procreation, contraception, celibacy, marriage, adultery, casual sex,
flirting, prostitution, homosexuality, masturbation, seduction, rape,
sexual harassment, sadomasochism, pornography, bestiality, and
pedophilia. What do all these things have in common? All are related
in various ways to the vast domain of human sexuality. That is, they
are related, on the one hand, to the human desires and activities that
involve the search for and attainment of sexual pleasure or
satisfaction and, on the other hand, to the human desires and
activities that involve the creation of new human beings. For it is a
natural feature of human beings that certain sorts of behaviors and
certain bodily organs are and can be employed either for pleasure or
for reproduction, or for both.
The philosophy of sexuality explores these topics both conceptually
and normatively. Conceptual analysis is carried out in the philosophy
of sexuality in order to clarify the fundamental notions of sexual
desire and sexual activity. Conceptual analysis is also carried out in
attempting to arrive at satisfactory definitions of adultery,
prostitution, rape, pornography, and so forth. Conceptual analysis
(for example: what are the distinctive features of a desire that make
it sexual desire instead of something else? In what ways does
seduction differ from nonviolent rape?) is often difficult and
seemingly picky, but proves rewarding in unanticipated and surprising
ways.
Normative philosophy of sexuality inquires about the value of sexual
activity and sexual pleasure and of the various forms they take. Thus
the philosophy of sexuality is concerned with the perennial questions
of sexual morality and constitutes a large branch of applied ethics.
Normative philosophy of sexuality investigates what contribution is
made to the good or virtuous life by sexuality, and tries to determine
what moral obligations we have to refrain from performing certain
sexual acts and what moral permissions we have to engage in others.
Some philosophers of sexuality carry out conceptual analysis and the
study of sexual ethics separately. They believe that it is one thing
to define a sexual phenomenon (such as rape or adultery) and quite
another thing to evaluate it. Other philosophers of sexuality believe
that a robust distinction between defining a sexual phenomenon and
arriving at moral evaluations of it cannot be made, that analyses of
sexual concepts and moral evaluations of sexual acts influence each
other. Whether there actually is a tidy distinction between values and
morals, on the one hand, and natural, social, or conceptual facts, on
the other hand, is one of those fascinating, endlessly debated issues
in philosophy, and is not limited to the philosophy of sexuality.
1. Metaphysics of Sexuality
Our moral evaluations of sexual activity are bound to be affected by
what we view the nature of the sexual impulse, or of sexual desire, to
be in human beings. In this regard there is a deep divide between
those philosophers that we might call the metaphysical sexual
optimists and those we might call the metaphysical sexual pessimists.
The pessimists in the philosophy of sexuality, such as St. Augustine,
Immanuel Kant, and, sometimes, Sigmund Freud, perceive the sexual
impulse and acting on it to be something nearly always, if not
necessarily, unbefitting the dignity of the human person; they see the
essence and the results of the drive to be incompatible with more
significant and lofty goals and aspirations of human existence; they
fear that the power and demands of the sexual impulse make it a danger
to harmonious civilized life; and they find in sexuality a severe
threat not only to our proper relations with, and our moral treatment
of, other persons, but also equally a threat to our own humanity.
On the other side of the divide are the metaphysical sexual optimists
(Plato, in some of his works, sometimes Sigmund Freud, Bertrand
Russell, and many contemporary philosophers) who perceive nothing
especially obnoxious in the sexual impulse. They view human sexuality
as just another and mostly innocuous dimension of our existence as
embodied or animal-like creatures; they judge that sexuality, which in
some measure has been given to us by evolution, cannot but be
conducive to our well-being without detracting from our intellectual
propensities; and they praise rather than fear the power of an impulse
that can lift us to various high forms of happiness.
The particular sort of metaphysics of sex one believes will influence
one's subsequent judgments about the value and role of sexuality in
the good or virtuous life and about what sexual activities are morally
wrong and which ones are morally permissible. Let's explore some of
these implications.
2. Metaphysical Sexual Pessimism
An extended version of metaphysical pessimism might make the following
claims: In virtue of the nature of sexual desire, a person who
sexually desires another person objectifies that other person, both
before and during sexual activity. Sex, says Kant, "makes of the loved
person an Object of appetite. . . . Taken by itself it is a
degradation of human nature" (Lectures on Ethics, p. 163). Certain
types of manipulation and deception seem required prior to engaging in
sex with another person, or are so common as to appear part of the
nature of the sexual experience. As Bernard Baumrim makes the point,
"sexual interaction is essentially manipulative—physically,
psychologically, emotionally, and even intellectually" ("Sexual
Immorality Delineated," p. 300). We go out of our way, for example, to
make ourselves look more attractive and desirable to the other person
than we really are, and we go to great lengths to conceal our defects.
And when one person sexually desires another, the other person's body,
his or her lips, thighs, toes, and buttocks are desired as the
arousing parts they are, distinct from the person. The other's
genitals, too, are the object of our attention: "sexuality is not an
inclination which one human being has for another as such, but is an
inclination for the sex of another. . . . [O]nly her sex is the object
of his desires" (Kant, Lectures, p. 164).
Further, the sexual act itself is peculiar, with its uncontrollable
arousal, involuntary jerkings, and its yearning to master and consume
the other person's body. During the act, a person both loses control
of himself and loses regard for the humanity of the other. Our
sexuality is a threat to the other's personhood; but the one who is in
the grip of desire is also on the verge of losing his or her
personhood. The one who desires depends on the whims of another person
to gain satisfaction, and becomes as a result a jellyfish, susceptible
to the demands and manipulations of the other: "In desire you are
compromised in the eyes of the object of desire, since you have
displayed that you have designs which are vulnerable to his
intentions" (Roger Scruton, Sexual Desire, p. 82). A person who
proposes an irresistible sexual offer to another person may be
exploiting someone made weak by sexual desire (see Virginia Held,
"Coercion and Coercive Offers," p. 58).
Moreover, a person who gives in to another's sexual desire makes a
tool of himself or herself. "For the natural use that one sex makes of
the other's sexual organs is enjoyment, for which one gives oneself up
to the other. In this act a human being makes himself into a thing,
which conflicts with the right of humanity in his own person" (Kant,
Metaphysics of Morals, p. 62). Those engaged in sexual activity make
themselves willingly into objects for each other merely for the sake
of sexual pleasure. Hence both persons are reduced to the animal
level. "If . . . a man wishes to satisfy his desire, and a woman hers,
they stimulate each other's desire; their inclinations meet, but their
object is not human nature but sex, and each of them dishonours the
human nature of the other. They make of humanity an instrument for the
satisfaction of their lusts and inclinations, and dishonour it by
placing it on a level with animal nature" (Kant, Lectures, p. 164).
