Free, repressed, infantile, present even in the senile phase, sexuality involves from a linguistic point of view an increasingly urgent and in-depth reflection, considering how many implications and how many misunderstandings it determines in social relationships. The seventh edition of the Treccani Festival of the Italian language #leparolevalgono is dedicated to the word “sexuality”: it will be inaugurated in Lecce on 3, 4 and 5 May, to continue in Rome on 25 and 26 May and in Lecco on 27, 28 and 29 September . Created by Treccani Cultura – with the patronage of Rai for ESG Sustainability and the media partnership of Rai Cultura and Rai Radio3 – each year the festival presents the most relevant themes of Treccani’s constant research on the Italian language, paying particular attention to the value of words such as means of expression and reasoning, sharing and respectful comparison between different positions.
The starting point of the Festival is the definition of sexuality contained in the Treccani Vocabulary (“sexuality, female noun: the set of characteristics and phenomena of sexual life”). From the semantic map created by the co-directors of the latest edition of the Treccani Vocabulary, Valeria Della Valle and Giuseppe Patota, it emerges how appropriate and necessary it is to delve deeper into the meanings of this term and those connected to it: love, affection, desire, seduction, pleasure, eroticism, with reference to the less controversial aspects; gender identity, asexual, transsexual or transgender, in relation to increasingly present realities in our society. To finally get to those voices that evidently denote a total ignorance of the profound value of this word, such as molest, rape and rape.
Through the historical analysis of the evolution of sexuality in Italian society, debates on contemporary issues such as gender identity, LGBTQIA+ rights and body awareness, the artistic and literary representation of sexuality, it will be possible to promote understanding and discussion on often mystified topics. Hence the attention also to other words such as emotion, passion, fantasy, sexual freedom and moral freedom, bisexual, gender, fluid gender, binary and non-binary and, more generally, sexual orientation, today more than ever open to many considerations and nuances. Because the Treccani Italian Language Observatory, with its hashtag #leparolevalgono, tries to improve the use and knowledge of our language every day.
“To identify this word – add the co-directors Valeria Dells Valle and Giuseppe Patota – we worked trying to intercept the needs of a new generation to understand, thanks also to social channels, which were the words of greatest attention and on which it was useful to start a dialogue. We thus noted that one of the most recurring words was sexuality, which will be the key word of the seventh edition of the Festival”.
The program, as always stimulating and varied, includes numerous thematic meetings, lessons and round tables: “never like this year – conclude Della Valle and Patota – have we also paid particular attention to all the words that revolve around the main one, because through linguistic-lexical relationships we will be able to guide people towards a conscious and appropriate use of terms. We are convinced that by knowing the meaning we can improve the quality of personal relationships and reduce those excesses, not only verbal, that can arise around the topic. sexuality unpleasant situations, often extreme, and even profound reasons for misunderstanding”.