From a Catholic perspective, marriage is a permanent and exclusive commitment between a man and a woman, who freely give themselves to each other in love and in so doing commit themselves to love and care for any children that may arise from their mutual love. Commitment, intimacy and passion vitalize and nurture covenanted love (Genovesi, 1996). Sexual intimacy is a sign of fully committed love. Outside the context of marriage, genital intimacy, however well intended, is not an expression of total self-giving. Marriage is also a public commitment. The two partners freely choose to enter into this partnership, this covenant. They say 'yes' to each other, to being there for each other and to working together to make God's creative love present in the world. They do this through their active participation in the community as committed partners and through bringing about new life through sexual intercourse. The Catholic perspective on marriage is that it should be treated as something permanent and exclusive in which divorce and extra-marital affairs have no place. Public commitment to a permanent and exclusive partnership of mutual co-operation and self-giving love provides the institutional and community basis for the trust necessary for the married couple to truly open themselves to each other. They are able to give themselves wholly to each other in the knowledge that there is a community who will support them in their decision when times are hard and assist them in the raising of their children.

Marriage is also a Sacrament. In a unique way marriage makes Christ visible in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Second Vatican Council's 1965 Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, explains it like this: For as God of old made Himself present to His people through a covenant of love and fidelity, so now the Savior of men and the Spouse of the Church comes into the lives of married Christians through the sacrament of matrimony. He abides with them thereafter so that just as He loved the Church and handed Himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other with perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal. Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ's redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in sublime office of being a father or a mother. For this reason Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfil their conjugal and family obligation, they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ, which suffuses their whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance the perfection of their own personalities, as well as their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God (Gaudium et Spes, para. 48).

In light of this ideal of marriage the separation of a married couple is always seen as something undesirable. People who have been through such a separation know from experience how undesirable separation is. No one should enter into marriage expecting its break down and the consequent separation of the couple. Indeed, thinking like that may even call the validity of the marriage into question. Most people, when they get married, really do believe, or at least hope, that they will live with and love each other for the rest of their lives. This is why, when, for many reasons, things don't work out it is regarded as tragic. Of course, at the time of separation, the separation may indeed be desired and necessary as in cases of domestic violence or infidelity. The Catholic perspective, whilst upholding the ideal on the one hand, nonetheless accepts human failings on the other. In such cases, where, despite support of the community separation is necessary, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: 'If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense.' (CCC Article 2383)

Genital Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman has the potential to realise two good things, the unity of the couple and new life. And these two things cannot be separated from each other without diminishing the goodness of sexual intercourse. That is why the best place for sexual intercourse to occur is in the context of marriage. First, genital sexual intercourse is good because it is unitive. The two people grow closer together and become more unified through the extremely intimate act of penetration and ejaculation in the vagina. Sexual intercourse in this sense is not about selfish pleasure but about the complete gift of oneself to the other. Two become one, become unified as one flesh, one mind, and in a certain sense, one spirit. The act of genital sexual intercourse is the culmination and a sign of the trust and love that the two have for each other and their commitment to the idea that God wants a woman and a man to be partners in life, to grow together. Through sexual intercourse the bond of self-giving mutual commitment to each other is renewed and strengthened. But this unitive dimension must also be generative if it to be truly unitive, self-giving, committed, trusting, open to new life and conformed to God's will for humanity and for the couple themselves. Second, genital sexual intercourse is good because it is generative. Put simply, genital sexual intercourse brings about new life. But the meaning given to sexual intercourse in the Catholic perspective is deeper than simple procreation. Clearly, if any two fertile people have sexual intercourse a child could result. The Catholic perspective, however, holds that sex simply for the sake of producing children does not adequately represent God's intended purpose for sexual intercourse because it does not take the unitive dimension into account. The unitive dimension of sexual intercourse emphasises the importance that sex has for humans not merely as a means of reproduction but as a means for fostering loving, trusting and committed relationships that are best suited to raise children. Put simply, a loving committed couple (unitive dimension) is better able to provide a stable and loving environment to raise children (the generative dimension). Moreover, the generative or creative dimension is not limited simply to the biological production of new human beings. Two people who love each other unconditionally and who foster that love through the unitive act of self-giving sexual intercourse are more likely to be open, inclusive and loving towards others. Such a couple are more likely to be committed to working for the good of the community since they are able to rely on the strength that comes from being supported by a loving, trusting, and committed partner.

