equality of persons. These writers also think
that education amounts to compelling people to follow norms
and models of behavior which at best alienate them from what
they really are.8 This interpretation, however, would seem to
7. Wojtyła, for instance, indicates the relationship between person and family
thus: “The family is and must be that special ordering of forces in which every person
is important and necessary by the very fact that he or she is and who he or she is; that
most intimate human ordering which is built on the person’s value and oriented in
every way toward that value.” K. Wojtyła, trans. A. Pavey. For the full text, see “The
Family as a Community of Persons,” in Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans.
Theresa Sandok (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 315–27. Original work published in
1974.
8. Susanna Tamaro reflects this thought in the protagonist’s monologue in which
she records her childhood. “It was only in her old age that my mother began telling
me some things about her childhood. She was still a little girl when her own mother
died. There had been another child, an older brother who died of pneumonia at the
154
contradict the etymology of the term “educate,” which derives

from the Latin verb educere, meaning “to draw out.” Thus, edu-
cating involves, not imposing a mode of being that is extrinsic
to the person (a sort of Freudian superego that censors what-
ever in a person is most profound), but rather promoting and
perfecting what belongs to a person as his or her own, even if
doing so obviously means correcting whatever opposes it. Edu-
cation should therefore be more a question of recognizing and
promoting values than correcting errors. Education starts with
the interpretation, evaluation, and management of an infant’s
emotions by its parents. By means of their words, gestures, and
above all the behavior they exhibit in response to their child’s
emotions, parents are able to illumine the child’s hitherto-dark
interior, which gradually fills with meaning.9 Thus, the child
learns to recognize and interpret his or her emotions and use
them positively, so as to enter into an appropriate relation-
ship with the world and the other. Emotional education in the
family thus enables us to understand and love the other and to
share the good of relationships with him or her. However, this

requires a relational learning process similar to that of learning
one’s mother tongue; that is, a language in which we are orig-
age of three. She’d been conceived shortly afterward, and she had the misfortune to
be born not only female but on the very anniversary of her brother’s demise. To recall
this unhappy coincidence, she was dressed in mourning even before she was weaned.
Over her cradle loomed a large portrait of her brother, painted in oils; every time she
opened her eyes, it served to remind her that she was just a replacement, a washed-out
copy of someone better. Do you understand? How could she be blamed for her cold-
ness, her foolish choices, her total aloofness? And if we could go even further back
and observe her mother, or her mother’s mother, who knows what else we’d discover.”
S. Tamaro, Follow Your Heart, trans. John Cullen (New York: Nan A. Talese/Double-
day, 1995) 49.
9. The lack of words to express emotion, known as alexithymia, is not only a cog-
nitive disorder but above all a relational one, because sufferers have difficulty estab-
lishing relationships that allow them to indicate their emotional discomfort to oth-
ers, and therefore to control their stress. See T. Cantelmi and A. Sarto, “Alexitimia.
Gli analfabeti delle emozioni,” Psicologia contemporanea 154 (1999): 40–48.
155
inally loved. The sharing of joys and pains with another is the
best evidence that we love him or her. Basically, this gives the
other the chance to love us, but also to wound us, because not
receiving a return of our love is the same thing as not being
loved.
An important part of emotional education is learning to dis-
tinguish between what we feel and reality. In order to do this, we
need to be able to take on the other’s perspective, which means
regarding the other as capable of having a view of the world sim-
ilar to our own but different, of which he or she is aware, and
which he or she can explain and speak of. In this way we learn
how to be angry not, for instance, because the other does some-
thing contrary to our own way of feeling, but because it is un-
just. This also applies to relationships between adults: for exam-
ple, sometimes parents, children, or brothers/sisters behave in
ways we possibly do not like, but which are often just.
Furthermore, the concept of generativity encompasses the
help we give to sons and daughters—particularly by establish-
ing good conjugal and parental relationships—so that they are

able to form and develop their sexed condition.10 This is why
so-called sexual diversity education, which aims to “denatu-
ralize” heterosexuality, generativity, and the family in favor
of pleasure, feelings, and eroticism, is an aberration. In order
to achieve this, it forces educational establishments to create
spaces where both very young and older boys and girls can
experiment sexually in all sorts of ways, starting with the in-
famous game of “playing doctor.”11 This implicitly allows the
10. S. Belardinelli, La normalità e l’eccezione. Il ritorno della natura nella cultura

contemporanea (Catanzaro: Rubbettino, 2002), esp. pt. 3.
11. As a result of protests by intellectuals such as Gabriele Kuby, former German
minister of family affairs Ursula von der Leyen was obliged to withdraw from circu-
lation the sexual education book Body, Love and Playing Doctor, in which, among oth-
er aberrations, parents are invited to engage in sexual play with their children. See
156
promotion of pedophile practices, the aim being to undermine

the repression of the erotic in the boy or girl, whom the promo-
tors of this tactic view as compelled by a heterosexual society to
keep their sexuality hidden.12
The parental task of educating children in terms of their
male and female identities, far from being an imposition or in-
terference in their lives, is an essential part of the family struc-
ture itself. For the formation of the children’s sexed conditions
takes place through family relationships, which are able to
organize the male-female difference as the basic principle of
their members.13 During adolescence, the process by which
the sexed condition is formed is reintroduced by means of the
child’s more mature identification with the parental figures and
of his or her relationship with them, finally ending when the
child in turn becomes a parent. For even though in psychologi-
cal terms sexual identity begins to be formalized in early infan-
cy (the infant, boy or girl, is recognized respectively as male or
G. Kuby, The Global Sexual Revolution: Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom,
trans. James Patrick Kirchner (Kettering, Ohio: LifeSite/Angelico Press, 2015).
12. There are plenty of representatives of the homosexualist ideology who stress
the relationship between family and children’s education in sexual identity. For this
reason, they seek to separate children from the family circle; and when this is not
possible, to use educational establishments to deconstruct heterosexual education.
“Family heterosexuality guarantees not only the production of children but also
(and chiefly) Oedipal reproduction, with its differentiation between parents and
children.” G. Hocquenghem, Homosexual Desire, trans. Daniella Dangoor (Durham,
N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993), 106.
13. “To say that the family is a sexed relationship means that families are made,
and we exist in families, differently insofar as we are male and female. Within the
family, two bio-psychological differences meet, interact, offset, conflict with, help,
and compete with each other, provide each other with many things, and redefine
themselves in terms of the others, dividing chores and negotiating spaces of freedom
and accountability to each other on the basis of a specific assignment of their sex: you
are a man, therefore this is your duty; you are a woman, therefore this other thing is
up to you” P. Donati, “La famiglia come relazione di Gender: Morfogenesi e nuove
strategie,” in Uomo e donna in famiglia. Differenze, ruoli, responsabilità, ed. Pierpaolo
Donati (Cinisello Balsamo [Milan]: San Paolo, 1997), 26.
157
female, and recognizes him- or herself as such through identi-

fication with the respective models), he or she needs to contin-
ue to grow in maturity in order to enter a relationship of love
with a person of the other sex. Consequently, this identity can
go through periods of crisis of variable length. This sometimes
happens because the person spends too much mental energy on
him- or herself, which can lead to narcissism and psychological
bisexuality, both of which are relatively common phenomena
in adolescence.14 A young person of either sex needs to over-
come these crises so as to continue to grow in his or her identi-
ty as man or woman; otherwise this identity remains weak and
volatile.
The theory of mimetic desire serves once again to shed
light on the reason why crises occur during this phase of life.
For, given that the adolescent needs to identify him- or herself
with a person of the same sex, he or she can become emotion-
ally attached to his or her model. This emotional bond can be
interpreted and lived as a homosexual tendency (above all in a
culture in which sexual orientation is presented as the source of

authenticity and happiness), whereas in reality it is only a kind
of transitory emotional instability. The crisis starts to be over-
come not only through psychological identification with a per-
son of the same sex, but also through the strong attraction that
arises for persons of the other sex. This attraction is influenced
by hormonal processes and above all by the discovery of the
values of femaleness or maleness embodied in the other.
The best response to the challenges that these identity cri-
ses bring with them is dialogue between parents and children.
This accounts for the fact that it is very difficult, if not impossi-
14. Cf. T. Anatrella, “Omosessualità e omofobia,” in Lexicon: Termini ambigui e

discussi su famiglia, vita e questioni etiche, ed. Pontificio Consiglio per la famiglia (Bo-
logna: EDB, 2003), 686.
158
ble, for a homosexual man or a lesbian to educate the emotions

of their natural or adoptive children, especially in periods of
crisis, both because of the lack of sexual identity on the part
of the “fathers” or “mothers,” and because both “fathers” and
“mothers” have rejected relationships with the other sex. Hence
the enormous difficulties for single-gender and same-sex re-
lationships, which lack the sexed differences, in terms of the
successful education of the children’s identities. Viable models
also fail to be offered by parental couples in continuous crisis or
who have confused sexed identities.
The story of Dawn Stefanowicz is highly instructive here;
a story that is symptomatic of the changes that the family is
undergoing under the influence of the models of the consum-
er society. She recounts in her autobiography how her father,
though living with his wife and two children, was not in the
least ashamed of leading an openly gay lifestyle. Furthermore,
Dawn could remember “no sexual relationship whatsoever” be-
tween her parents, “but they did reside in the same home. But
my father would bring his partners into the home environment.