Finally, due to the insistent nature of the sexual impulse, once
things get going it is often hard to stop them in their tracks, and as
a result we often end up doing things sexually that we had never
planned or wanted to do. Sexual desire is also powerfully inelastic,
one of the passions most likely to challenge reason, compelling us to
seek satisfaction even when doing so involves dark-alley gropings,
microbiologically filthy acts, slinking around the White House, or
getting married impetuously.
Given such a pessimistic metaphysics of human sexuality, one might
well conclude that acting on the sexual impulse is always morally
wrong. That might, indeed, be precisely the right conclusion to draw,
even if it implies the end of Homo sapiens. (This doomsday result is
also implied by St. Paul's praising, in 1 Corinthians 7, sexual
celibacy as the ideal spiritual state.) More frequently, however, the
pessimistic metaphysicians of sexuality conclude that sexual activity
is morally permissible only within marriage (of the lifelong,
monogamous, heterosexual sort) and only for the purpose of
procreation. Regarding the bodily activities that both lead to
procreation and produce sexual pleasure, it is their procreative
potential that is singularly significant and bestows value on these
activities; seeking pleasure is an impediment to morally virtuous
sexuality, and is something that should not be undertaken deliberately
or for its own sake. Sexual pleasure at most has instrumental value,
in inducing us to engage in an act that has procreation as its primary
purpose. Such views are common among Christian thinkers, for example,
St. Augustine: "A man turns to good use the evil of concupiscence, and
is not overcome by it, when he bridles and restrains its rage . . .
and never relaxes his hold upon it except when intent on offspring,
and then controls and applies it to the carnal generation of children
. . . , not to the subjection of the spirit to the flesh in a sordid
servitude" (On Marriage and Concupiscence, bk. 1, ch. 9).
3. Metaphysical Sexual Optimism
Metaphysical sexual optimists suppose that sexuality is a bonding
mechanism that naturally and happily joins people together both
sexually and nonsexually. Sexual activity involves pleasing the self
and the other at the same time, and these exchanges of pleasure
generate both gratitude and affection, which in turn are bound to
deepen human relationships and make them more emotionally substantial.
Further, and this is the most important point, sexual pleasure is, for
a metaphysical optimist, a valuable thing in its own right, something
to be cherished and promoted because it has intrinsic and not merely
instrumental value. Hence the pursuit of sexual pleasure does not
require much intricate justification; sexual activity surely need not
be confined to marriage or directed at procreation. The good and
virtuous life, while including much else, can also include a wide
variety and extent of sexual relations. (See Russell Vannoy's spirited
defense of the value of sexual activity for its own sake, in Sex
Without Love.)
Irving Singer is a contemporary philosopher of sexuality who expresses
well one form of metaphysical optimism: "For though sexual interest
resembles an appetite in some respects, it differs from hunger or
thirst in being an interpersonal sensitivity, one that enables us to
delight in the mind and character of other persons as well as in their
flesh. Though at times people may be used as sexual objects and cast
aside once their utility has been exhausted, this is no[t] . . .
definitive of sexual desire. . . . By awakening us to the living
presence of someone else, sexuality can enable us to treat this other
being as just the person he or she happens to be. . . . There is
nothing in the nature of sexuality as such that necessarily . . .
reduces persons to things. On the contrary, sex may be seen as an
instinctual agency by which persons respond to one another through
their bodies" (The Nature of Love, vol. 2, p. 382. See also Jean
Hampton, "Defining Wrong and Defining Rape").
Pausanias, in Plato's Symposium (181a-3, 183e, 184d), asserts that
sexuality in itself is neither good nor bad. He recognizes, as a
result, that there can be morally bad and morally good sexual
activity, and proposes a corresponding distinction between what he
calls "vulgar" eros and "heavenly" eros. A person who has vulgar eros
is one who experiences promiscuous sexual desire, has a lust that can
be satisfied by any partner, and selfishly seeks only for himself or
herself the pleasures of sexual activity. By contrast, a person who
has heavenly eros experiences a sexual desire that attaches to a
particular person; he or she is as much interested in the other
person's personality and well-being as he or she is concerned to have
physical contact with and sexual satisfaction by means of the other
person. A similar distinction between sexuality per se and eros is
described by C. S. Lewis in his The Four Loves (chapter 5), and it is
perhaps what Allan Bloom has in mind when he writes, "Animals have sex
and human beings have eros, and no accurate science [or philosophy] is
possible without making this distinction" (Love and Friendship, p.
19).
The divide between metaphysical optimists and metaphysical pessimists
might, then, be put this way: metaphysical pessimists think that
sexuality, unless it is rigorously constrained by social norms that
have become internalized, will tend to be governed by vulgar eros,
while metaphysical optimists think that sexuality, by itself, does not
lead to or become vulgar, that by its nature it can easily be and
often is heavenly. (See the entry, Philosophy of Love.)
4. Moral Evaluations
Of course, we can and often do evaluate sexual activity morally: we
inquire whether a sexual act—either a particular occurrence of a
sexual act (the act we are doing or want to do right now) or a type of
sexual act (say, all instances of homosexual fellatio)—is morally good
or morally bad. More specifically, we evaluate, or judge, sexual acts
to be morally obligatory, morally permissible, morally supererogatory,
or morally wrong. For example: a spouse might have a moral obligation
to engage in sex with the other spouse; it might be morally
permissible for married couples to employ contraception while engaging
in coitus; one person's agreeing to have sexual relations with another
person when the former has no sexual desire of his or her own but does
want to please the latter might be an act of supererogation; and rape
and incest are commonly thought to be morally wrong.
Note that if a specific type of sexual act is morally wrong (say,
homosexual fellatio), then every instance of that type of act will be
morally wrong. However, from the fact that the particular sexual act
we are now doing or contemplate doing is morally wrong, it does not
follow that any specific type of act is morally wrong; the sexual act
that we are contemplating might be wrong for lots of different reasons
having nothing to do with the type of sexual act that it is. For
example, suppose we are engaging in heterosexual coitus (or anything
else), and that this particular act is wrong because it is adulterous.
The wrongfulness of our sexual activity does not imply that
heterosexual coitus in general (or anything else), as a type of sexual
act, is morally wrong. In some cases, of course, a particular sexual
act will be wrong for several reasons: not only is it wrong because it
is of a specific type (say, it is an instance of homosexual fellatio),
but it is also wrong because at least one of the participants is
married to someone else (it is wrong also because it is adulterous).