Intimacy is a hallmark of the Christian life (Au & Cannon, 1995). Experiencing true intimacy begins with knowing ourselves as being loved and accepting ourselves as lovable (Delio, 2013). The Christian understanding of God as Trinity described above makes intimacy and self-acceptance possible, even if we have never experienced the love of another human being. God loves us to the extent that God is prepared to become one of us subject to all of the cruelty we can muster in our least humane moments God's love encompasses the humiliating and torturous death of Jesus, God incarnate, on the Cross. The consequence of all this is that regardless of how we have been treated, humiliated, or hurt, God knows what such treatment is like. No matter how we may have treated, humiliated, or hurt others, God knows what such hurt and humiliation is like. God loves us anyway. When we talk about intimacy with others we are discussing a special kind of relationship, a way of relating closely associated in the philosophical sense with the idea friendship. There is an expression in English about 'fair-weather friends'. These are people who are your 'friends' when the going is easy but when the going gets tough they are nowhere to be seen. Real friendship, real intimacy, goes beyond being nice to a person when to do so is easy. It is about committing oneself to another person over time, even when that commitment is difficult for either of you. The consequence of this commitment is the build-up of trust. Intimacy and trust go hand in hand. An intimate relationship can be defined as differing from other kinds of relationships in at least six ways (Randall, 2014): Knowledge: intimate partners have extensive often confidential knowledge of each other Caring: intimate partners feel more affection for one another than for most others Interdependence: frequent, strong, diverse, and enduring effects on each other Mutuality: tendency to think of each other as 'us' not just I or me Trust: the expectation that one partner will treat the other fairly, warmly, and honourably Commitment: expect their partnerships to continue and invest personally in that expectation. Finally, intimate relationships can create a context in which we can experience what it means to talk about transcendence and the sacred. In intimate relationships we transcend our tendency to egotistical self-absorption as we lose ourselves in our wonder and concern for the other. In truly intimate relationships this loss of self is paradoxically an affirmation of oneself as someone truly worthy. We discover our own worth, our dignity as a human person, as we discover ourselves through the eyes and heart of our intimate other.

Saint John Paul II, in his interpretation of Genesis, points out that feelings of shame have no place in God's original vision of human relationships. God creates the woman from the man and the man recognizes the woman as one like himself. Together they give expression to a common humanity. Genesis tells us that though they were naked they were not ashamed. So, when we ask how we should characterize intimate relationships one important characteristic is freedom from shame. One does not feel ashamed and one does not shame the other. Consequently, one neither wants to hide from the other nor harm the other as a perceived source of shame. In the Genesis narrative shame is symbolized by nakedness. We live in a society which covers the genitals, the most intimate parts of the body. This is quite appropriate because we do not live in a world free of shame. However, the symbolism inherent in the idea of nakedness can also be applied to other parts of ourselves in the context of intimate relationships. The relationship that is free of shame is the relationship that feels no need for secrets, no need to hide anything, no need to fear the other or punish the other. In other words, the ideal intimate relationship is one of trust and justice. Realising this kind of trust, this freedom from shame, requires the recognition of the other in the way that the first man and woman recognize each other, that is, as one like myself but different from myself. As a couple together we are better than we would otherwise be. Another word for this is 'respect'. Respect has its root in the Latin for 'to look back' or to return a gaze. We say that love is 'to see as God sees' and we affirm that in the Trinity the Father and the Son look at or regard one another with love. We say that intimate relationships are based on respect, recognizing that such relationships are based on a certain way of seeing ourselves, the other and ourselves through the eyes of the other. When the other looks at us we are not shamed, we do not feel the need to hide ourselves or feel threatened by the other. Nor do we feel the need to defend ourselves from the gaze of the other. We return this gaze without fear. We gaze on the other as one both like us and unlike us and with whom we are better together. That is respect. That is the Christian vision of intimate love.