My mother had been ill, and she was very subservient, basically
did everything my father commanded.” Seeing her father with
men had a devastating effect on Dawn. “It made me feel very
depressed, very alone, like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.
It taught me that I wasn’t good enough, that I was a little girl
who really wasn’t valued.” As a replacement for the absent fa-
ther, Dawn began at the age of twelve to flirt with all her male
friends, in whom she was seeking the fatherly care she did not
have.15
It is true to say that those born and bred within a stable
family may also experience considerable tension and some-
15. See D. Stefanowicz, Out from Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting
(Enumclaw, Wash.: Redemption Press, 2007), 35 ff.
159
times disassociation between their bodies and their psycholog-

ical sexuality. In addition to genetic or hormonal causes, these
conflicts may perhaps be explained by the person’s failure to
achieve a satisfactory sexual identity because of defective fam-
ily relationships, or relationships that have resulted in an im-
mature emotional life which may have led to a false image of
the self or to a muddled method of establishing relationships of
friendship with men or women. However, even in the midst of
crisis or where there is identity confusion, it is almost always
possible to maintain continuity between one’s own sexed con-
dition and its appropriate relational expression. Consequently,
for the majority of men and women, the relationship between
couples is a fundamental step toward achieving personal iden-
tity and maturity. This is especially true for men, for many of
whom marriage marks their passage to self-restraint, to con-
cern for others, and to a sense of responsibility; that is, to their
full induction into adulthood. The acquisition of new respon-
sibilities, such as the care and protection of others and the re-
sponse to children’s needs, strengthens the maturity of one’s

sexed condition, which is thus shown to be closely linked to
family relationships.
All this gives rise to parents’ duty to educate their children
to be free and responsible for their own choices and actions.
Consequently, children’s dependence on their parents beyond
the period needed for them to gain a sufficient degree of physi-
cal, psychological, and relational autonomy gives rise to the so-
called Peter Pan syndrome, that is, the rejection of the respon-
sibilities of adult life, which manifests itself in the endeavor to
remain as an adolescent and continue to behave like one. In-
fluenced by the individualistic, hedonistic model of education
and by excessive dependence on his or her parents, the son or
daughter can be led to choose a sexuality that revolves around
160
his or her own pleasure, rather than around the assumption of

responsibility toward others. Self-referential sexuality caus-
es relational and emotional disorders, since it is in openness
to others, particularly through the gift of self, that the person
finds the happiness he or she constantly seeks.
The absence, or greater or lesser deficiency, of children’s
identity has repercussions for their future conjugal relation-
ships. The cycle of relational problems between the sexes is thus
exacerbated, leading to real distress in relationships. In Dawn’s
case, her father’s promiscuous lifestyle had a negative impact
on her childhood, adolescence, and emotional development. It
failed to prevent her from becoming mature only because she
discovered in the love of a young man—her future husband—
and in her Christian faith the strength she needed to be able to
leave her unusual background behind.
But does Dawn’s experience have universal significance, or
should it be confined to the biography of an unhappy young
girl? This is the question that psychologists, sociologists, and
jurists have begun to ask, starting with the legalization of “mar-

riage” for people of the same sex, including the adoption of the
children of the male or female partner, or of orphaned or aban-
doned children. It would appear from the most recent judge-
ments of the supreme courts of a number of European coun-
tries that any failure to grant “marriage” and adoption rights in
these cases must be entirely owing to religious prejudice caus-
ing people to judge such unions as immoral, and consequently
considering them to be damaging to the development of chil-
dren, male or female.16 This is said to be an entirely baseless ob-
16. For instance, the German federal court declared so-called step-child adop-
tion (adoption of the natural children of the male or female partner) to be legal from
January 1, 2005; the adoption of an adopted child from February 2013; and same-sex
marriage from October 2017.
161
session or phobia, there being no scientific certainty about any

supposed social harm resulting from these unions.
A similar view is held by the American Psychological Asso-
ciation (APA), the same organization, incidentally, which re-
moved homosexuality from its list of psychological disorders.
In their opinion, there are “no differences” between homo-
sexual couples and those composed of a man and a woman in
terms of the creation of an environment favorable to children’s
psychological development. It may well be supposed that the
APA’s declaration has unleashed a lively debate, which is still
in progress. The most incisive criticism is perhaps that of Prof.
Loren Marks, a sociologist at the University of Louisiana, who
has demolished one after the other all the studies supporting
the APA’s verdict both on the grounds that they contain incon-
sistent sampling and contradictory statistics, and that statistics
are missing. Marks’s conclusions from her study are clear: “The
APA’s strong assertions are not grounded in science.”17
To this could clearly be added other recent studies, for ex-
ample, the one by Mark Regnerus in Social Science Research

which caused considerable indignation in LGBTQI circles, in
which the percentages of sexual abuse, drugs, and infidelity are
shown to be higher in children who have been raised by homo-
sexual couples.18
There are studies showing different results, however, such
as the one conducted on behalf of the German Federal Min-
istry of Justice by Staatsinstitut für familienforschung an der
Universität Bamberg (IFB), called The Living Conditions of
17. Cf. L. Marks, “Same-Sex Parenting and Children’s Outcomes: A Closer Ex-
amination of the American Psychological Association’s Brief on Lesbian and Gay
Parenting,” in Social Science Research 41, no. 4 (2012): 735–51.
18. Cf. M. Regnerus, “How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who
Have Same-Sex Relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study, So-
cial Science Research 41, no. 4 (2012): 752–70.
162
Children in Same-Sex Civil Partnerships, which concludes that

these children are looked after just as well as they would be in
heterosexual families.19 However, what is rarely noted is that
the methodology employed in this study is pretty dubious:
since there are not yet sufficient official data on children raised
in civil partnerships registered in Germany, it was their parents
who were invited for interview by various prominent media or-
ganizations. The result of this survey was predictable: there is
no doubt about the benefit of this kind of union for children.
A Canadian study led by Douglas W. Allen is more securely
grounded. It relies on official Canadian statistical data on the
children of homosexual couples, in particular with regard to ac-
ademic success. The conclusion is far from rosy: children born
or raised by same-sex couples are at serious academic disadvan-
tage; for instance, 65 percent of boys living with lesbians had
graduated from high school, and only 35 percent of girls, while
the figure was a mere 15 percent for boys living with (male) gay
parents. As an economist, Allen leaves open the question of the
cause or causes of this academic underperformance.20

These data are certainly worrying; however, they cannot
be considered definitive, or the basis for a once-and-for-all re-
sponse to the question of the education of infants and children
by homosexual parents. Moreover, these data do not possess
the persuasive force needed to remove more or less entrenched
prejudices, because they can always be interpreted and crit-
icized, both because errors could exist in the sampling meth-
19. The Living Conditions of Children in Same-Sex Civil Partnerships, ed. Marina
Rupp (Berlin: Bundesministeriums der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz, 2009).
The summary report may be found at https://www.bmjv.de/SharedDocs/Down-
loads/EN/The_living_conditions_of_children_in_same_sex_civil_partnerships.
pdf%3F__blob%3DpublicationFile%26v%3D3.
20. Cf. W. Allen, “High School Graduation Rates among Children of Same-Sex
Households,” Review of Economics of the Household 11, no. 4 (2013): 635–58.
163
odology and for the way they were obtained. In order to con-
vince the public, it might be better to go down a different route,
namely, an examination into what science has to say on the
family and the education of children, using a relational meth-
odology that evaluates the relational benefits and disadvantag-
es of these environments. Sexuality is, obviously, a matter that
should be dealt with in the family and also at school. It should
be addressed in a personal, rather than neutral manner: the
sexed condition and age of the children or students need to be
taken into account, and they need to be taught to integrate and
use it responsibly. All of this seems difficult, if not impossible,
when the parents are gay men or lesbians.
Starting from this perspective we can, however, ask ourselves: what
sort of legacy does the child of a homosexual couple have to deal
with? In order to establish him- or herself as a subject with an iden-
tity, he or she will have to deal with the connection to the sexual
difference from which he or she came, a difference which the adult
homo-parental couple has not addressed, or has addressed by decou-
pling the biological (semen, uterus) from the symbolic, causing to
evaporate from the body the term that imbues it with meaning. That
is, he or she will have to integrate what he or she receives divided;
must give a name—if indeed this is even possible—to the unknown,
the obscurity that hangs over his or her origin. So, the task he or she
bears will be extremely difficult and risky. Furthermore—and this is
equally significant—there is the matter of orienting him- or herself
in all the complications of genealogies so as to find his or her place
in the history of the generations, which represent that golden thread
that makes recognition possible. Human beings know who they are
not only when they are recognized by other people of significance,
but also when they enter into an order that allows for recognition.21
21. V. Cigoli and E. Scabini, “Sul paradosso dell’omogenitorialità,” Vita e Pensiero

2013, no. 3 (2013): 109.
164
This analysis is supported by psychoanalytical investigations

into how complementarity of identity in the father and moth-
er influences the psyche of the offspring (male or female): gay
and lesbian unions represent a considerable obstacle to healthy
psycho-emotional development in the children and adolescents
that they rear and educate. Moreover, there is a plethora of stud-
ies indicating that the lack of one of the two parental figures
leads to serious psychological disorders in biological, natural, or
adopted children.22 According to Vegetti Finzi, the relationship
with the father and mother is of fundamental importance in the
ability of the child, male or female, to establish his or her sexual
identity, because this is not something we achieve in a vacuum;
it requires the roles and functions proper to both the soul and
the body of those involved. The male or female child of a homo-
sexual union will find it difficult to “address the problem of sex-
ual difference which is necessary for a definition of the self.”23
Turning to the relationships themselves between members
of a family, the first thing we notice is that while the family is
created by two persons—a man and a woman—it goes beyond

the couple’s relationship. For the union of a man and a woman
gives rise to a relationship with new properties, such as indis-
solubility, faithfulness, and openness to a third person: the son
22. According to divorce statistics from Norway and Sweden, this phenomenon
is more common among homosexual couples, with a highly negative psychological
impact on their children. Cf. G. Andersson, T. Noack, A. Seiertad, and H. Weedon-
Fekjaer, “The Demographics of Same-Sex ‘Marriages’ in Norway and Sweden,” De-
mography 43, no. 1 (2006): 79–98. Other studies analyzing the values of these types
of family have found that education in tolerance is paralleled for these children by
a greater difficulty in building their sexual identity. Cf. J. O’Brien, “All Aboard the
Good Ship (Gay) Family Values,” in Contexts: Understanding People in Their Social
Worlds 5, no. 4 (2006): 68–71.
23. S. Vegetti Finzi, “Freud e il senso della divisione dei ruoli. Ai bambini ser-
vono entrambe le figure,” Il Corriere della Sera, January 2, 2013, https://27esimaora.
corriere.it/articolo/freud-e-i-figli-di-coppie-gay-il-dibattitotra-il-papa-arcobaleno-e-
la-psicoanalista/.
165
or daughter. Some of these properties, such as openness to a

third person, can be explained biologically: the union of a man
and a woman is, or can be, naturally fertile; other properties,
such as the spouses’ faithfulness, also find some explanation in
evolutionary biology and paleontology. For instance, the male
or female offspring’s so-called premature birth ensures that
the initial cerebral connections develop outside of the mother’s
womb in contact with the world, for which reason the tiny hu-
man being requires particular attention during the first years of
its life, obliging its mother to take care of it until it is able to
provide for itself; and obliging its father to seek the means of
providing for it and protecting his family.
It might be objected that human nature has changed a great
deal since its origins: technical devices and biotechnology now
make generation outside the relationship of man and woman a
possibility; while the education of boys and girls depends on
different social structures which free women from this burden-
some role and allow them to work. I think there is some truth
in this objection: the explanations offered by the experimental

sciences are only valid for specific eras of humanity. But no ob-
jection can undermine the anthropological significance of the
spouses’ faithfulness and generativity, which is not based on
historical or sociological data alone, but also on the character-
istics of the conjugal relationship itself.
When we lose sight of the special relationship that exists
between the spouses and the other members of the family, we
confuse reality with utopia. This is what happens in political
efforts to change the “traditional” structure of the family, so
as to adapt it to changes in society. Thus, marriage is no longer
between a man and a woman, nor is it the origin of the fami-
ly; these institutions now seem to depend entirely on the will
of the individuals. The idea of a lasting relationship also seems
166
to be an anachronism, because what matters is not the other

