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Essay on Current Debates About Sexuality
We are all familiar with the feeling that our judgments on a certain matter are far from being supported by sufficiently rational argumentation. At the same time, in some cases, we also sense a strong reluctance to examine such argumentation. One of the areas we tend to do so the most, I believe, is in matters relating to sex. This is precisely what Igor Primoratz, in his Ethics and Sex, will not allow us to do. He demands that we test our notions in this area with the same rigor and incisiveness that we apply to other fields of thought.
The first attitude towards sex, which perceives it as properly related to procreation and marriage, has been the prevalent one in the West over the past two millennia, and although less fashionable today, it still remains significant in shaping our cultural perception on sexual intercourse. As in the past, this view continues to be espoused today by religious (especially monotheistic) thinkers. Primoratz rejects this attitude to sex because, among other difficulties, it relies on highly problematic religious assumptions.
The second, romantically inclined view of "sex as bound up with love" is probably the one most popular in current Western perception. Primoratz points out problems in Scruton's phenomenological account of sexual arousal (Primoratz 73-79) as related to individualizing intentionally; the normative assumptions implicit in what he presents as merely descriptive accounts; and Primoratz's equivocation of the term "interpersonal," and thus his equivocation between the requirement to respect others' wishes in sexual encounters and the requirement that love should (at least potentially) be part of all sexual encounters.
A third general understanding considers sex to be a form of communication. Such an understanding does appeal to our intuitions, but unlike the other understandings presented by Primoratz, it has not gained a foothold in popular culture, nor is it prevalent in philosophical literature......