5. Nonmoral Evaluations
We can also evaluate sexual activity (again, either a particular
occurrence of a sexual act or a specific type of sexual activity)
nonmorally: nonmorally "good" sex is sexual activity that provides
pleasure to the participants or is physically or emotionally
satisfying, while nonmorally "bad" sex is unexciting, tedious, boring,
unenjoyable, or even unpleasant. An analogy will clarify the
difference between morally evaluating something as good or bad and
nonmorally evaluating it as good or bad. This radio on my desk is a
good radio, in the nonmoral sense, because it does for me what I
expect from a radio: it consistently provides clear tones. If,
instead, the radio hissed and cackled most of the time, it would be a
bad radio, nonmorally-speaking, and it would be senseless for me to
blame the radio for its faults and threaten it with a trip to hell if
it did not improve its behavior. Similarly, sexual activity can be
nonmorally good if it provides for us what we expect sexual activity
to provide, which is usually sexual pleasure, and this fact has no
necessary moral implications..
It is not difficult to see that the fact that a sexual activity is
perfectly nonmorally good, by abundantly satisfying both persons, does
not mean by itself that the act is morally good: some adulterous
sexual activity might well be very pleasing to the participants, yet
be morally wrong. Further, the fact that a sexual activity is
nonmorally bad, that is, does not produce pleasure for the persons
engaged in it, does not by itself mean that the act is morally bad.
Unpleasant sexual activity might occur between persons who have little
experience engaging in sexual activity (they do not yet know how to do
sexual things, or have not yet learned what their likes and dislikes
are), but their failure to provide pleasure for each other does not
mean by itself that they perform morally wrongful acts.
Thus the moral evaluation of sexual activity is a distinct enterprise
from the nonmoral evaluation of sexual activity, even if there do
remain important connections between them. For example, the fact that
a sexual act provides pleasure to both participants, and is thereby
nonmorally good, might be taken as a strong, but only prima facie
good, reason for thinking that the act is morally good or at least has
some degree of moral value. Indeed, utilitarians such as Jeremy
Bentham and even John Stuart Mill might claim that, in general, the
nonmoral goodness of sexual activity goes a long way toward justifying
it. Another example: if one person never attempts to provide sexual
pleasure to his or her partner, but selfishly insists on experiencing
only his or her own pleasure, then that person's contribution to their
sexual activity is morally suspicious or objectionable. But that
judgment rests not simply on the fact that he or she did not provide
pleasure for the other person, that is, on the fact that the sexual
activity was for the other person nonmorally bad. The moral judgment
rests, more precisely, on his or her motives for not providing any
pleasure, for not making the experience nonmorally good for the other
person.
It is one thing to point out that as evaluative categories, moral
goodness/badness is quite distinct from nonmoral goodness/badness. It
is another thing to wonder, nonetheless, about the emotional or
psychological connections between the moral quality of sexual activity
and its nonmoral quality. Perhaps morally good sexual activity tends
also to be the most satisfying sexual activity, in the nonmoral sense.
Whether that is true likely depends on what we mean by "morally good"
sexuality and on certain features of human moral psychology. What
would our lives be like, if there were always a neat correspondence
between the moral quality of a sexual act and its nonmoral quality? I
am not sure what such a human sexual world would be like. But examples
that violate such a neat correspondence are at the present time, in
this world, easy to come by. A sexual act might be both morally and
nonmorally good: consider the exciting and joyful sexual activity of a
newly-married couple. But a sexual act might be morally good and
nonmorally bad: consider the routine sexual acts of this couple after
they have been married for ten years. A sexual act might be morally
bad yet nonmorally good: one spouse in that couple, married for ten
years, commits adultery with another married person and finds their
sexual activity to be extraordinarily satisfying. And, finally, a
sexual act might be both morally and nonmorally bad: the adulterous
couple get tired of each other, eventually no longer experiencing the
excitement they once knew. A world in which there was little or no
discrepancy between the moral and the nonmoral quality of sexual
activity might be a better world than ours, or it might be worse. I
would refrain from making such a judgment unless I were pretty sure
what the moral goodness and badness of sexual activity amounted to in
the first place, and until I knew a lot more about human psychology.
Sometimes that a sexual activity is acknowledged to be morally wrong
contributes all by itself to its being nonmorally good.
6. The Dangers of Sex
Whether a particular sexual act or a specific type of sexual act
provides sexual pleasure is not the only factor in judging its
nonmoral quality: pragmatic and prudential considerations also figure
into whether a sexual act, all things considered, has a preponderance
of nonmoral goodness. Many sexual activities can be physically or
psychologically risky, dangerous, or harmful. Anal coitus, for
example, whether carried out by a heterosexual couple or by two gay
males, can damage delicate tissues and is a mechanism for the
potential transmission of various HIV viruses (as is heterosexual
genital intercourse). Thus in evaluating whether a sexual act will be
overall nonmorally good or bad, not only its anticipated pleasure or
satisfaction must be counted, but also all sorts of negative
(undesired) side effects: whether the sexual act is likely to damage
the body, as in some sadomasochistic acts, or transmit any one of a
number of venereal diseases, or result in an unwanted pregnancy, or
even whether one might feel regret, anger, or guilt afterwards as a
result of having engaged in a sexual act with this person, or in this
location, or under these conditions, or of a specific type. Indeed,
all these pragmatic and prudential factors also figure into the moral
evaluation of sexual activity: intentionally causing unwanted pain or
discomfort to one's partner, or not taking adequate precautions
against the possibility of pregnancy, or not informing one's partner
of a suspected case of genital infection (but see David Mayo's
provocative dissent, in "An Obligation to Warn of HIV Infection?"),
can be morally wrong. Thus, depending on what particular moral
principles about sexuality one embraces, the various ingredients that
constitute the nonmoral quality of sexual acts can influence one's
moral judgments.
7. Sexual Perversion
In addition to inquiring about the moral and nonmoral quality of a
given sexual act or a type of sexual activity, we can also ask whether
the act or type is natural or unnatural (that is, perverted). Natural
sexual acts, to provide merely a broad definition, are those acts that
either flow naturally from human sexual nature, or at least do not
frustrate or counteract sexual tendencies that flow naturally from
human sexual desire. An account of what is natural in human sexual
desire and activity is part of a philosophical account of human nature
in general, what we might call philosophical anthropology, which is a
rather large undertaking.