nor the bond with the other, but one’s own happiness. And, of
course, depending on one’s individual tastes, more satisfying
sexual and emotional relationships can be found, not only with
persons of the same sex and of any age, but also with animals
or even by means of devices such as one’s computer. But these
relationships will never be truly generative.
Generativity, therefore, does not only mean generating,
educating, and forming the identity, but above all openness
to a third person as gift, which is an essential indicator of the
conjugal state. The love of husband and wife is naturally open
to a third person as a symbol of the mutual belonging of the
spouses and the natural bond of their union.24 Therefore, only
spouses are fertile in the essential sense: for they alone, even if
infertile, can adopt children. This does not mean that there are
not narcissistic parents and mothers who view their children
as an extension of themselves; thus, even if they have had chil-
dren, such fathers and mothers lack generativity in the essen-
tial sense. Despite this, openness to children is always possible

in a couple, but never in a homosexual partnership. Indeed,
even when homosexual partners manage to have a child after
recourse to donated eggs, in vitro fertilization, and surrogacy,
the child is not generated as gift, but produced as an object of
technology and of false “rights”; and therefore will never be the
fruit of a couple’s mutual love. Something similar can be said of
children adopted by homosexuals: they are not gifts to which
there was a natural openness, but merely the realization of a
24. As Botturi explains, identity is constructed according to a double relationali-

ty: a) a relationality according to difference, because identity abhors pure homogene-
ity and likes the difference that codetermines it; b) a generative relationship, because
a relationship that is not notional is always also more than its terms. See F. Botturi,
“Affettività e generatività,” in Il potere dell’amore nell’epoca della globalizzazione, ed.
Ricardo Prandini and Giampietro Cavazza (Genoa: Il Melangolo, 2011), 55–73.
167
“right” that the partners have managed to obtain through pub-

licity campaigns and political lobbying. Therefore, the conjugal
bond, insofar as it is essentially open to children, constitutes
the essence of the family, the first, fundamental relationship es-
tablished on the basis of the sexed conditions.
Although marriage is already generative, fatherhood and
motherhood bring with them a new way of being husband and
wife and, in the final analysis, of being man and woman. Fa-
therhood and motherhood are not, therefore, something that is
added from outside to the sexed condition and to the couple’s
relationship: they constitute the fullness of the sexed condi-
tion, as they are the realization of the generative capacity. For
the gift given by parents to their children reaches perfection
when the latter become parents in their turn, thus passing on
the love they have received. Hence, being a father or a mother
is not a right, but rather a duty born of an initial gift. In its dy-
namic, the gift tends toward a clearly asymmetrical reciprocity:
the mature son or daughter honors his or her parents—doubt-
less caring for them with love—but above all becoming a good
father or mother. Here we may observe the relational nature of
the human person from a dynamic perspective.
To sum up: generation, besides being the physical and, part-
ly, psychological origin of the person, is above all the beginning
of their identity and of the quality of their relationships. For
this reason, “no-one can do without the family dimension, nor
exchange it for more transitory ties; and perhaps it can never be
said enough that all vertical relationships within the family are
indissoluble, the most fragile being, it seems, that of the cou-
ple: paradoxically, the guarantor of the intrinsic quality of the
other family relationships.”25 Here we see a new circularity: the
25. P. Binetti, La famiglia fra tradizione e innovazione (Rome: Magi, 2009), 114.
168
person’s sexed identity develops through family bonds, and it is

this same identity which, by attaining a certain level of maturi-
ty, becomes the source of new family bonds.26
Genealogy and Generations:

Intergenerationality
Much as generation is extended in the education and formation
of the sexed condition of children, transforming itself into gen-
erativity, so the latter is extended in intergenerationality, that
is, in the relationship between the generations.27 This sort of
continuity allows, on the one hand, for the transmission and in-
teriorization of values and models of life that reinforce the link
between the two sexed conditions and the generations, thus
creating different types of community. In this way, intergener-
ationality acts as a bridge between family and community, so
that the meaning of the life of every person does not burn out
in the self-referentiality of the ego or in that of an isolated nu-
clear family, limited to the relationships between parents and

children (or frequently an only child). For although person-
al and indeed family self-referentiality is seen as synonymous
with autonomy and freedom, this is an illusion, because the
personal and familiar subjects depend on relational networks
that allow them to develop their own identities and generative
26. The disintegration of bonds through step-families, and above all homosexu-
al and single-parent “families” has a negative influence on personal identity. “People
become autonomous individuals, left to define themselves instead of being given a
role and place in life.” R. Sokolowski, “The Threat of Same-Sex Marriage: People Who
Separate Sexuality from Procreation Live in Illusion,” America magazine 190, no. 19
(2004): 13–14.
27. “The narrative of any one life is part of an interlocking set of narratives,” with-
out which each person’s story becomes a non-story or an autistic story. A. MacIntyre,
After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2007), 218.
169
capacities. Consequently, without a continuous intergenera-

tional encounter, we risk losing sight of the interdependence
of persons, families, and communities, and at the same time, of
their differences. Moreover, when we only build relationships
with those who are like us, we become ever more vulnerable,
alone, and in danger of becoming instruments in the hands
of an invisible power that imposes an inauthentic mode of ex-
istence, so that persons, families, and the community think
what is to be thought, say what is to be said, and do what is to be
done.28 As a result, this web of relations becomes the only place
where persons and families can face up to the exclusive, domi-
nant, politically correct thinking, thus saving themselves from
the clutches of the consumer society. It is through this web that
people can discover or rediscover the value of the person, the
family, and the community, which is the best antidote to the in-
dividualistic poison injected by many of the present-day mass
media, according to whom what matters in life is having mon-
ey, because money buys everything.
When it is open to intergenerationality, the family becomes

the place where its members’ identities are strengthened, so that
the ego can open up to others, who are different not just in terms
of their parentage, but also in terms of their age, mindset, cul-
ture, race, and religion. The key to this openness to the other in
28. Heidegger maintains that in the phenomenon of “das Man” (“one”), in which
existence is characterized by idle talk, curiosity, and equivocation, Dasein communi-
cates just because it has a taste for communicating; it has access to everything with-
out appropriating it, since it does not understand anything. “We do not so much un-
derstand the entities which are talked about; we already are listening only to what is
said-in-the-talk as such. What is said-in-the-talk gets understood; but what the talk is
about is understood only approximately and superficially. We have the same thing in
view, because it is in the same averageness that we have a common understanding of
what is said.” But “the groundlessness of idle talk is no obstacle to its becoming pub-
lic; instead it encourages this.” M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie
and Edward Robinson (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2001), §35 (212–13). It follows that the
more we are dominated by this tyranny, the more normal it seems.
170
the generational sense is the acceptance of the self as a being ca-

pable of learning, and at the same time capable of offering some-
thing to others. If the growth of each one of us derives from our
finiteness, our capacity to bestow is born of our transcendental
origin, in which we all participate. This participation in a single
origin is expressed both in our generative and intergenerational
relationships. Thus, these relationships constitute a complex re-
ality. Our participation in a single origin refers both to the po-
tentialities on which generation and genealogy are based, that is,
our membership of the human family; and to their actualization,
that is, our becoming an active part of these relationships. For
besides being a web of biological, emotional, symbolic, and rela-
tional bonds, the family also involves participation in the com-
mon family good: in the etymological sense of being part of, or
partaking in, because the family members are always of some-
one (husband/wife, father/mother/child, grandfather/grand-
mother/grandchild), and also in the sense of being an active part
of . . . a sexed condition, a family, a generation, a community, a
society, a culture, humanity. If being of signifies dependence on

our origin (of our generation and genealogy), being an active part
of indicates our freedom and responsibility, in our acceptance
and personalization of this belonging, as well as in our coopera-
tion in generating and regenerating it. Two potential dangers are
overcome by this concept of participation: the juxtaposition of
generations who view each other with indifference or with sub-
mission or suspicion; and the opposition that arises, in the case
of the elder generation, from considering the other a danger in
terms of their possessions, or, in the case of young people, from
seeing the other as an obstacle to advancement.29
29. For juxtaposition and opposition as stumbling blocks to intergenerationali-

ty, see P. Raciti, La cittadinanza e le sue strutture di significato (Milan: Franco Angeli,
2004), 196.
171
Intergenerationality, then, requires a common legacy: the

overcoming of prejudices and the creativity to take an active
part in the formation of new bonds, which is not the same as
justifying the revolutionary drift of someone who undertakes
to create new models of gender and family in an attempt to pro-
vide an answer to the current difficulties between men, women,
and generations.30 As well as being utopian, this revolutionary
approach hinders the formation of quality relationships, and
therefore promotes a gradual decline in generativity and inter-
generationality. The naturalist conservative drift is also to be
condemned, as it prevents any improvement in relationships
between men, women, and the various members of families
and communities: machismo, the figure of the father-overlord
and prejudices between families and communities on social,
religious, racial, or cultural grounds, have all caused serious
damage to persons and societies. The prudent approach is to
try to integrate the two aspects of belonging and creativity.31
For it is only by reflecting on the relationships between men
and women, families and generations that it is possible to per-

sonalize one’s own sexed condition and family and communi-
ty history, interpreting and assimilating it so that it becomes a
voluntarily acquired part of one’s own identity, which can thus
enrich the other.32 By this means, through the other’s gift and
30. I think this attempt is to be found, for instance, in this text: “The complexity
and make-up of the new families cannot be contained within the limited inventory of
histories fitting the canvas of the nuclear family. The triadic and trigenerational histo-
ries built around the nuclear family are not sufficient to describe processes in which
the trigenerational line branches out in more than two directions and in which the
personages of one triad are always simultaneously involved with another.” L. Frug-
geri, “I concetti di mononuclearità e plurinuclearità nella definizione di famiglia,” in
Connessioni 8 (2001): 19.
31. For a good example of balance, see Binetti’s book La famiglia fra tradizione e
innovazione.
32. For the role of hermeneutics in understanding tradition, see H.-G. Gadamer,
Truth and Method (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), pt. 2, chap. 2.
172
the acceptance of a legacy shared by families and generations,

we can succeed in unifying the time we live through in each of
its three dimensions: the past, as a treasury of experiences from
which to extract the perennial values of humanity; the present,
as the place where we encounter the other and offer the gift of
self; and the future, as an opening to the generation of humani-
ty and to a better relationship with our common origin.
173
The Relational Paradigm
Ch a p t er S i x
T H E I N T EGR AT ION OF
SE X UA LIT Y A N D T H E R EL AT ION A L
PA R A DIGM
“Sexed condition” is, in my view, the most appropriate term

to use in reference to this relational structure that generates
persons, the family, and the community, because on the one
hand, as the term “sexed” indicates, it includes a fundamental
reference to the body and generation, while on the other hand,
it links to the historical (intergenerational and cultural), bi-
ographical, and familial “condition” of personal sexuality. For

