Dal "corpo innominabile" all'educazione sessuale nell'Italia del Novecento: storia di una transizione incompiuta

The pages of Italian illustrated textbooks during the late nineteenth century covered all private parts with leaves, so that children would not be exposed to the sight of genitals. In the context of schooling, and more generally in society, certain parts of the body were not to be shown under any circumstances, and even less so in the case of minors. For a long time, even during the twentieth century, the sexual body was the subject of an extremely rigid prohibition based on a long tradition, which was markedly religious. The Catholic Church's positions had been clearly stipulated more than once and in particular in the encyclical Casti Connubii by Pius XI (1930) and in the 'Humanae Vitae by Paul VI (1968). The silence surrounding the body started with the family and extended seamlessly to other areas of society. References were never made to changes in the body during development, kissing, or even sexual activity, unless strictly necessary. Almost everything referred to a more mature time of life, and was essentially based on word of mouth among young people or experiences with prostitutes. Issues such as divorce or homosexuality were banned from family education for a long time, and appeared with some difficulty even in public debate, especially after the shake­up of 1968 and youth protests. These referred specifically to the political struggles in favour of divorce and abortion, and the abolition of the crime of honour (which imposed derisory penalties in the case of the murdered person being a wife's or sister's lover), and shotgun weddings (which cancelled out the crime of rape and abduction). Italy currently still has no law on sex education in schools: the endless series of proposed laws demonstrates both the interest of certain political and social parties, as well as the inability to reach an agreement that differs from the silence that has marked school and family education. In the meantime, society has however profoundly changed its sexual behaviour and has effectively liberalised the body and its use. Mass communication has played a significant role and increasingly highlighted the huge divide between social behaviour and the most controlled educational sectors, above all the school and family. This report will attempt to illustrate this incomplete transition, focusing on the period between the sixties and eighties, in other words the period with the greatest discontinuity between social practices. To do this, scientific literature on the subject will be taken into account. A thorough analysis of sources of special interest will be made: draft laws and parliamentary debates; Catholic teaching documents; the positions of well­known authors (such as Luigi De Marchi or Marcello Bernardi), but also of lesser­known but widely read authors (such as Angela Sorgato). In particular, texts used in the training of young couples will be reviewed, where in order to comply with moral prescriptions, these contained detailed instructions and many restrictions on the use of the body, referring both to the spouses and their future children.