There is a kind of healthy shame that functions as a protector and guardian of the deepest and most sacred vulnerable part of oneself: our bodily and sexual life: and protects us from abuse whether self abuse or abuse by others (Percy, 2005). Relationships and particularly those that have a sexual dimension can be accompanied by a sense of shame. This may be a sign that something is not quite right about this particular relationship. True intimacy, true love, should not result in feelings of shame or guilt. Learning to discern these feelings and their meaning is an important part of the journey to emotional maturity. Moreover, feelings and their meaning can be important when we talk about safety and relationships. Such feelings can function as a kind of early warning system. Teaching young people how to recognize these can be important in empowering them to protect themselves and seek help in situations that may involve inappropriate sexual language, touching and the like.

Communication in our society is frequently understood merely in terms of transferring information. The word communication can also refer to the functioning of the media. Pope Saint John Paul II, however, sees a deeper meaning for communication revealed in the Genesis narrative and especially in the statement that the man and the woman are naked and yet are not ashamed. In this connection, the words they were not ashamed can mean in sensu obliquo only an original depth in affirming what is inherent in the person, what is visibly female and male, through which the personal intimacy of mutual communication in all its radical simplicity and purity is constituted. To this fullness of exterior perception, expressed by means of physical nakedness, there corresponds the interior fullness of man's vision in God, that is, according to the measure of the image of God (cf. Gen. 1.:17). According to this measure, man is really naked ( They were naked : Gen. 2:25), even before realizing it (cf. Gen. 3:7-10). (Saint John Paul II, General Audience, 19 December 1979) The Catholic vision of communication in the context of relationships and sexuality education is one that 'sees as God sees'. The man and the woman in the Genesis narrative look at each other even though they are naked. Indeed, because they are naked they see the essential truth of the other as one like oneself and yet different and unique. When the man sees the woman and the woman sees the man their mutual 'seeing' can be described as respectful 'seeing' in the sense defined above. the man sees and knows that the woman is like him but different from him precisely because of her body. The woman sees and knows the man because of his body. But what they know is more than just the external truth about a physical difference. What they know is that together they form a union and commune with each another to become more than they could be on their own. In a symbolic sense in seeing each other naked each sees the other as God sees each of them. Each of them is an image of God, at the core of their being at both the external physical level and the interior spiritual level. God sees every human being naked in this sense. We can hide nothing from God. So to 'see as God sees', to love and to communicate in intimate relationships is to see the other as God sees him or her. this involves allowing oneself to be seen by the other through God's eyes. A man and a woman together are called to form a community, an intimate partnership of trust, based on honest communication one with the other.

Communication between a man and a woman goes beyond the sexual dimension. We communicate with every part of our bodies. We choose how to use our bodies to communicate. We communicate how we think and feel about the world in a bodily way. We can love with our bodies and hurt with our bodies. Through our bodies we can both be hurt and protect ourselves from harm. In other words there is a sense in which we can choose to use our bodies to give flesh to God's love. Sexual relations between a man and a woman in the context of marriage give flesh to God's love in a particular way. In the words of Pope Francis, 'Sexuality is not a means of gratification or entertainment; it is an interpersonal language wherein the other is taken seriously, in his or her sacred and inviolable dignity' (2016 Amoris Laetitia 151). Even though sexual relations between a couple have an inward focus there also needs to be an outward focus that extends their communication to the world beyond the family. This outward focus, this seeing as God sees is necessary to avoid an 'inward-looking, consumption oriented, privatized practice of marriage' (Coultier and Mattison 2010, p. 223).