unlike the gender theorists’ favored term “gender,” which does
not concern bodily sex or generation, the sexed condition cov-
ers—including terminologically—our sexuality in all its bodi-
ly aspects: tendency and emotion, reason and will, and above
all in terms of relationships, that is, of generation and geneal-
ogy.
In addition, the sexed condition is not something that is
given to us in its entirety; it must pass through various stages of
physical, relational, and social development, such as the forma-
tion of bodily sexuality, psychological identification, personal
integration, gift, paternity and maternity. Therefore, along with
the personal body that we receive as a gift, freedom is part of
174
the sexed condition, at the origin and end of which is a series

of relationships. For a person’s sexed condition is no disembod-
ied freedom, that is, a despotic will, but rather a personal being
which is always in relationship because it is generated, that is,
it is a son or a daughter. Freedom is born and develops in the
relationship between parents and children, beginning with the
interpretation and assessment of the children’s emotions and
desires; because the child’s first relationship with reality, while
it may be open to reason, is not strictly speaking rational, but
rather emotional, even if this is an affectivity in which the mind
of the child (male or female) is already at work.
The sexed condition, then, refers to three things: 1) to that
which is given—an original perspective on the world and on
others as men or women in an intimate relationship with the
other sexed perspective; 2) to that which is partly given and
partly constructed, eros or desire for the other; 3) and finally, to
that which is free: love and the gift of self. The original perspec-
tive relates to others, especially those who are most particularly
other, that is, persons of the other sexed condition. The limita-
tion that belongs to the original perspective is not, therefore,
equivalent to a lack of something foundational (a natural pow-
er which, according to Solov’iev, is imperfect); rather, we are
dealing with a positive resolve, with power to originate a new
relationship with the other, which is therefore able to perfect
persons—that is, it is generative. For since both perspectives
belong to the same human nature, the male perspective is in an
originally reciprocal relationship with the female one, and vice
versa; and it is on this very original relationship, rather than on
organic powers or arbitrary choice, that the relationship be-
tween man and woman, and above all conjugal union, is based.
Marriage, therefore, is the union of two persons in that which
they reciprocally share, that is, the male and female sexed con-
175
dition. Hence the distinction between the person—the non-

repeatable and nonshareable person—and his or her sexed con-
dition, which insofar as it is a perspective, is shared by all men
or all women, and is therefore in some way or other shareable.
For we can participate in the sexed condition, because it allows
us to live, develop, and communicate through our own per-
spective: our sexed tendency, desire for and love of the other.
The sexed condition is not, therefore, merely the place
where individual sexual difference is to be found, but the space
in which the person enters into a genealogical and generational
relationship. The sexed condition has a social value, because its
essence is relational. All of which allows the child, male or fe-
male, to begin to integrate his or her sexuality.
The Integration of Sexuality

What does integrating one’s sexuality mean? In my view, inte-
grating one’s sexuality amounts to personalizing it, so that it
can be part of a nonrepeatable identity. What makes this pos-

sible is that a person’s sexuality is in a sense at his or her dispos-
al, given that he or she can accept or reject the relationships on
which he or she builds his or her identity as man or woman.
But in what sense is our sexuality at our disposal? To illus-
trate: a person’s sexuality is not at his or her disposal in the way
a craftsman’s tools are at his, that is, through the use he makes
of them (the sexed condition does not depend on the use we
make of our sexual organs or on different performances); rath-
er, just as the sun possesses light, and in that light participates
in its energy, so by analogy the person possesses his or her sex-
uality, making it participate in his or her own nonrepeatability,
which also depends on a genealogy, both in its origin and desti-
ny. For as we have seen, both in marriage and the celibate state
176
the integration of sexuality gives rise to paternity and materni-

ty, physical and spiritual respectively. It is for this reason that
the sexed condition cannot escape its anchor in male or female
physicality, which points in turn to an original difference and a
series of genealogies. The sexed condition cannot, therefore, be
understood as the fruit of an arbitrary choice, since each per-
son’s historical-biographical genealogy entails the sexed condi-
tion having a genealogy at the outset, even before any decision
has been made. It is only in this context—that is, in the context
of an original difference and generative relationships—that it is
possible to personalize one’s sexuality.
By virtue of its participation in the nonrepeatability of the
person, sexuality can always be further integrated. The possi-
bility of the growth of personal identity through this integra-
tion also implies the opposite possibility: a gradual disintegra-
tion which nonetheless cannot succeed in completely doing
away with our nonrepeatability—and consequently either its
sexed origin or its genealogy. Of course, there may be a mis-
match between a person’s identity and his or her sex, but just
as, in the analogy of the sun, its energy is always light, so a per-
son’s identity is generated and sexed from beginning to end.
Therefore, even if a person decides to change sex, his or her
identity remains sexed. This means that in order to be free, a
person’s nonrepeatability, which is ontological and manifests
itself initially through the possession of a male or female body,
needs an acceptance on his or her part of his or her condition.
Unlike animals, each person must accept, care for, and under-
stand the significance of his or her body as a gift that he or she
has received, yet is capable of offering to another person as an
expression of him- or herself. It is therefore interesting to note
that changing sex leads to the alienation of the self and of those
around us, especially one’s own children.
177
How can we form a relationship with a person who changes

sex? It frequently happens that such relationships break down
or change radically, as can be seen from the sad story of Harold,
the father of a family who, following a deluded dream of happi-
ness, decided to become Becky.1
Once transformed into Becky, Harold was dead to his fami-
ly, although for several years he continued to live under another
identity. In order not to die to his former relationships, Harold
ought not to have chosen to become Becky, because by doing
so he not only refused to be of the male sex, but also rejected
his very identity as a husband and father, and consequently the
closest emotional and parental bonds. Harold-Becky’s desire,
turned narcissistically on him-/herself, was no longer projected
toward the woman he had promised to love forever, nor was it
any longer open to generativity. Harold’s wife could no longer
give herself to him, even if she continued to love his memory,
because her husband was dead, refusing to continue to be a
man, the basis for his capacity to receive the gift of this wom-
an as his wife. In short, without the man-woman difference, the

union of two in one flesh is impossible; only a rough imitation
is possible, and without fleshly union there is no true genera-
tion, even when we seek to copy it: Becky might perhaps one
day have been able to carry embryos in her womb and give birth
to or adopt sons or daughters but she would never have been a
1. “Dad also revealed to me that he forced my mother to buy him women’s un-
derwear and bras. Her emotional status and integrity meant nothing to him. My
mother stopped wearing lipstick, and lost the desire to look attractive. My dad de-
valued my mom and what it was to be a woman and his wife. Her personhood was
sucked up like that of a vacuum.” (Brief of Dawn Stefanowicz and Denise Shick as
Amicae Curiae, Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. (2015), https://www.supremecourt.gov/
ObergefellHodges/AmicusBriefs/14-556_Dawn_Stefanowicz_and_Denise_Shick.
pdf). This alienation from the rest of the family and friends also comes out clearly in
Pedro Almodóvar’s 1999 film Todo sobre mi madre (All about My Mother).
178
mother, because Becky continued to be a man, though an im-

paired one. Furthermore, once he had become Becky, Harold
could only preserve the memory of his paternity, because by
rejecting being a man, he had rejected a paternal relationship
with his own children. All that remained of that conjugal and
paternal love was suffering, delusion, and a sense of abandon-
ment and of being orphaned. Was realizing a desire worth the
destruction of all this? Shortly before his death, reconciled to
God and his family, Harold confided to his daughter his disil-
lusionment following his change of gender: “He admitted that
becoming Becky hadn’t given him the satisfaction he’d longed
for. I remember thinking, ‘If only you’d have realized that ear-
ly on. . . . Oh, the grief you could have spared your family—and
yourself. . . .’”2 When the mode of being male or female is not
viewed simply as being an individual of the human species, and
is not based simply on desires and tastes, it is far from hemming
the person in, but opens him or her to a truly social existence
which is reflected in the profoundly human way of establishing
relationships with others and entering into communion with

them.
In addition to the acceptance of one’s own sexed condi-
tion, integration requires both one’s moral identity—because
the person must personalize his or her sexuality by using it or
not—and an appropriate relationality—insofar as the aim of
integration is the gift of self, which is generative per se. There-
fore, it is not the celibate state that is a barrier to integration,
but rather the nonacceptance and deconstruction of the ele-
ments of this structure. For the integration of sexuality is al-
ways possible when erotic desire opens itself to the total gift
2. D. Shick and J. Gramckow, My Daddy’s Secret (Maitland, Fla.: Xulon Press,

2008), 152.
179
of self, both in marriage and the celibate state. By contrast, the

lack of gift leads, in Bauman’s words, to the “liquefaction” of the
ego, as can be seen in the figure of homo sexualis, destined to
undertake a journey that never ends, “because the itinerary is
recomposed at each station and the final destination remains
unknown throughout.”3 Therefore, it is only on the basis of
well-adjusted relationships that we can integrate our sexuality.
How can we speak of adjustment in our relationships? In
the first place because, stereotypes aside, the sexed condition
is spelled out in two ways: according to origin (son/daughter;
brother/sister) and the generative relationships to which it can
give rise (husband/wife; father/mother; uncle/aunt; grand-
father/grandmother). All these relationships are based on the
different way in which man and woman enter into relation-
ship with each other, and in the final analysis, with transcen-
dence. For man, the other is always external to himself, while
for woman, the other is also within herself. This difference in
relationship with the other is a constituent part of all our rela-
tionships, which for this reason are always sexed. This explains
why a daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, and aunt,
who are intimately associated with the other, tend to be invit-
ing, warm, and close, while a man, on account of his having an
external relationship with the other, tends toward separation,
and to the help and protection of those he loves. Besides not be-
ing negative, these differences are necessary for the construc-
tion of boys’ and girls’ identities, which require both closeness
and an appropriate separation from the other. For this reason,
despite the similarities of all relationships (being a parent is as
much a part of man as of woman; generation as much of a fa-
3. Bauman, Liquid Love, 55. Although Bauman does not say so, overcoming the
figure of homo sexualis does not mean just randomly choosing a particular sexual
identity; it is necessary to appropriate the sexual condition one has received.
180
ther as of a mother), the way they are spelled out in the male
or the female is always different. From this we can also see that
the subjects of the relationships—who are different in terms of
their sexed condition—are not interchangeable; for instance, a
woman cannot be a husband just to make the gender feminists
happy, nor can a man be a wife, or a woman a father, or a man
a mother. The sexed condition is simultaneously natural and
cultural, psychological (through the processes of identification
and differentiation) and moral (through integration) and rela-
tional (familial, intergenerational, and in terms of the commu-
nity) and, finally, human, because it is at the origin of humanity
and its growth.
The integration of sexuality in the person, therefore, in-
volves not only the power of nonrepeatability that permits us
to accept and develop what we have received, but also the mal-
leability of the sexed condition. For in order truly to orient
ourselves toward the other, human sexuality—unlike among
animals—requires appropriate models of education, desire,
and openness to the other. This is how the mode of being man
or woman is personalized. This happens in particular through
the gift of self, which makes us capable of generating, that is, of
opening ourselves to children, our own or adopted, as gift. This
is because a child is a gift not only for the child itself, but also
for its parents, for the community, the society, and the whole
of humanity, inasmuch as it is through him or her that all per-
sonal and social subjects grow in their identities as father and
mother, as a generation, as citizens, and finally, as a human ge-
nealogy. This is why in the sexed condition, the body (and its
symbolic aspect) cannot be separated from relationality, from
sociability, and, in the final analysis, from humanity.
The distinction between the sexed condition and sexuali-
ty may be key to clinching the argument about whether or not
181
sexuality is ontological in character. If we accept what has just