Note that evaluating a particular sexual act or a specific type of
sexual activity as being natural or unnatural can very well be
distinct from evaluating the act or type either as being morally good
or bad or as being nonmorally good or bad. Suppose we assume, for the
sake of discussion only, that heterosexual coitus is a natural human
sexual activity and that homosexual fellatio is unnatural, or a sexual
perversion. Even so, it would not follow from these judgments alone
that all heterosexual coitus is morally good (some of it might be
adulterous, or rape) or that all homosexual fellatio is morally wrong
(some of it, engaged in by consenting adults in the privacy of their
homes, might be morally permissible). Further, from the fact that
heterosexual coitus is natural, it does not follow that acts of
heterosexual coitus will be nonmorally good, that is, pleasurable; nor
does it follow from the fact that homosexual fellatio is perverted
that it does not or cannot produce sexual pleasure for those people
who engage in it. Of course, both natural and unnatural sexual acts
can be medically or psychologically risky or dangerous. There is no
reason to assume that natural sexual acts are in general more safe
than unnatural sexual acts; for example, unprotected heterosexual
intercourse is likely more dangerous, in several ways, than mutual
homosexual masturbation.
Since there are no necessary connections between, on the one hand,
evaluating a particular sexual act or a specific type of sexual
activity as being natural or unnatural and, on the other hand,
evaluating its moral and nonmoral quality, why would we wonder whether
a sexual act or a type of sex was natural or perverted? One reason is
simply that understanding what is natural and unnatural in human
sexuality helps complete our picture of human nature in general, and
allows us to understand our species more fully. With such
deliberations, the self-reflection about humanity and the human
condition that is the heart of philosophy becomes more complete. A
second reason is that an account of the difference between the natural
and the perverted in human sexuality might be useful for psychology,
especially if we assume that a desire or tendency to engage in
perverted sexual activities is a sign or symptom of an underlying
mental or psychological pathology.
8. Sexual Perversion and Morality
Finally (a third reason), even though natural sexual activity is not
on that score alone morally good and unnatural sexual activity is not
necessarily morally wrong, it is still possible to argue that whether
a particular sexual act or a specific type of sexuality is natural or
unnatural does influence, to a greater or lesser extent, whether the
act is morally good or morally bad. Just as whether a sexual act is
nonmorally good, that is, produces pleasure for the participants, may
be a factor, sometimes an important one, in our evaluating the act
morally, whether a sexual act or type of sexual expression is natural
or unnatural may also play a role, sometimes a large one, in deciding
whether the act is morally good or bad.
A comparison between the sexual philosophy of the medieval Catholic
theologian St. Thomas Aquinas and that of the contemporary secular
philosophy Thomas Nagel is in this regard instructive. Both Aquinas
and Nagel can be understood as assuming that what is unnatural in
human sexuality is perverted, and that what is unnatural or perverted
in human sexuality is simply that which does not conform with or is
inconsistent with natural human sexuality. But beyond these general
areas of agreement, there are deep differences between Aquinas and
Nagel.
9. Aquinas's Natural Law
Based upon a comparison of the sexuality of humans and the sexuality
of lower animals (mammals, in particular), Aquinas concludes that what
is natural in human sexuality is the impulse to engage in heterosexual
coitus. Heterosexual coitus is the mechanism designed by the Christian
God to insure the preservation of animal species, including humans,
and hence engaging in this activity is the primary natural expression
of human sexual nature. Further, this God designed each of the parts
of the human body to carry out specific functions, and on Aquinas's
view God designed the male penis to implant sperm into the female's
vagina for the purpose of effecting procreation. It follows, for
Aquinas, that depositing the sperm elsewhere than inside a human
female's vagina is unnatural: it is a violation of God's design,
contrary to the nature of things as established by God. For this
reason alone, on Aquinas's view, such activities are immoral, a grave
offense to the sagacious plan of the Almighty.
Sexual intercourse with lower animals (bestiality), sexual activity
with members of one's own sex (homosexuality), and masturbation, for
Aquinas, are unnatural sexual acts and are immoral exactly for that
reason. If they are committed intentionally, according to one's will,
they deliberately disrupt the natural order of the world as created by
God and which God commanded to be respected. (See Summa Theologiae,
vol. 43, 2a2ae, qq. 153-154.) In none of these activities is there any
possibility of procreation, and the sexual and other organs are used,
or misused, for purposes other than that for which they were designed.
Although Aquinas does not say so explicitly, but only hints in this
direction, it follows from his philosophy of sexuality that fellatio,
even when engaged in by heterosexuals, is also perverted and morally
wrong. At least in those cases in which orgasm occurs by means of this
act, the sperm is not being placed where it should be placed and
procreation is therefore not possible. If the penis entering the
vagina is the paradigmatic natural act, then any other combination of
anatomical connections will be unnatural and hence immoral; for
example, the penis, mouth, or fingers entering the anus. Note that
Aquinas's criterion of the natural, that the sexual act must be
procreative in form, and hence must involve a penis inserted into a
vagina, makes no mention of human psychology. Aquinas's line of
thought yields an anatomical criterion of natural and perverted sex
that refers only to bodily organs and what they might accomplish
physiologically and to where they are, or are not, put in relation to
each other.
10. Nagel's Secular Philosophy
Thomas Nagel denies Aquinas's central presupposition, that in order to
discover what is natural in human sexuality we should emphasize what
humans and lower animals have in common. Applying this formula,
Aquinas concluded that the purpose of sexual activity and the sexual
organs in humans was procreation, as it is in the lower animals.
Everything else in Aquinas's sexual philosophy follows more-or-less
logically from this. Nagel, by contrast, argues that to discover what
is distinctive about the natural human sexuality, and hence
derivatively what is unnatural or perverted, we should focus, instead,
on what humans and lower animals do not have in common. We should
emphasize the ways in which humans are different from animals, the
ways in which humans and their sexuality are special. Thus Nagel
argues that sexual perversion in humans should be understood as a
psychological phenomenon rather than, as in Aquinas's treatment, in
anatomical and physiological terms. For it is human psychology that
makes us quite different from other animals, and hence an account of
natural human sexuality must acknowledge the uniqueness of human
psychology.
Nagel proposes that sexual interactions in which each person responds
with sexual arousal to noticing the sexual arousal of the other person
exhibit the psychology that is natural to human sexuality. In such an
encounter, each person becomes aware of himself or herself and the
other person as both the subject and the object of their joint sexual
experiences. Perverted sexual encounters or events would be those in
which this mutual recognition of arousal is absent, and in which a
person remains fully a subject of the sexual experience or fully an
object. Perversion, then, is a departure from or a truncation of a
psychologically "complete" pattern of arousal and consciousness. (See
Nagel's "Sexual Perversion," pp. 15-17.) Nothing in Nagel's
psychological account of the natural and the perverted refers to
bodily organs or physiological processes. That is, for a sexual
encounter to be natural, it need not be procreative in form, as long
as the requisite psychology of mutual recognition is present. Whether
a sexual activity is natural or perverted does not depend, on Nagel's
view, on what organs are used or where they are put, but only on the
character of the psychology of the sexual encounter. Thus Nagel
disagrees with Aquinas that homosexual activities, as a specific type
of sexual act, are unnatural or perverted, for homosexual fellatio and
anal intercourse may very well be accompanied by the mutual
recognition of and response to the other's sexual arousal.
