Our Whole Lives (OWL) and Sexuality and Our Faith
Assumptions and Values of the OWL Program
Note: The following values and assumptions are taken from pages 8-9 of the information packet Introducing Our Whole Lives: Sexuality and Our Faith Human Sexuality Education Programs for Children and Youth, United Board for Homeland Ministries and the Unitarian Universalist Association, unknown publication date.
Each of the four program resources makes the following assumptions:
- All persons are created in the image of God, and this is known through a variety of expressions including through our sexuality.
- Sexuality is a good part of the human experience.
- Sexuality includes much more than sexual behavior.
- Human beings are sexual from the time they are born until they die.
- It is natural to express sexual feelings in a variety of ways.
- Sexuality in our society is damaged by violence, exploitation, alienation, dishonesty, abuse of power and the treatment of persons as objects.
- It is healthier for young adolescents to postpone sexual intercourse.
Each of the four program resources teaches participants the following values:
- Self Worth
- Every person is entitled to dignity and self-worth.
- Sexual Health
- Knowledge about human sexuality is helpful, not harmful.
- Every individual has the right to accurate information about sexuality and to have her or his questions answered.
- Healthy sexual relationships are:
- Developmentally appropriate (appropriate to the age and maturity of persons involved)
- Consensual (both people consent)
- Non-exploitative (equal in terms of power; neither person pressures or forces the other into activities or behaviors)
- Mutually pleasurable (both people receive pleasure)
- Safe (no or low risk of unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and emotional pain)
- Based on mutual expectations and caring
- Respectful (Including the values of honesty and keeping commitments made to others)
- Sexual intercourse is only one of the many valid ways of expressing sexual feelings with a partner. It is healthier for young adolescents to postpone sexual intercourse.
- Responsibility
- We are called to enrich our lives by expressing sexuality in ways that enhance human wholeness and fulfillment and express love, commitment, delight and pleasure.
- All persons have the right and obligation to make responsible sexual choices.
- Justice and Inclusivity
- Sexual relationships should never be coercive or exploitative.
- Being romantically and sexually attracted to both genders (bisexual), the same gender (homosexual), or the other gender (heterosexual) is all in the range of natural human sexual experience, and each is to be held in the same moral standards.