been said, being man or woman should not be understood as an
ontological distinction, but rather as something historical and
essential. For in ontological terms, it is persons who are non-
repeatable, while male sex and female sex are things which we
have in common with all men or all women respectively. In oth-
er words, the person exists in the realm of being, the sexed con-
dition in the realm of essence, thanks to its corporeal character.
But we need to be careful: this does not mean that being man
or woman is an accident of their essence, like having a pointed
or flattened nose, or like smiling; rather, it is a manner of being
a person as such, for which reason it does not exclude anything
belonging to the essence of being human: either in terms of its
structural composition (body-soul-spirit) or in terms of the in-
tegration of sexuality with gift, or of the generation and regen-
eration of persons. In short, the sexed condition is a constituent
part of the essence of being human, which exists as a participa-
tion in the act of the person’s existence. At the same time, the
actualized sexed condition allows us to understand human na-

ture not as a disembodied essence, but as a continuous relation-
ship between persons through generation and the generations.
The Relational Paradigm: Dependence,

Autonomy, and Gift
The historical and theoretical journey we have taken up to this
point, with the aim of clarifying the anthropological signifi-
cance of sexual difference, helps us understand what might be
called “the relational paradigm.” For unlike sexual naturalism
or radical feminism, the vision of man and woman presented
here—that is, man and woman as equally persons, with two
different sexed conditions which necessarily refer to each oth-
182
er—allows us to detect in this paradigm the essence of the in-

terpersonal relationship, particularly of human love. For as a
result of the indissoluble connection between personal identity
and sexual difference, the relationship between man and wom-
an contains, at least potentially, the relational paradigm, which
appears to be composed of three intrinsically connected parts:
dependence, autonomy, and gift.
The order of that sequence, far from being random, is a nec-
essary one. In the first place, the relationship between man and
woman involves mutual dependence; and this is definitely not
a matter of hierarchical dependence, as the naturalist account
holds, nor of a dialectical one, as most gender feminists main-
tain. Rather, it is a question of an original reciprocal depen-
dence: man is man because in his sexed condition he references
woman, and vice versa. Therefore, any attempt to understand
the relationship between man and woman from the starting
point of just one sexed condition is misleading. Moreover, when
such an attempt is made, the result is that the relationship’s
generative purpose is discarded, because we cease to conceive

of human love as an original opening to a third person, and to
think of the reciprocal relationship as something necessary for
man and woman’s growth in terms of identity. For according to
this false way of thinking, love has no relation to the identity
of persons or to their gradual differentiation, but only to their
subjective preferences and tastes, according to the postmodern
view of love inherited from romanticism, which, however, has
lost the thirst for the infinite which the romantics’ love pos-
sessed; while its almost mystical desire is now transformed into
mere pleasure, utility, and emotion.
Thus, we see how the relationship between man and woman
now seems like an imposition—indeed, an infringement of the
other’s mode of being, especially that of the woman—if not an
183
outright loss of freedom. Because, so the thinking goes, being

autonomous means not needing the other.
In fact, as I have indicated a number of times, the autonomy
of men or women makes no sense when viewed on its own, that
is, in isolation from their reciprocal dependence, and above all
from the gift of self. In other words, we truly have autonomy
when we consent to give ourselves to the other as son or daugh-
ter, brother or sister, husband or wife, father or mother, because
mutual possession truly takes place in the gift of self, above all
to those who depend on us. For it is a universal experience that
it is autonomy and the gift of others that has helped each of us
to go from complete dependence to that relative autonomy that
allows us to give ourselves, in turn, to others. It is clear, then,
that we need the gift of others for our own perfection.
So, can the same thing be claimed of our own identity, that
is, that the gift of self is necessary for us to grow as persons? It
might seem that the gift of self opposes our own flourishing.
For how can we say that the gift of self is personal growth, if
in the gift of self the person is directly turned toward another’s

good and not toward the satisfaction of his or her own inter-
ests?
It seems to me that this theoretical question, which I have
addressed elsewhere, has practical implications in plain sight of
all: for many of our contemporaries, personal growth—in the
various ways it is understood—is to be found in the satisfac-
tion of one’s own needs and desires, such as possession, fame,
knowledge, or the search for happiness, while love, despite the
inflated sense of the term, is something contingent: we can love
the other or not, without there being any essential deficiency in
us. In short, love and our own happiness are understood more
as the search for our own satisfaction than as the gift of self to
another; that is, rather than loving the other as our own good.
184
The relational paradigm shows us, however, that love is not

pleasure, utility, or emotion—although it may include these
features—but rather it is having the other at heart, or having
him or her as our own good (the husband for the wife, the par-
ents for the children, and vice versa), because the other is part
of myself, insofar as each of us depends on the other in a recip-
rocal and generative manner, as I am part of the other, because
I depend for my identity on the other. This is why there is an
indivisible relationship between the mutual gifts, especially be-
tween husband and wife: each constitutes the gift of self and at
the same time the acceptance of the gift of the other. This im-
plies that the gift to those who in some way depend on us con-
stitutes the most truly personal relationship, which therefore
marks our identity the most.4 For this reason, the gift con-
tains a special sort of immanence (the immanence of the other
in me and of me in the other) and of transcendence (generation
of a third person as a relational bond).5
For when a relationship with the other is dominated by
need or desire, the going-out from the self aims for pure satis-
faction, for which reason the only sort of immanence is plea-
sure, emotion, or utility: the other is at most someone with
whom these things are shared, if he or she is not someone to
exploit. Whereas in the gift of husband to wife and vice versa,
4. Although it might appear that responsibility to others, insofar as it is a duty,

should not be considered as arising from gift, it is not so; for, there is no contradic-
tion between duty and gift (as can be seen in the Commandment of Love), but only
between duty and necessity. Of course, when we love, we most often feel not the duty,
but the joy of loving. But we can experience the duty when the emotions are lacking
or when love begins to fade. In both cases, the consciousness of duty can promote the
exercise of self-giving.
5. According to Lévinas, metaphysical Desire unfolds in the relationship with
the absolute, that is, with Autrui. The discovery of alterity highlights an essential dis-
tance and separation. In this sense, desire grows with every attempt to gratify it; for
the encounter with Autrui in the moral relationship highlights a profound distance
that gushes out from the very alterity of Autrui. Cf. Lévinas, Totality and Infinity, 34.
185
the goal of the movement out of the self is the other, who, inso-
far as he or she is loved, constitutes our own good. Therefore, in
conjugal and parental gift, the move out toward the other is at
the same time an action of maximum immanence, which forms
man as son, brother, husband, and father, and woman as daugh-
ter, sister, wife, and mother.
Furthermore, the greatest transcendence is given in the
mutual gift of spouses, and the gift of parents and children. For
by virtue of the unique structure of the act of giving the self as
husband or wife—an act which belongs to two subjects, each
of whom is the goal of the other—what is generated is greater
than the sum of the individual persons, because it is a relational
good: the conjugal relationship and parenthood. This explains,
on the one hand, the apparent paradox of love as a total going-
out from the self, which, however, far from impoverishing the
lovers, enriches them with the good of the other; and on the
other hand, its generative value, in that the spouses share a
good that transcends them, the mutual gift of each of them to
the other, a third reality which takes the form of the child.
The relational paradigm also helps us understand why some
human relationships, particularly those between men and
women, are positive, while others are negative. For given that
the relationship of dependence, autonomy, and gift is indivis-
ible, a good marital or parental bond is not possible if one of
these factors is bracketed off or completely removed. Doing so
causes relationships to degenerate, rather than generate and re-
generate persons.
For example, the lack of mutual dependence can lead to
authoritarianism or emotional dependence, which denies the
husband, wife, or children the autonomy they need to be able to
give. Then the relationship becomes a bond that deprives them
of freedom, or worse, an obsession in which the necessary bal-
186
ance, proper to all relationships, between “giving,” “receiving,”’

and “reciprocating” is permanently altered. The dysfunctional
and problematic bond leads to the degeneration of the identi-
ties of the persons in conjugal or parental relationships; this is
particularly shown in feelings of insecurity, prostration, and
worthlessness, even to a person’s complete loss of the value of
his or her own life. When autonomy is separated from the oth-
er parts of the relational paradigm, we also swing between the
lack of the gift of self and conflict with the other, which leads to
a procession of negative emotions such as envy, jealousy, and
hatred.
Finally, when we try to seal off giving from receiving, we
end up exchanging love for giving gifts or for accepting ev-
erything that comes from the other, even if it is damaging or
destructive. Here we see the figure of the faceless and some-
times irritating giver—irritating because he or she offers gifts
that nobody wants; or the figure of the victim who wallows in
victimhood. We see this, for instance, in C. S. Lewis’s story of
Mrs. Fidget, who constantly complained that she was working

herself to death for her family, without them appreciating her
love; “They couldn’t stop her. Nor could they—being decent
people—quite sit still and watch her do it. They had to help. In-
deed, they were always having to help. That is, they did things
for her to help her to do things for them which they didn’t want
done.” 6 Clearly, gift requires not only giving; the other must
be able and willing to receive it, since the gift does not come
from the giver alone, but also from the person who accepts it. If
the recipient cannot receive it, there is no gift.
6. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960), 62.
187
Conclusion
CONCLUSION
From all that has been said, it is clear that the merit of gender
theory is that it corrects a naturalistic concept of human sex-
uality, showing that there are other aspects such as the social
and cultural dimensions, the psychological dimension of de-
sire, and the existential one of authenticity; but it blurs crucial
realities such as the sexed body, sexual difference, the educa-
tion of desire, the generative relationship between male and fe-
male, and genealogy.
In order to avoid leaving out any of these aspects, I think we
need a wider concept of sexuality, such as the one I offer in this
book as “sexed condition.” For although at first glance it might
appear that the distinction between “sexuality” and “sexed con-