11. Fetishism
It is illuminating to compare what the views of Aquinas and Nagel
imply about fetishism, that is, the usually male practice of
masturbating while fondling women's shoes or undergarments. Aquinas
and Nagel agree that such activities are unnatural and perverted, but
they disagree about the grounds of that evaluation. For Aquinas,
masturbating while fondling shoes or undergarments is unnatural
because the sperm is not deposited where it should be, and the act
thereby has no procreative potential. For Nagel, masturbatory
fetishism is perverted for a quite different reason: in this activity,
there is no possibility of one persons' noticing and being aroused by
the arousal of another person. The arousal of the fetishist is, from
the perspective of natural human psychology, defective. Note, in this
example, one more difference between Aquinas and Nagel: Aquinas would
judge the sexual activity of the fetishist to be immoral precisely
because it is perverted (it violates a natural pattern established by
God), while Nagel would not conclude that it must be morally
wrong—after all, a fetishistic sexual act might be carried out quite
harmlessly—even if it does indicate that something is suspicious about
the fetishist's psychology. The move historically and socially away
from a Thomistic moralistic account of sexual perversion toward an
amoral psychological account such as Nagel's is representative of a
more widespread trend: the gradual replacement of moral or religious
judgments, about all sorts of deviant behavior, by medical or
psychiatric judgments and interventions. (See Alan Soble, Sexual
Investigations, chapter 4.)
12. Female Sexuality and Natural Law
A different kind of disagreement with Aquinas is registered by
Christine Gudorf, a Christian theologian who otherwise has a lot in
common with Aquinas. Gudorf agrees that the study of human anatomy and
physiology yields insights into God's plan and design, and that human
sexual behavior should conform with God's creative intentions. That
is, Gudorf's philosophy is squarely within the Thomistic Natural Law
tradition. But Gudorf argues that if we take a careful look at the
anatomy and physiology of the female sexual organs, and especially the
clitoris, instead of focusing exclusively on the male's penis (which
is what Aquinas did), quite different conclusions about God's plan and
design emerge and hence Christian sexual ethics turns out to be less
restrictive. In particular, Gudorf claims that the female's clitoris
is an organ whose only purpose is the production of sexual pleasure
and, unlike the mixed or dual functionality of the penis, has no
connection with procreation. Gudorf concludes that the existence of
the clitoris in the female body suggests that God intended that the
purpose of sexual activity was as much for sexual pleasure for its own
sake as it was for procreation. Therefore, according to Gudorf,
pleasurable sexual activity apart from procreation does not violate
God's design, is not unnatural, and hence is not necessarily morally
wrong, as long as it occurs in the context of a monogamous marriage
(Sex, Body, and Pleasure, p. 65). Today we are not as confident as
Aquinas was that God's plan can be discovered by a straightforward
examination of human and animal bodies; but such healthy skepticism
about our ability to discern the intentions of God from facts of the
natural world would seem to apply to Gudorf's proposal as well.
13. Debates in Sexual Ethics
The ethics of sexual behavior, as a branch of applied ethics, is no
more and no less contentious than the ethics of anything else that is
usually included within the area of applied ethics. Think, for
example, of the notorious debates over euthanasia, capital punishment,
abortion, and our treatment of lower animals for food, clothing,
entertainment, and in medical research. So it should come as no
surprise than even though a discussion of sexual ethics might well
result in the removal of some confusions and a clarification of the
issues, no final answers to questions about the morality of sexual
activity are likely to be forthcoming from the philosophy of
sexuality. As far as I can tell by surveying the literature on sexual
ethics, there are at least three major topics that have received much
discussion by philosophers of sexuality and which provide arenas for
continual debate.
14. Natural Law vs. Liberal Ethics
We have already encountered one debate: the dispute between a
Thomistic Natural Law approach to sexual morality and a more liberal,
secular outlook that denies that there is a tight connection between
what is unnatural in human sexuality and what is immoral. The secular
liberal philosopher emphasizes the values of autonomous choice,
self-determination, and pleasure in arriving at moral judgments about
sexual behavior, in contrast to the Thomistic tradition that justifies
a more restrictive sexual ethics by invoking a divinely imposed scheme
to which human action must conform. For a secular liberal philosopher
of sexuality, the paradigmatically morally wrong sexual act is rape,
in which one person forces himself or herself upon another or uses
threats to coerce the other to engage in sexual activity. By contrast,
for the liberal, anything done voluntarily between two or more people
is generally morally permissible. For the secular liberal, then, a
sexual act would be morally wrong if it were dishonest, coercive, or
manipulative, and Natural Law theory would agree, except to add that
the act's merely being unnatural is another, independent reason for
condemning it morally. Kant, for example, held that "Onanism . . . is
abuse of the sexual faculty. . . . By it man sets aside his person and
degrades himself below the level of animals. . . . Intercourse between
sexus homogenii . . . too is contrary to the ends of
humanity"(Lectures, p. 170). The sexual liberal, however, usually
finds nothing morally wrong or nonmorally bad about either
masturbation or homosexual sexual activity. These activities might be
unnatural, and perhaps in some ways prudentially unwise, but in many
if not most cases they can be carried out without harm being done
either to the participants or to anyone else.
Natural Law is alive and well today among philosophers of sex, even if
the details do not match Aquinas's original version. For example, the
contemporary philosopher John Finnis argues that there are morally
worthless sexual acts in which "one's body is treated as instrumental
for the securing of the experiential satisfaction of the conscious
self" (see "Is Homosexual Conduct Wrong?"). For example, in
masturbating or in being anally sodomized, the body is just a tool of
sexual satisfaction and, as a result, the person undergoes
"disintegration." "One's choosing self [becomes] the quasi-slave of
the experiencing self which is demanding gratification." The
worthlessness and disintegration attaching to masturbation and sodomy
actually attach, for Finnis, to "all extramarital sexual
gratification." This is because only in married, heterosexual coitus
do the persons' "reproductive organs . . . make them a biological . .
. unit." Finnis begins his argument with the metaphysically
pessimistic intuition that sexual activity involves treating human
bodies and persons instrumentally, and he concludes with the thought
that sexual activity in marriage—in particular, genital
intercourse—avoids disintegrity because only in this case, as intended
by God's plan, does the couple attain a state of genuine unity: "the
orgasmic union of the reproductive organs of husband and wife really
unites them biologically." (See also Finnis's essay "Law, Morality,
and 'Sexual Orientation'.")
