True love is the ultimate expression of God's love. Thus, it brings the greatest experience of joy and fulfillment to man and woman.

Human beings are unique in creation in having the freedom to enjoy sexual relationships for the purpose of expressing love between male and female in addition to reproductive purposes.

Reverend Moon explains that such freedom must come with responsibility.

Because of this great capacity for fulfilling the deepest desires of our heart, and being the vehicle for the expression of God's true love, sexual love carries a significant responsibility.

Reverend Moon charges us to take this responsibility in three ways: to develop and maintain self-control, to take responsibility toward our spouse, and to be responsible toward our children.

From View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation, Inaugural Banquet of The Washington Times Foundation, Washington DC, April 16, 1996.

According to the ideal of love, all love relationships in the animal and plant kingdom are for reproduction only. Human beings are the sole exception. Only they enjoy freedom in the conjugal relationship of love. This is humanity's special privilege as the Lord of all Creation.

God gave the blessing and infinite joy of love to His sons and daughters. However, the true freedom that God allowed requires human responsibility. If an individual were to insist upon and practice freedom of love without responsibility, how much confusion and destruction would take place! Achieving the highest ideal of human love is possible only when one takes responsibility for love.

The first responsibility humans have is to practice self-control. Self-control involves developing maturity of heart and character and the integrity to fulfill our responsibilities. This includes developing a relationship with God and understanding God's ideal of true love. It means living according to the conviction that sexuality belongs in the context of married life.

It is not easy to live according to the ideal of true love. True love exists in the realm of freedom, which requires us to be responsible for our actions. Unless we control our self-centered desires, dominating ourselves, we cannot be the owner of true love.

In this world of false love, it is imperative that we connect in heart to God and His ideal, choosing to fulfill our responsibility to true love.

From View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation, Inaugural Banquet of The Washington Times Foundation, Washington DC, April 16, 1996.

The first responsibility is for one to become the master of true love, truly free and thanking God for the freedom of love and knowing how to cultivate and control oneself.

This responsibility for a love relationship should not be taken merely because of law or social convention. Instead, a person should establish responsibility through his own self-control and self-determination within the life-committing vertical relationship with God.

Reverend Moon not only teaches the importance of self-control, he also practices it in his own life. His wife, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, speaking in New York City in September, 2002 on the topic God Is the Origin of Peace, explained how her husband declared his personal motto, "Before seeking dominion over the universe, first control your own self." That is how he has lived throughout his life.

From Gathering for Reading and Learning Series, Volume 2: Way of Unification, FFWPU: Washington, DC, 1998.

To control oneself is difficult because the mind wants to go in one direction and the body in another. There is a traditional Oriental proverb: The human mind changes from morning to night, but mountains never change, whether in ancient times or in the modern age. The problem is how to achieve unity, with an ever-changing mind.

We would need to know how the greatest saints of history were able to dominate their bodies. Let us look at Jesus, Confucius and Buddha. Our mind and body are always changing, but holy sons and daughters keep them unchanging. For example: what would happen with the mind of Jesus when he saw a woman? His mind might shake because he is a man, but Jesus wouldn't take a step and his body would not fall down.

However, ordinary people are different. Their hands and feet follow, they cannot control the desires of body and mind, and their body succumbs. No one can be better than Jesus.

Jesus unified his mind and body; but we are different. When American men and women meet one another, they can kiss and enjoy each other at any time; but we must make love in the proper place.

This is an example of fallen worldly people. If we seek a new ideal, then, as righteous people, we should start with mind and body unity. We can conclude that it is impossible to realize the ideal without unity of mind and body.

The second responsibility we have is toward our spouse, or future spouse. Before marriage, this means being mindful of our future husband or wife and practicing fidelity to him or her in advance. After marriage, husband and wife must maintain their pledge of commitment to each other, each giving their true love to the other, but to no one else.

From View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation, Inaugural Banquet of The Washington Times Foundation, Washington DC, April 16, 1996.

The second responsibility is toward ones object of love. By nature, people do not want their spouses love to be shared with others. Horizontal conjugal love, which differs from vertical love between parents and children, loses its potential for perfection the moment it is divided. This is because the Principle of Creation requires husband and wife to become one in absolute love. Each spouse has the responsibility given by love to live absolutely for the sake of the other.

Purity before marriage is the foundation for fidelity within marriage. Purity involves the capacity for self-discipline. If we cannot discipline ourselves before marriage, what guarantee can we offer our spouse that we will be faithful after marriage? What is the best gift to give our beloved on the wedding day? A huge diamond ring that had already been given several times before? The most romantic of all proclamations is to state, I overcame all kinds of temptations because I was waiting for you.

Husband and wife are to become one in love, each fulfilling the others deepest desires and needs. Such love cannot be shared with anyone else; it must be exclusive in order to achieve its full potential.

Siblings love and parents love is not exclusive in this way. We are capable of loving many others, just as God loves all human beings as His children. However, human beings are created in God's image to be couples, to find their true love partner, and to stay together in love eternally. This is the reflection of God's nature of eternal love.

Through the development of such true love the whole world, including God, will become harmonized and experience true happiness.

From Gathering for Reading and Learning Series, Volume 2: Way of Unification, FFWPU: Washington, DC, 1998.

What is unity with love at its center? It's love that belongs to God. A wife may show off a big diamond ring, but whose love does it symbolize? It's her husband's. That's it, her husband's. Her ring is not hers, but the symbol of her husband's love. The ring will fade if it does not mean love. Isn't that so? Love is its substance. Is there any happiness in her gold or gems if her husband's love is lost?

So where should the foundation of unity for God be? It's the object of love that would please God's expectations, that would satisfy all of God's mind and body, that would move God to say, That's it! in great exultation. That's love.

Adam and Eve alienated this. If they had truly loved each other, the love would have made Adam Eve's and Eve Adam's, and both God's, and therefore all creation would have belonged to all three. When love connected them, all things on earth would have been theirs as they were God's. That's why love unifies all things.

The third responsibility that comes with human sexuality is responsibility toward our children. Sex has a life-giving dimension. Entering into sexual union implies a commitment to the potential result -- a new person. Parents have a responsibility to love and nurture the child they have chosen to help create until he or she reaches maturity. Unless people are sincerely prepared to shoulder this responsibility, they do their children and society a grave disservice by conceiving a child.

From View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation, Inaugural Banquet of The Washington Times Foundation, Washington DC, April 16, 1996.

The third responsibility of love is toward children.

The love of parents is the basis for children's pride and happiness. They would wish to be born through the total and harmonious unity of their parents in true love, and they would wish to be raised in that kind of love.

The most precious responsibility of parents is not only to rear their children externally, but also to offer them life elements of true love that can perfect their spirituality. This is why the family is so valuable. The daily experience of the heart of true children, true brothers and sisters, true spouses, and true parents cannot be acquired in any place other than the true family.

The love of parents is the basis for children's development. Children naturally trust and respect their parents. They are proud of their fathers and mothers, believing them to represent the ideals of man and woman.

Children expect and hope for unity and harmony between their parents. They desire to experience true parental love from their parents, and to see the model of conjugal love exemplified in them. We should not disappoint our children by failing to fulfill their natural expectations.

The family is the place where we learn to receive and to give love, to relate to others in different ways, and where we experience the life-giving nourishment of true love. Men and women must accept this responsibility toward their children when they enter into a sexual relationship.