dition” is similar to that made by so-called gender ideologists be-
tween “sex” and “gender,” insofar as gender, like sexed condition,
is the personal form of sexuality, in fact this is not the case. There
is a very significant difference between “gender” and “sexed con-
dition”: as we have seen, sexed condition is not distinct from sex-
uality; rather, the latter is included as a fundamental part of it,
because the beginning and end of the sexed condition is the gen-
eration of persons and of their relationships.1 Furthermore, sex-
1. We must therefore distinguish between reproduction and generation, be-
cause the persons who generate and are generated have value in themselves and are
not at the service of the species. Furthermore, generation is the origin of the human
family, which, like genealogy, indicates both uniqueness, or nonrepeatability, and
also wholeness. Because “we do not belong to it in part, through a characteristic, a
role, but with the whole of our being; and this makes the family relationship equally
188
Conclusion
uality cannot be reduced to the purely physical; it is also a per-

sonal tendency, shaped by desire, by our earliest experiences, by
identification and differentiation, and by the gift of self in our re-
lationships with others. Finally, although culture and social prac-
tice play a significant part in our sexed condition, this does not
give us license to deconstruct sexuality in favor of a utopian “gen-
der” that permits us to invent new models of parents and families
so that maleness and femaleness become mere social construc-
tions. On the contrary, the difference between sexed condi-
tion and gender is all the greater, since it is owing to the sexed
condition that there are two modes of being a person, man and
woman; and while these modes may depend on an original dif-
ference, they are equally personal and, therefore, have the same
dignity. Existing in one mode or the other is not at odds with the
nonrepeatability of the person, but on the one hand is a part of
it, and on the other is its origin. Of course, it is not maleness or
femaleness that is nonrepeatable, but the person, who can there-
fore make his or her mode of being man or woman nonrepeat-
able. This means that more than sex and social norms, the sexed
condition is the necessary prerequisite for the personalization of
sexuality, that is, for its integration through the assimilation of
difference. For man and woman differ amongst themselves, har-
monizing themselves, or rather transforming each other instead
of just remaining different. Their differences are original because
they depend on the person’s psychosomatic constitution and on
the type of relationship: son-daughter, brother-sister, husband-
wife, father-mother, grandfather-grandmother.
all-encompassing and indissoluble; a relationship of ancestry and descent at the very

least. Furthermore, the unique person is simultaneously generated and a generator,
both in family and social terms; each of us is offspring and future parent of new gen-
erations. This is the path by which the person’s identity is realized.” E. Scabini and
G. Rossi, “Generazione e fiducia,” in Promuovere famiglia nella comunità, Studi inter-
disciplinari sulla famiglia 22 (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2006), 8–9.
189
Conclusion
The personalization of sexuality involves a long process, in

which desire plays a key role. For desire is a tendency which al-
lows us, on the basis of our own sexed condition, to go out of
ourselves toward persons who belong to the other condition and
in whom we detect the possibility of attaining union, so that the
two can become generative. On the basis of their different sexed
conditions, the mutual gift of the spouses gives rise not only to
the generation of persons, but also to their education and ma-
turity—primarily of the spouses themselves—through love. In
the exchange of the gift of self, man and woman deepen the dis-
covery of their identities and differences, which continue to de-
velop through further relations as husband-wife, father-mother,
grandfather-grandmother, etc.
Of course, social relationships also help to shape the identi-
ties of man and woman, because they are not merely arbitrary,
but to some extent reflect the two modes of being. For although,
unlike the vocation to fatherhood or motherhood, male and fe-
male social roles should not be seen as inevitably tied to genet-
ics, they are still reciprocal differences: everything we say about

one sex, insofar as it is personal, can be said about the other, but
in a reciprocal way. This means that there is a male way of look-
ing after the house, of looking after children, of working; and
another, female one; this being more an agreed social difference
than something determined by genetics or the morphological
characteristics of the sexes. Such a complementarity must stem
not only from logos but from dia-logos, that is, from agreement
on how roles are to be divided, since there is no understand-
ing when the other is not listening, and without understanding
there is no love. And love, as we have seen, should always be at
the beginning of our relationships and should be their goal. This
is the basis for the relationship between man and woman and
between people in general: a dialogue in which each one of us
190
Conclusion
recognizes the other as equally necessary for the construction

of relationships of couples, families, communities, and societies
that are more human.2 Therefore, pace the radical feminists, sex-
ual difference has substantial social importance.
The sexed condition, moreover, far from being the servant
of mere convention that is gender, expresses recognition of
the relationships which a person can establish by virtue of his
or her being man or woman, and the corresponding rights and
duties. Culture can strengthen or weaken the differences be-
tween the two sexed conditions, but cannot reduce them to an
amorphous, neutral mass, as the radical feminists and LGBTQI
movements seem to be proposing. For conjugal union is only
possible if there is sexual difference; the family exists only if
there is conjugal union, and it is only in the family that sons or
daughters are considered persons rather than mere objects to
be produced, acquired, and sold.
In conclusion, the only way in which personal identity and
sexual differences can be interconnected without producing
negative consequences is through integration. This is because,

far from impeding the development of identity, the integration
of differences promotes its growth. This is particularly import-
ant in the case of sexual difference (biological, psychological,
social—in terms of communication and role—and cultural—
in terms of models of value and behavior), the integration of
which should assist identities to become richer through the ex-
2. Spinsanti expresses the dialectical meaning of the relationship between man

and woman well: “Reciprocity may also be considered a formal criterion, the measure
by which we should evaluate what we assert about man or woman. It implies that the
difference or uniqueness that we establish about the one, must be confirmed by the
other. Reciprocity requires identity to be formulated in dialogue, not as a unilater-
al prescription, but with the active participation of the other.” S. Spinsanti, “Essere
uomo, essere donna alla svolta del decennio,” in Maschio, femmina: dall’uguaglianza
alla reciprocità (CISF), ed. Sandro Spinsanti (Cinisello Balsamo [Milan]: Edizioni
Paoline, 1990), 15.
191
Conclusion
change of gifts (maleness and femaleness) and in the reciproci-

ty of vocations (father and mother, particularly in the spiritual
sense) and social roles. Thus, each sexed condition is strength-
ened in terms of what belongs to it as an essential property,
such as being a son/daughter, brother/sister, male friend/fe-
male friend, husband/wife, father/mother . . . without despising
or envying the other sexed condition, which necessarily leads
to the most degrading forms of imitation (male narcissism and
female exhibitionism), and ultimately to the actual deconstruc-
tion of the sexed conditions.
Achieving our own identity should not, therefore, consist in
deconstructing our spiritual/psychological/physical differenc-
es as males or females, so as to then reconstruct them according
to our particular whims; but rather in recognizing and cultivat-
ing them in a resolute and committed fashion, distinguishing
between real and stereotypical differences. This is the only way
to discover the mode of being man or woman that fits each of
us. The most glaring shortcoming of radical feminism is per-
haps that it ignores the differences between men and women,

apart from when it opposes them with mixed feelings of love
and hate. A justification of this attitude seems to be offered by a
history marked by male abuse and arrogance. Yet the existence
of an historical reason for this ancient injustice is not sufficient
to transform it into new, and perhaps greater injustices, such as
the disintegration of the different aspects of human sexuality,
which jeopardizes the future of humanity, and especially that
of the younger generation.
It is only by rediscovering the beauty of the difference be-
tween man and woman, of marriage and of the family, that we
shall be able to continue to write new pages of the marvelous
story of love, composed of light and shadow.
192
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Index
INDEX
abortion, 42–43, 47, 61 chastity, 33n27, 118–19, 142

acceptance: of gift, 22, 134, 137, 140, children: and family, 13, 145–48,
151, 173, 187; of the other, 1–2, 56, 152–53, 169, 191; and gender,
118, 129, 140; of self, 91, 128, 171, 63n85, 84; as gift, 92, 152, 167–68,
177, 179 181, 186; and parents, 6, 46,
Adorno, Theodor, 43 98–102, 136, 155–68, 175, 179; of
Allen, Douglas W., 163 same-sex couples, 6, 52n60, 65,
animals, sexuality of, 6–7, 16–17, 78, 100, 150–52, 162–67. See also fami-
95–96. See also reproduction ly; parenting
anthropology, 9–11; Aristotelian, choice: abortion as, 42; and free-
30–31; of family, 148, 166; and dom, 148, 160; and love, 113; and
sexuality, 17, 78, 99, 182. See also sexuality, 78–83, 88, 90, 98, 132,
humanization 175, 177. See also intentionality;
Arendt, Hannah, 153 will
Aristotle, 30–31, 102–4 Christianity, 28–29, 36, 69–70, 76,
Augustine, 31 87, 90, 161

