The Health Service Executive (HSE), in partnership with the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU), has launched a new sexual health campaign titled ‘Play it Safe’. According to the HSE’s website the aim of the campaign is to provide young adults with access to helpful information to support them in safeguarding their sexual health and wellbeing during the coronavirus pandemic.
The campaign involves making sexual health protection packs available in pharmacies nationwide, which include an information leaflet and a free HSE condom. So, what does this campaign advocate as safe sexual practice during the ongoing pandemic?
According to the campaign website, sexualwellbeing.ie, it is recommended that one only be sexually active with a partner living in their own household, and that if one decides to engage sexually with someone outside their household, he or she at least limit it to as few partners as possible – preferably one regular partner.
Further to this, it is recommended that one washes their hands thoroughly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after sexual activity.
Practical level
Finally, the HSE recommends masturbation or “remote sexual activity” as alternatives to physical sexual activity with others.
On a purely practical, amoral level, this advice appears well-placed in that it does advocate measures that, if implemented, would slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The trouble is, and as has been said by those advocating nuance in public discourse throughout the pandemic, we live in a world that operates on multiple levels.
Leaving aside the questions of meaning and value for a moment, the recent phenomenon of ‘revenge porn’ should give those doling out the current advice pause.
Revenge porn is the distribution of sexually explicit images or videos of people without their consent, and has seen a surge in recent years with technology being as pervasive and intrusive as it is today.
Pleasure is a good and important aspect of this, but when it is pursued above all else, perspective is lost”
Some places in the world have seen a 210% increase in image-based abuse during lockdown. With technology enjoying the same ubiquity the majority of the world over, it would be no surprise to see the numbers have jumped similarly in Ireland.
However, we live in a world in which questions of meaning and value cannot be left aside, and as such, the latest HSE advice demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of human sexuality and its real worth.
Extreme
From a Catholic perspective, the practices advocated are undignified in the extreme. St John Paul II in his monumental work, the Theology of the Body, taught that our bodies speak a language.
We understand that the human body was made for another, and that our existence as male and female is intended as a call to communion with God and with one another.
Pleasure is a good and important aspect of this, but when it is pursued above all else, perspective is lost and we’re capable of doing each other great harm.
A healthy approach to sexuality during this time would be to ponder the nature of your body and come to see that it’s intended for another, so that you might make a gift of yourself.
This cannot be done through images sent over the internet, or by any means other than good, old-fashioned loving relationships. Until the HSE understands this and incorporates it into its underlying philosophies, its sexual health advice will be lacking.