15. Consent Is Not Sufficient
Another debate is about whether, when there is no harm done to third
parties to be concerned about, the fact that two people engage in a
sexual act voluntarily, with their own free and informed consent, is
sufficient for satisfying the demands of sexual morality. Of course,
those in the Natural Law tradition deny that consent is sufficient,
since on their view willingly engaging in unnatural sexual acts is
morally wrong, but they are not alone in reducing the moral
significance of consent. Sexual activity between two persons might be
harmful to one or both participants, and a moral paternalist or
perfectionist would claim that it is wrong for one person to harm
another person, or for the latter to allow the former to engage in
this harmful behavior, even when both persons provide free and
informed consent to their joint activity. Consent in this case is not
sufficient, and as a result some forms of sadomasochistic sexuality
turn out to be morally wrong. The denial of the sufficiency of consent
is also frequently presupposed by those philosophers who claim that
only in a committed relationship is sexual activity between two people
morally permissible. The free and informed consent of both parties may
be a necessary condition for the morality of their sexual activity,
but without the presence of some other ingredient (love, marriage,
devotion, and the like) their sexual activity remains mere mutual use
or objectification and hence morally objectionable.
In casual sex, for example, two persons are merely using each other
for their own sexual pleasure; even when genuinely consensual, these
mutual sexual uses do not yield a virtuous sexual act. Kant and Karol
Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) take this position: willingly allowing
oneself to be used sexually by another makes an object of oneself. For
Kant, sexual activity avoids treating a person merely as a means only
in marriage, since here both persons have surrendered their bodies and
souls to each other and have achieved a subtle metaphysical unity
(Lectures, p. 167). For Wojtyla, "only love can preclude the use of
one person by another" (Love and Responsibility, p. 30), since love is
a unification of persons resulting from a mutual gift of their selves.
Note, however, that the thought that a unifying love is the ingredient
that justifies sexual activity (beyond consent) has an interesting and
ironic implication: gay and lesbian sexual relations would seem to be
permissible if they occur within loving, monogamous homosexual
marriages (a position defended by the theologians Patricia Jung and
Ralph Smith, in Heterosexism). At this point in the argument,
defenders of the view that sexual activity is justifiable only in
marriage commonly appeal to Natural Law to rule out homosexual
marriage.
16. Consent Is Sufficient
On another view of these matters, the fact that sexual activity is
carried out voluntarily by all persons involved means, assuming that
no harm to third parties exists, that the sexual activity is morally
permissible. In defending such a view of the sufficiency of consent,
Thomas Mappes writes that "respect for persons entails that each of us
recognize the rightful authority of other persons (as rational beings)
to conduct their individual lives as they see fit" ("Sexual Morality
and the Concept of Using Another Person," p. 204). Allowing the other
person's consent to control when the other may engage in sexual
activity with me is to respect that person by taking his or her
autonomy, his or her ability to reason and make choices, seriously,
while not to allow the other to make the decision about when to engage
in sexual activity with me is disrespectfully paternalistic. If the
other person's consent is taken as sufficient, that shows that I
respect his or her choice of ends, or that even if I do not approve of
his or her particular choice of ends, at least I show respect for his
or her ends-making capability. According to such a view of the power
of consent, there can be no moral objection in principle to casual
sexual activity, to sexual activity with strangers, or to promiscuity,
as long as the persons involved in the activity genuinely agree to
engage in their chosen sexual activities.
If Mappes's free and informed consent criterion of the morality of
sexual activity is correct, we would still have to address several
difficult questions. How specific must consent be? When one person
agrees vaguely, and in the heat of the moment, with another person,
"yes, let's have sex," the speaker has not necessarily consented to
every type of sexual caress or coital position the second person might
have in mind. And how explicit must consent be? Can consent be
reliably implied by involuntarily behavior (moans, for example), and
do nonverbal cues (erection, lubrication) decisively show that another
person has consented to sex? Some philosophers insist that consent
must be exceedingly specific as to the sexual acts to be carried out,
and some would permit only explicit verbal consent, denying that body
language by itself can do an adequate job of expressing the
participant's desires and intentions. (See Alan Soble, "Antioch's
'Sexual Offense Policy'.")
Note also that not all philosophers agree with Mappes and others that
fully voluntary consent is always necessary for sexual activity to be
morally permissible. Jeffrie Murphy, for example, has raised some
doubts ("Some Ruminations on Women, Violence, and the Criminal Law,"
p. 218):
"Have sex with me or I will find another girlfriend" strikes me
(assuming normal circumstances) as a morally permissible threat, and
"Have sex with me and I will marry you" strikes me (assuming the offer
is genuine) as a morally permissible offer. . . . We negotiate our way
through most of life with schemes of threats and offers . . . and I
see no reason why the realm of sexuality should be utterly insulated
from this very normal way of being human.
Murphy implies that some threats are coercive and thereby undermine
the voluntary nature of the participation in sexual activity of one of
the persons, but, he adds, these types of threats are not always
morally wrong. Alternatively, we might say that in the cases Murphy
describes, the threats and offers do not constitute coercion at all
and that they present no obstacle to fully voluntary participation.
(See Alan Wertheimer, "Consent and Sexual Relations.") If so, Murphy's
cases do not establish that voluntary consent is not always required
for sexual activity to be morally right.
17. What Is "Voluntary"?
As suggested by Murphy's examples, another debate concerns the meaning
and application of the concept "voluntary." Whether consent is only
necessary for the morality of sexual activity, or also sufficient, any
moral principle that relies on consent to make moral distinctions
among sexual events presupposes a clear understanding of the
"voluntary" aspect of consent. It is safe to say that participation in
sexual activity ought not to be physically forced upon one person by
another. But this obvious truth leaves matters wide open. Onora
O'Neill, for example, thinks that casual sex is morally wrong because
the consent it purportedly involves is not likely to be sufficiently
voluntary, in light of subtle pressures people commonly put on each
other to engage in sexual activity (see "Between Consenting Adults").
One moral ideal is that genuinely consensual participation in sexual
activity requires not a hint of coercion or pressure of any sort.
Because engaging in sexual activity can be risky or dangerous in many
ways, physically, psychologically, and metaphysically, we would like
to be sure, according to this moral ideal, that anyone who engages in
sexual activity does so perfectly voluntarily. Some philosophers have
argued that this ideal can be realized only when there is substantial
economic and social equality between the persons involved in a given
sexual encounter. For example, a society that exhibits disparities in
the incomes or wealth of its various members is one in which some
people will be exposed to economic coercion. If some groups of people
(women and members of ethnic minorities, in particular) have less
economic and social power than others, members of these groups will be
therefore exposed to sexual coercion in particular, among other kinds.