Austin, J. L., 56–57 communion, 29, 41, 76, 179. See also
autonomy, 65, 70, 108–9, 152n5, 160, union
169, 183–87. See also freedom conflict, 187; parent-child, 99–101;
between the sexes, 64, 85, 172
Badinter, Elisabeth, 71 conjugal act, 138–41
beauty, 68, 87, 109, 116, 124–25, 154, consent, 140–42, 184. See also free-
192 dom; gift of self
Bornstein, Kate, 62–63 construct: family as, 144–48; gen-
Braidotti, Rosi, 83 der as, 6, 40, 48, 51, 119, 132–43,
Butler, Judith, 48, 55–58, 78, 81n13, 94 145; sexuality as, 45, 54, 62, 67,
78–80, 83, 126–27, 189
care: of beloved, 111–12, 127, 136; consumerism: and eros, 44; and
of children, 15–17, 22, 72, 90, 92, love, 132, 134; rejecting, 170; and
152–53, 166; of the family, 19, 151, sexual orientation, 81, 94, 159
159–60; of self, 177. See also love culture: changes in, 47, 54, 65;
celibacy, 23, 76-77, 92, 118, 137–38, Christian, 76; and desire, 114, 119;
177, 179–80 and family, 147–49, 171;
207
Index
culture: (cont.) 180, 182–83, 189–91; and the other,
and gender, 63; and human 85, 122–23; significance of, 115, 117;
nature, 82, 94; and sexual differ- and union, 28, 77, 124, 175–77. See
ence, 30–47, 78, 84–85, 88, 191; also integration, sexual
and sexuality, 3, 26–27, 69–70, dignity: equal, 28–29, 76, 79, 90, 189;
105, 124, 188–89. See also nature human, 10, 36, 79n10, 90, 117n42,
vs. culture 137
dimorphism, 17–18, 67, 76, 83, 92. See
de Beauvoir, Simone, 39–42, 45, 109 also duality, sexual; sexes
deconstruction: of categories, disorders. See pathology
62–63, 94; of the family, 60–61; division of labor, 16–17, 45–46, 190.
of gender, 51–52, 62–63, 81, 90–91, See also gender roles
172; vs. integration, 179; of sexual- dualism: vs. duality, 76; in gender
ity, 42, 87–88, 90, 110, 189, 192; of ideology, 48, 78–84, 90; sexual,
social norms, 60–62, 157n12 30, 34
dependence, 183–87; children’s, 148, duality, sexual, 75n7, 76, 85–86, 89,
160, 171; female, 60, 70–71, 74, 137. See also dimorphism
108; and independence, 122; male,
86; morbid, 126; mutual, 32–33, education, 141, 154–55, 181; of chil-
77, 170 dren, 92, 151, 154, 159–60, 166, 169;
Derrida, Jacques, 53n61, 56, 71 and gender, 50, 62, 65, 156, 161–63
desire: and autonomy, 108–9; emotion, 174, 183; attachment of, 2,
biological bases of, 23; classi- 82, 99, 148, 158; disordered, 161,
cal concept of, 55, 102–4; and 186; education of, 155–56, 159, 161,
culture, 114, 119; education of, 165, 175; and family, 12, 151, 171;
143, 155–56, 160, 181, 188; and gift immature, 102, 160; and love,
of self, 135, 142; and identity, 80, 112, 128, 130–31, 135, 139, 183, 185;
190; intentionality of, 111–13; and negative, 187; and sexuality, 106,
love, 28, 118, 183; for the other, 24, 119, 174
75, 82, 106–8, 115, 117, 120, 126, 135, end (purpose): of love, 126, 133; of
142; responsibility for, 113–14; the person, 10–12, 22, 24, 153, 180;
satisfaction of, 64, 184–85; and of sexuality, 95, 175, 176–77, 180,
sexed condition, 7, 97, 107–8; and 183, 188
union, 112, 115, 116. See also eros Engels, Friedrich, 37–38, 45
Diamond, Milton, 50n56 equality. See dignity; rights; sexes
difference, sexual, 12–17, 20–23; eros, 72, 75, 103, 106, 116, 125, 130, 175;
absolute, 70; created, 74–75; and autonomy, 109; and beauty,
and culture, 11, 30–47, 78, 84–85, 116; as gift of self, 26, 118, 179–80;
88, 191; definition of, 84–85, 91; and love, 133; and narcissism, 41,
discursive, 54–56; elimination 109–10, 127; and sexual liberation,
of, 46–47, 51–52, 67, 178; and 43–44. See also desire
identity, 73, 86, 127–28, 164–65, ethics. See morality
208
Index
family, 7, 12–13, 19–20, 28, 37, 171; 79–81. See also consent; identity,
and culture, 147–49, 171; and personal
education, 151–60, 163; influence French Revolution, 36, 65–66
on sexed tendency, 98–102, Freud, Sigmund, 38, 99, 106–7, 136,
148; necessity of, 148–49, 152, 155
168, 169–70; and origin, 138–41, Fusini, Nadia, 112n31
147–48, 151–52, 166, 171, 188n1;
as patriarchal oppression, 39; gender: categories, 79, 81n13, 84–85;
and personal identity, 146–49, as choice, 48, 63–64, 78–81;
152, 154, 165–70, 185, 190–91; as class, 38–40, 45–46, 59, 63;
redefinition of, 60–62, 67–68, construction of, 132–43, 172;
144–48, 166–67, 172, 189; and culture, 63; deconstruction
relationships, 98–102, 136, 138, of, 51–52, 62–63, 81, 90–91, 172;
146, 163–65, 175; and will, 145, grammatical, 50; neutral, 63, 67,
150, 166 84; and personal identity, 55–58,
fatherhood, 5–6, 77, 82, 92, 159, 78–81, 93–94; and politics, 4–5,
166–67, 178–79, 190. See also 48, 52, 59, 62n81, 65; vs. sex, 48,
parenting 54–56, 63, 78–80, 174, 188–89. See
femaleness, 72–73, 86, 98, 110–11; also sexed condition; sexes
and maleness, 30, 77, 85 gender roles, 4–5, 31–34, 60, 64,
feminism: gender feminism, 48–51, 70–72, 145, 166, 190. See also
59–63, 69–70, 83–87, 90, 93, 119, division of labor
132; historical roots of, 5, 38, 59, gender studies. See gender theory
64, 66; and motherhood, 45–46; gender theory, 4, 6, 11, 47n51, 51,
radical, 44–49, 73–74, 87, 108–11, 65–66, 188

126–27, 191–92; and sexual orien- genealogy, 7, 188; biblical, 91; free-
tation, 55, 59, 60, 62n82, 78–79, dom and origin, 88–90, 164; and
93–94; transhumanist, 83–84. relationships, 174, 176, 181; and
See also Marxism; rights; sexual sexuality, 176–77
revolution generation, 88–91; and family,
Finzi, Vegetti, 165 152–69; and love, 137; vs. repro-
Firestone, Shulamith, 45 duction, 95; separation from
Foucault, Michel, 30, 53–55 sexuality, 13, 82, 166; and sexed
Fraser, Nancy, 59 condition, 7, 174–76, 182, 188. See
freedom: as autonomy, 65, 80–81, also reproduction
90; and education, 154–55, 160; Genesis, 75–76, 97, 101, 117, 123, 136
and love, 125, 129, 139, 142; and Giddens, Anthony, 149
origin, 88–90, 164, 174–75; and Gide, André, 97–98
personal identity, 132, 177; and gift of self: and autonomy, 82, 184,
personhood, 80–81, 84, 88, 90; 187; and the conjugal act, 138; and
and relationship, 169–70, 175, desire, 135, 142; and human sexu-
183–84; sexual, 42–44, 64–65, 67, ality, 7, 22, 24, 28, 76, 92, 95, 181;
209
Index
gift of self: (cont.) identity, personal: development
and love, 29, 123, 125–26, 137, 151, of, 74, 96–97, 157–59, 165, 169,
184–85; and marriage, 122, 131–43, 174–75, 180–81; and eros, 108, 119;
190; and personal identity, 183–84. and family, 146–49, 152, 165–70,
See also acceptance; eros 185, 190–91; and freedom, 132,
Girard, René, 99 177; and gender, 55–58, 78–81,
Giromin, Sara Fernanda, 87 93–94; and gift of self, 183–84;
God: creation by, 29, 31, 75, 117; love and individualism, 48–49, 91;
of, 28, 90; Old Testament, 26–27, and morality, 20–23, 179; and
101. See also Infinite origin, 11, 88–91, 152–54, 164,
Greer, Germaine, 2 168, 171, 174–75, 177, 189; and the
other, 121, 129, 140; and relation-
happiness, 117; and family, 151; ships, 88, 99, 127–28, 169–70, 172,
and hedonism, 64, 160–61; 183–85; and self-esteem, 128–29;
pursuit of, 64–65, 184; and sex and self-knowledge, 9–11; and
change, 1–2, 178; and sexuality, sexual difference, 14, 73, 85–86,
43, 158, 161, 167 127–28, 164–65, 174, 180, 182–83,
Haraway, Donna, 83 189–92; and sexuality, 10, 21–24,
Hegel, G. W. F., 30, 33–34, 40, 123 58, 142, 176–83; socially defined,
Heidegger, Martin, 8, 53n61 53–58. See also nonrepeatability;
heterosexuality. See difference, personhood; sexed condition
sexual; sexed condition image: humanity as, 10–11, 28, 31,
heterosexuality, compulsory, 55, 59, 117; self-image, 11, 102, 128–29, 160
63, 79, 93–94, 119 inclinations, natural, 20, 94–95,
hierarchy, 29, 31, 46n50, 70, 183 103–5, 140

homosexuality, 97–98, 124, 137, indifference, 84–85, 87, 107n22
149, 161–68; and children, 65, individualism: and autonomy, 35,
100n9, 150–51, 158–59, 162–65, 64, 79n10, 169n26; and consumer-
167; and development, 100, 158; ism, 43–44, 170; and gender, 48;
and gender feminism, 60–61, as insufficient, 11, 160; self-refer-
62n82, 78–79, 93–94; as marginal, ential, 89, 91, 166–67
53–56, 162; natural or acquired, individuality: of the beloved,
67, 98n5. See also sexual orien- 120–21; biological, 14–16; and
tation generation, 42; and personhood,
Horkheimer, Max, 43 20–24, 53, 119–20, 153; and sexual-
humanization: of desire, 118; and ity, 2–3, 34, 72–73, 89; and species
the family, 147–49; and homi- survival, 19–23, 42, 94. See also
nization, 11, 17–19; of sexuality, identity, personal
17–19, 78. See also anthropology; Infinite, 10, 33, 117, 183. See also God
identity, personal; nature, hu- integration, sexual, 77, 92–93, 127,
man; personhood 137, 174–82, 189; education to,
Huxley, Aldous, 10, 84 7, 67–68, 130–32, 164; and love,
210
Index
118–19, 139–40, 143; and personal MacIntyre, Alasdair, 69–70
identity, 21–24, 99, 124, 142, Marcel, Gabriel, 10n4
191–92. See also sexed condition Marcuse, Herbert, 43
intentionality: distinguishing acts, Marks, Loren, 162
136; of eros, 108, 111–16, 120–21; marriage, 7, 23, 28, 33, 140, 152; as
and identity, 22; and marriage, aim of desire, 115; and conjugal
138, 140–42, 151; and sexuality, 97, act, 138–39; definition of, 175–76;
104. See also choice; will and faithfulness, 142–43; as gift
intimacy: fear of, 128–29, 132; and of self, 122, 132–43, 185–86, 190;
gift of self, 92, 131–32, 140; in and love, 131; as patriarchal op-
relationships, 75, 124–25, 130, pression, 37–39, 42; redefinition
175, 180 of, 60, 67, 150–51; same-sex, 146,
Irigaray, Luce, 76, 117 159–63. See also union
Islam, 5, 27, 69, 114 Marx, Karl, 36–37
Marxism, 38, 59, 64
Jenner, Bruce (Caitlyn), 1 misogyny, 2, 70–72. See also wom-
Judaism, 26, 27, 76 en’s rights
Judeo-Christian tradition, 69–70, Money, John, 50–51
76 morality: of desire, 113–14, 144; and
equality, 44–45; and government,
Kant, Immanuel, 9, 30, 32, 116, 118 65n89, 161; and love, 125n49; and
personal identity, 20–23, 179;
language, 56–60, 94, 95n1, 105, and radical feminism, 60n77;
155–56 and sexuality, 21, 33–34, 181; and
Lévinas, Emmanuel, 117 tradition, 35, 69–70

Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 148 motherhood, 72, 86, 92, 101, 110n28,
Lewis, C. S., 187 166–68; and feminism, 42, 45–47,
libido. See desire 71, 88; role of, 5–6, 64. See also
looks, exchange of, 41, 109, 112–14, parenting
123–24, 130
love: and the conjugal act, 139; names, significance of, 1–3, 101, 120,
cultivation of, 132–33, 192; and 148
desire, 118, 183; falling in, 93, 95, narcissism, 41, 109–10, 126–27, 158,
116, 119–32; as gift of self, 29, 123, 166, 185, 192
125–26, 137, 151, 184–85; human naturalism, 11, 29–35, 66, 69, 124,
need for, 97, 153, 155–56; and per- 182, 188
sonal identity, 183; and sexuality, nature, human, 181–82; and
96, 130–31, 136–37, 175; shared culture, 76, 94; and duality,
perspective of, 123–24; and time, 89, 175; formation of, 147; and
133–34; and will, 127, 135, 138–39, marriage, 141, 166; and personal
140–41, 166. See also care; eros identity, 9–11, 24. See also
humanization
211
Index
nature vs. culture, 62, 82–83, 88, 154; and freedom, 80–81, 84,
94, 181 88–89, 90; and nature, 24, 74,
neuroses. See pathology 76, 93; postmodern account of,
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 53n61, 59, 71 78–83, 90; and sexuality, 11–12,
nonrepeatability, 21, 72, 110, 117, 17, 28–29, 67–68, 72–74, 77–78,
120–21, 153–54, 176–77, 181–82, 94–96, 176–82, 189. See also sexed
189. See also identity, personal; condition
uniqueness Plato, 30, 74–76, 97, 108, 116–17, 122,
norms, cultural, 19, 26, 44n45, 130
73–74, 119, 145–46, 154, 189; redef- pleasure, 34, 43, 118; as imperfect
inition of, 53–58, 65 aim of desire, 86, 106, 109–10,
114–16, 119; and utility, 149–51
Okin, Susan Moller, 51 political correctness, 4, 144–45, 170
openness: to children, 92, 132, 152, possession: mutual, 184; of other,
165–68, 178, 181, 183; and gift, 118, 33, 35, 40–41, 101–2, 108–9, 118,
179; and integration, 93; to the 126–27; of self, 23, 126, 131, 139–40,
other, 96, 110, 124, 134, 161, 170, 141–42, 176
181; and sexuality, 43, 79, 84, 179; power: female, 86; and love, 126–27;
to transcendence, 10–11, 134 male, 33, 40, 55; political, 65; and
origin: acceptance of, 91; of desire, sexuality, 27–28, 53–54, 82, 118,
97, 102, 104, 116; and family, 126–27, 175; will to, 55, 84. See also
138–41, 147–48, 151–52, 166, 171, patriarchy
188n1; and freedom, 88–90, procreation. See generation; repro-
174–75; of humanity, 3–4, 10–12, duction
24, 75–76, 88–89, 122, 166, 173, 181;

and personal identity, 11, 88–91, queer, 62n82, 79
152–54, 164, 168, 171, 174–75, 177,
189; and sexuality, 3–4, 10–17, 26, Regnerus, Mark, 162
75–76, 84–89, 175–77, 180 Reich, Wilhelm, 39
relationships: depersonalization
parenting, 2–3, 6, 17–18, 88–89, of, 128–29, 132n53, 134–35, 167;
92, 146, 155–60, 165–68, 186; and desire, 113, 116; education to,
homosexual, 100, 159, 161–68; and 155–56; family, 98–102, 136, 138,
identity, 38, 82, 98–101. See also 146, 163–65, 168, 171, 189; forma-
family tion of, 132, 171–72, 175; intimacy
pathology, 3, 38–39, 100n9, 115, 126, in, 124–25; and narcissism, 41,
161, 162, 165, 187 109–10, 126–27, 177–79; necessity
patriarchy, 45, 49, 55, 60, 172; and of, 22, 73, 78, 153, 169–70, 183; and
marriage, 37, 39, 42 personal identity, 88, 99, 127–28,
personhood, 20–24; Christian 169–70, 172, 183–85; and sexed
account of, 28, 76, 90; and duality, condition, 85, 124, 138–41, 168,
85–86, 88–89; and family, 88, 171–72; and sexuality, 22, 67, 78,
212
Index
96–97, 104–5, 177–80; symmetry sexes: biological, 7, 15; equality of,
or asymmetry, 55, 149–51, 168 5–6, 45, 66–67, 75, 90–91, 114, 182;
reproduction: control of, 46, 61, vs. gender, 48, 60, 67, 68, 78–80;
71–72; and sexuality, 74, 83–84; of inequality of, 30–34, 35–36, 71;
the species, 12–17, 37–38, 95, 137, male and female, 14–16, 21, 47–48,
153. See also animals, sexuality of; 55, 60, 74–77, 85, 177, 181. See also
generation dimorphism
respect, 4, 22, 116, 118, 126–27, 128, sexual orientation, 93–106; and con-
131, 135–36 sumerism, 81, 94, 159; and gender
responsibility: education to, 160–61, feminism, 60, 62n82, 78–79,
164; and eros, 111–14; to the other, 93–94; natural or acquired,
91, 120, 185n4; and personal iden- 67, 80–81, 87–88, 98n5. See also
tity, 20–23, 164, 171; in society, 13, homosexuality
150, 152n5 sexual revolution, 3, 35–40, 44, 67,
Rich, Adrienne, 55 108–10, 154
Ricoeur, Paul, 112n30 Sielert, Uwe, 62
rights: and duties, 42, 150, 151, 168; Solov’iev, Vladimir, 77, 175
equal, 5–6, 66; of individuals, 110, Sommers, Christina Hoff, 49
145, 150; LGBTQI, 5–6, 48, 61, soul, 23–24, 26, 30–31, 72, 105, 165,
63n85, 65; marriage, 32–33, 116; 182
parenting, 52n60, 65, 146, 152, 161, Spieker, Manfred, 62n81
167–68; reproductive, 52n60; of spouse. See marriage
women, 5, 29n17, 42, 49n53, 51n58, Stefanowicz, Dawn, 159–61
66. See also feminism stereotypes, 31, 47n51, 69–71, 73–74,
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 30, 32 79, 81, 114, 126–27, 192
Sacks, Jonathan, 12 technology, 3, 8–10, 46, 82–83, 90,

Sade, Marquis de, 109, 116 146, 152, 166–67. See also science
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 40, 109, 123 Thomas Aquinas, 31, 102–5, 115
Scheler, Max, 8–9, 125n49 tradition, 31, 35, 173; and family,
Schultze, Svenja, 65–66 166, 172; and feminism, 60–61,
science: and change, 36; data from, 64, 69; and sexuality, 69–70, 82,
3, 6, 12, 162–65; limits of, 166; and 94, 147
philosophy, 8. See also technology transcendence, 11, 23–24, 171, 180,
Scruton, Roger, 112n32 185; and beauty, 116; of desire, 118;
sex change, 1–2, 177–78 and eros, 109, 114–15
sexed condition, 2, 7, 75, 89, 92, 174– transhumanism, 83
75, 188–89; formation of, 86, 88, truth: for deconstructionists, 53n61;
157–59, 163, 169; personalization in education, 154; in language,
of, 28, 77, 137; and relationship, 85, 57n70; in relationships, 128–30,
124, 138–41, 168, 171–72. See also 139
gender; identity, personal
213
Index
union: civil, 62n81, 145, 149, 161–63, voluntarism. See will
165; conjugal, 95, 146, 165–67, 175,
191; and desire, 112, 115, 116; of Welby, Norrie, 63
differences, 89, 122–23; as gift, 76, will: and family, 145, 150, 166; and
122–23; and love, 28, 135; in mar- identity, 22–23; and love, 127, 135,
riage, 60–61, 131, 133, 148; with 138–39, 140–41, 166; to power,
the other, 85, 127; of sexes, 13–15, 55, 84; and sexuality, 79–80,
32–33, 41–42, 67, 75, 89, 115, 146, 82, 88–89, 174–75, 176. See also
178, 190; spiritual, 115; of will, 141. choice; intentionality
See also communion; integration, Winter, Sara. See Giromin, Sara
sexual; marriage; sexed condition Fernanda
uniqueness, 20–23, 40, 120–21, 127, Wollstonecraft, Mary, 45n47
138, 186, 188n1, 191n2. See also women’s rights. See rights
identity, personal; nonrepeat-
ability
utopia, false, 36, 47, 51–52, 59, 166,
172
Transcending Gender Ideology: A Philosophy of Sexual Difference

was designed in Arno with Mr Eaves display type and composed by
Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was
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Copyright © 2020. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2020. Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved.

The Catholic University of America Press

Originally published in Italian as

Pavey, Alice, translator.

One. Sexuality and Human Identity 8

Two. Sexuality, Culture, and Philosophy 26

 ree. Two Historical Views of Sexuality and

Four. Sexed Condition versus Gender 92

Five. Generativity versus Homophobia 144

S  ix. The Integration of Sexuality and the

I would like to thank the organizers of the conference on Mar-

ria Vigorelli, Prof. Leonor Gómez Cabranes, and Dr. Antonel-

One of the most serious weaknesses apparent throughout the

That enabled him to propose that women could and should

non-Cartesian sense he attributed to mind). And although

other animals need to be “humanized” both in men and in

The last, and perhaps ultimately most devastating of the se-

Donna (Transcending Gender Idealogy) is that he cashes out the

Malo explains the history of this concept since its remote

on the children they claim the right to “educate” are disregarded

lated in our post-Christian times, though it is one of the great

sonalization of human beings and to contempt for truth when

at times but always contemptuous of facts. And do not be de-

inate; that is, to objectify and dehumanize. In helping us to see

1. Vanity Fair (July 2015), https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/

It might seem that Bruce/Caitlyn’s story was the invention

be a better woman than someone who was born a woman.”2

husband and father—even if it appears that Jenner continues

dle. And if we add to that the constant efforts to redefine the

or have so far proceeded. Once the idea of origin disappears,

en both diachronically or historically, and synchronically or in

Moreover, the social aspect of sexuality is key to under-

is to say, a woman should be able to be the husband of another

principles, such as erotic desire and love, and institutions such

radical difference, whereby animal sexuality would be natural,

biological and social sex, contains many other features, such as

Who am I? This question is one of the hardest to answer, espe-

a store of knowledge concerning man as the present one . . . but

made a distinction between physical anthropology, or what na-

world economic crisis. This is why in the end there is a tempta-

mystery of our origin and our social and political problems.

4. On the difference between problems and mysteries, Gabriel Marcel writes

transcendence and mystery. This is because, as we shall see, a

thinking of various philosophers, since as I have said, sexual-

our many current problems, because it takes into account the

The Origins of Sexual Difference

When we consider, even in the animal kingdom, how much effort

5. Jonathan Sacks, “The Family Is the Single Most Humanising Institution in

Sacks continued his account by listing the seven stages by

It seems today that to these seven stages must be added a

ity has successfully brought together over the centuries is start-

has a personal meaning or whether it is simply an ornament

belonging to the same species can reproduce (mules are sterile,

that their individuality arises from intraspecific differences

ation also has made reproduction more specialized, not only

rejection by its peers on account of kinship, age, or attractive-

Sexuality in the Process of Hominization

ree. Two Historical Views of Sexuality and

S ix. The Integration of Sexuality and the