Sexual activity of young people in the city-island Malta is increasingly under the influence of global and western European culture. Sea, land and religious frontiers of a former fortress island have become permeated by a global environment of a service-oriented Euro-Mediterranean city through mass tourism, overseas travel, the media, information technology, new work and leisure patterns and a rapid expansion of higher education. Theories of Freud, Foucauld and Giddens are employed to explain the relationship between religion and sexuality in a modern urban society.
Data analyses from nationally representative Values Studies (1984-95) and a National Youth Survey (1995, N =1000) put to the test explorative studies on the sexual behaviour of university students (Saunderson 1996; N = 390), and a Catholic Church's consultation report for a national Synod on the social and religious life of adolescents and young people in Malta (Diocesan Youth Commission 1995; N = 5744).
Results show how
the strict traditional morality of the Church in Malta is gradually giving
way to a more open discourse on sexuality and its ensuing secularisation.
There is a declining importance given to the Church’s youth ministry
and to its teaching on the family. Religious control is being displaced
by a secular administration of sexuality. Urban higher educated,
secularised and media-sensitive young people are more inclined to favour
a liberal sexual life-style than their traditional counterparts.
The survey uncovers the incidence of sexual abuse, but there is no evidence
to support the view that the confrontation between traditional restrictive
morality and liberal life-styles results in a drammatic or shattering transition
in sexuality. The observed change in young people’s values on sexuality
might lead to a gradual shift in gender relations, marriage and family
life. Research findings posit a need for the development of new policies
in youth ministry, sexual education and social welfare services.
Dr Anthony M. Abela