One immediate application of this thought is that prostitution, which
to many sexual liberals is a business bargain made by a provider of
sexual services and a client and is largely characterized by
adequately free and informed consent, may be morally wrong, if the
economic situation of the prostitute acts as a kind of pressure that
negates the voluntary nature of his or her participation. Further,
women with children who are economically dependent on their husbands
may find themselves in the position of having to engage in sexual
activity whether they want to or not, for fear of being abandoned;
these women, too, may not be engaging in sexual activity fully
voluntarily. The woman who allows herself to be nagged into sex by her
husband worries that if she says "no" too often, she will suffer
economically, if not also physically and psychologically.
The view that the presence of any kind of pressure at all is coercive,
negates the voluntary nature of participation in sexual activity, and
hence is morally objectionable has been expressed by Charlene
Muehlenhard and Jennifer Schrag (see their "Nonviolent Sexual
Coercion"). They list, among other things, "status coercion" (when
women are coerced into sexual activity or marriage by a man's
occupation) and "discrimination against lesbians" (which
discrimination compels women into having sexual relationships only
with men) as forms of coercion that undermine the voluntary nature of
participation by women in sexual activity with men. But depending on
the kind of case we have in mind, it might be more accurate to say
either that some pressures are not coercive and do not appreciably
undermine voluntariness, or that some pressures are coercive but are
nevertheless not morally objectionable. Is it always true that the
presence of any kind of pressure put on one person by another amounts
to coercion that negates the voluntary nature of consent, so that
subsequent sexual activity is morally wrong?
18. Conceptual Analysis
Conceptual philosophy of sexuality is concerned to analyze and to
clarify concepts that are central in this area of philosophy: sexual
activity, sexual desire, sexual sensation, sexual perversion, and
others. It also attempts to define less abstract concepts, such as
prostitution, pornography, and rape. I would like to illustrate the
conceptual philosophy of sexuality by focusing on one particular
concept, that of "sexual activity," and explore in what ways it is
related to another central concept, that of "sexual pleasure." One
lesson to be learned here is that conceptual philosophy of sexuality
can be just as difficult and contentious as normative philosophy of
sexuality, and that as a result firm conceptual conclusions are hard
to come by.
19. Sexual Activity vs. "Having Sex"
According to a notorious study published in 1999 in the Journal of the
American Medical Association ("Would You Say You 'Had Sex' If . . . ?"
by Stephanie Sanders and June Reinisch), a large percent of
undergraduate college students, about 60%, do not think that engaging
in oral sex (fellatio and cunnilingus) is "having sex." This finding
is at first glance very surprising, but it is not difficult to
comprehend sympathetically. To be sure, as philosophers we easily
conclude that oral sex is a specific type of sexual activity. But
"sexual activity" is a technical concept, while "having sex" is an
ordinary language concept, which refers primarily to heterosexual
intercourse. Thus when Monica Lewinsky told her confidant Linda Tripp
that she did not "have sex" with William Jefferson Clinton, she was
not necessarily self-deceived, lying, or pulling a fast one. She was
merely relying on the ordinary language definition or criterion of
"having sex," which is not identical to the philosopher's concept of
"sexual activity," does not always include oral sex, and usually
requires genital intercourse.
Another conclusion might be drawn from the JAMA survey. If we assume
that heterosexual coitus by and large, or in many cases, produces more
pleasure for the participants than does oral sex, or at least that in
heterosexual intercourse there is greater mutuality of sexual pleasure
than in one-directional oral sex, and this is why ordinary thought
tends to discount the ontological significance of oral sex, then
perhaps we can use this to fashion a philosophical account of "sexual
activity" that is at once consistent with ordinary thought.
20. Sexual Activity and Sexual Pleasure
In common thought, whether a sexual act is nonmorally good or bad is
often associated with whether it is judged to be a sexual act at all.
Sometimes we derive little or no pleasure from a sexual act (say, we
are primarily giving pleasure to another person, or we are even
selling it to the other person), and we think that even though the
other person had a sexual experience, we didn't. Or the other person
did try to provide us with sexual pleasure but failed miserably,
whether from ignorance of technique or sheer sexual crudity. In such a
case it would not be implausible to say that we did not undergo a
sexual experience and so did not engage in a sexual act. If Ms.
Lewinsky's performing oral sex on President Clinton was done only for
his sake, for his sexual pleasure, and she did it out of consideration
for his needs and not hers, then perhaps she did not herself, after
all, engage in a sexual act.
Robert Gray is one philosopher who has taken up this line of ordinary
thought and has argued that "sexual activity" should be analyzed in
terms of the production of sexual pleasure. He asserts that "any
activity might become a sexual activity" if sexual pleasure is derived
from it, and "no activity is a sexual activity unless sexual pleasure
is derived from it" ("Sex and Sexual Perversion," p. 61). Perhaps Gray
is right, since we tend to think that holding hands is a sexual
activity when sexual pleasure is produced by doing so, but otherwise
holding hands is not very sexual. A handshake is normally not a sexual
act, and usually does not yield sexual pleasure; but two lovers
caressing each other's fingers is both a sexual act and produces
sexual pleasure for them.
There is another reason for taking seriously the idea that sexual
activities are exactly those that produce sexual pleasure. What is it
about a sexually perverted activity that makes it sexual? The act is
unnatural, we might say, because it has no connection with one common
purpose of sexual activity, that is, procreation. But the only thing
that would seem to make the act a sexual perversion is that it does,
on a fairly reliable basis, nonetheless produce sexual pleasure.
Undergarment fetishism is a sexual perversion, and not merely, say, a
"fabric" perversion, because it involves sexual pleasure. Similarly,
what is it about homosexual sexual activities that makes them sexual?
All such acts are nonprocreative, yet they share something very
important in common with procreative heterosexual activities: they
produce sexual pleasure, and the same sort of sexual pleasure.
a. Sexual Activity Without Pleasure
Suppose I were to ask you, "How many sexual partners have you had
during the last five years"? If you were on your toes, you would ask
me, before answering, "What counts as a sexual partner?" (Maybe you
are suspicious of my question because you had read Greta Christina's
essay on this topic, "Are We Having Sex Now or What?") At this point I
should give you an adequate analysis of "sexual activity," and tell
you to count anyone with whom you engaged in sexual activity according
to this definition. What I should definitely not do is to tell you to
count only those people with whom you had a pleasing or satisfactory
sexual experience, forgetting about, and hence not counting, those
partners with whom you had nonmorally bad sex. But if we accept Gray's
analysis of sexual activity, that sexual acts are exactly those and
only those that produce sexual pleasure, I should of course urge you
not to count, over those five years, anyone with whom you had a
nonmorally bad sexual experience. You will end up reporting to me
fewer sexual partners than you in fact had. Maybe that will make you
feel better.
The general point is this. If "sexual activity" is logically dependent
on "sexual pleasure," if sexual pleasure is thereby the criterion of
sexual activity itself, then sexual pleasure cannot be the gauge of
the nonmoral quality of sexual activities. That is, this analysis of
"sexual activity" in terms of "sexual pleasure" conflates what it is
for an act to be a sexual activity with what it is for an act to be a
nonmorally good sexual activity. On such an analysis, procreative
sexual activities, when the penis is placed into the vagina, would be
sexual activities only when they produce sexual pleasure, and not when
they are as sensually boring as a handshake. Further, the victim of a
rape, who has not experienced nonmorally good sex, cannot claim that
he or she was forced to engage in sexual activity, even if the act
compelled on him or her was intercourse or fellatio.
I would prefer to say that the couple who have lost sexual interest in
each other, and who engage in routine sexual activities from which
they derive no pleasure, are still performing a sexual act. But we are
forbidden, by Gray's proposed analysis, from saying that they engage
in nonmorally bad sexual activity, for on his view they have not
engaged in any sexual activity at all. Rather, we could say at most
that they tried to engage in sexual activity but failed to do so. It
may be a sad fact about our sexual world that we can engage in sexual
activity and not derive any or much pleasure from it, but that fact
should not give us reason for refusing to call these unsatisfactory
events "sexual."
21. References and Further Reading
* Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Cambridge, Eng.:
Blackfriars, 1964-76.
* Augustine, St. (Aurelius). On Marriage and Concupiscence, in The
Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, vol. 12, ed. Marcus
Dods. Edinburgh, Scot.: T. & T. Clark, 1874.
* Baker, Robert, Kathleen Wininger, and Frederick Elliston, eds.
Philosophy and Sex, 3rd edition. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1998.
* Baumrin, Bernard. "Sexual Immorality Delineated," in Robert
Baker and Frederick Elliston, eds., Philosophy and Sex, 2nd edition.
Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1984, pp. 300-11.
* Bloom, Allan. Love and Friendship. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
* Christina, Greta. "Are We Having Sex Now or What?" in Alan
Soble, ed., The Philosophy of Sex, 3rd edition. Lanham, Md.: Rowman
and Littlefield, 1997, pp. 3-8.
* Finnis, John. "Law, Morality, and 'Sexual Orientation'," Notre
Dame Law Review 69:5 (1994), pp. 1049-76.
* Finnis, John and Martha Nussbaum. "Is Homosexual Conduct Wrong?
A Philosophical Exchange," in Alan Soble, ed., The Philosophy of Sex,
3rd edition. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997, pp. 89-94.
* Gray, Robert. "Sex and Sexual Perversion," in Alan Soble, ed.,
The Philosophy of Sex, 3rd edition. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1997, pp. 57-66.
* Grisez, Germain. The Way of the Lord Jesus. Quincy, Ill.:
Franciscan Press, 1993.
* Gudorf, Christine. Sex, Body, and Pleasure: Reconstructing
Christian Sexual Ethics. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 1994.
* Hampton, Jean. "Defining Wrong and Defining Rape," in Keith
Burgess-Jackson, ed., A Most Detestable Crime: New Philosophical
Essays on Rape. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 118-56.
* Held, Virginia. "Coercion and Coercive Offers," in J. Roland
Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds., Coercion: Nomos VIX. Chicago, Ill.:
Aldine, 1972, pp. 49-62.
* Jung, Patricia, and Ralph Smith. Heterosexism: An Ethical
Challenge. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993.
* Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics. Translated by Louis Infield.
New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
* Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals . Translated by Mary
Gregor. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
* Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960.
* Mappes, Thomas. "Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using
Another Person," in Thomas Mappes and Jane Zembaty, eds., Social
Ethics, 4th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992, pp. 203-26.
* Mayo, David. "An Obligation to Warn of HIV Infection?" in Alan
Soble, ed., Sex, Love and Friendship. Amsterdam. Hol.: Editions
Rodopi, 1997, pp. 447-53.
* Muehlenhard, Charlene, and Jennifer Schrag. "Nonviolent Sexual
Coercion," in A. Parrot and L. Bechhofer, eds, Acquaintance Rape. The
Hidden Crime. New York: John Wiley, 1991, pp. 115-28.
* Murphy, Jeffrie. "Some Ruminations on Women, Violence, and the
Criminal Law," in Jules Coleman and Allen Buchanan, eds., In Harm's
Way: Essays in Honor of Joel Feinberg. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge
University Press, 1994, pp. 209-30.
* Nagel, Thomas. "Sexual Perversion," in Alan Soble, ed., The
Philosophy of Sex, 3st edition. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield,
1997, pp. 9-20.
* O'Neill, Onora. "Between Consenting Adults," Philosophy and
Public Affairs 14:3 (1985), pp. 252-77.
* Plato. Symposium. Translated by Michael Joyce, in E. Hamilton
and H. Cairns, eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961, pp. 526-74.
* Posner, Richard. Sex and Reason. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1992.
* Sanders, Stephanie, and June Reinisch. "Would You Say You 'Had
Sex' If . . . ?" Journal of the American Medical Association 281:3
(January 20, 1999), pp. 275-77.
* Scruton, Roger. Sexual Desire: A Moral Philosophy of the Erotic.
New York: Free Press, 1986.
* Singer, Irving. The Nature of Love, vol. 2: Courtly and
Romantic. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
* Soble, Alan. "Antioch's 'Sexual Offense Policy': A Philosophical
Exploration," Journal of Social Philosophy 28:1 (1997), pp. 22-36.
* Soble, Alan. The Philosophy of Sex and Love: An Introduction.
St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 1998.
* Soble, Alan. Sexual Investigations. New York: New York
University Press,1996.
* Soble, Alan. ed. Eros, Agape and Philia. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
* Soble, Alan. ed. The Philosophy of Sex, 3rd edition. Lanham,
Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997.
* Soble, Alan. ed. Sex, Love and Friendship. Amsterdam, Hol.:
Editions Rodopi, 1996.
* Solomon, Robert, and Kathleen Higgins, eds. The Philosophy of
(Erotic) Love. Lawrence. Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 1991.
* Stewart, Robert M., ed. Philosophical Perspectives on Sex and
Love. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
* Vannoy, Russell. Sex Without Love: A Philosophical Exploration.
Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1980.
* Verene, Donald, ed. Sexual Love and Western Morality, 2nd
edition. Boston, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett, 1995.
* Wertheimer, Alan. "Consent and Sexual Relations," Legal Theory
2:2 (1996), pp. 89-112.
* Wojtyla, Karol [Pope John Paul II]. Love and Responsibility. New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981.
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