[Part of the Response to Prudes' Progress series, mostly a response to this bit. Trigger warning for rape.]
Sex-positive feminists have this weird tendency to say “anything between consenting adults is okay!” That’s really dumb. Five minutes’ thought will reveal that consenting adults can have all kinds of unethical sex.
For instance: it is not ethical to cheat on your partner or have sex with someone who’s cheating on their partner. It is not ethical to bring a child into the world when you can’t make sure that it’s properly taken care of (whether through adoption or parenthood). Reproductive coercion is not ethical. (In fact, reproductive coercion is abusive behavior.) Lying to obtain sex is not ethical. Having sex with someone when you have reason to believe they will regret it (for instance, because they believe premarital sex is immoral or because they’re not ready to have sex yet) is not ethical. Not giving a fuck about your partner enjoying themselves* is not ethical. Obviously, reproductive coercion and rape are far worse than having sex with someone who might regret it or not caring about your partner enjoying themselves, but these are all Bad.
I think instrumental sexuality is a mindset that often leads to behavior that hurts other people and yourself, and is therefore generally bad, even if the sex is consensual. I would call it bad in the same way hate is bad. A lot of people hate people and don’t hurt anyone, which makes it a bit difficult to call hate strictly immoral; in fact, some people find their hate empowering and enjoyable and generally happiness-maximizing. Certainly it is unreasonable to expect everyone to not hate anyone. Still, if you have a choice between hate and not hate it is generally a good idea to pick not hate, and if you have a choice between instrumental sexuality and not instrumental sexuality it is generally a good idea to pick the latter.
(Disclaimer Time: I’m not talking about mutually enjoyable BDSM that simulates instrumental sexuality here– I’m going to talk about that later, but suffice it to say that playacting disrespect and objectification is not the same as disrespecting and objectifying someone, as every good dom knows.)
Partially, this is because instrumental sexuality tends to lead to assorted kinds of asshole behavior. If you treat other people as a means to your orgasm, it’s very easy to be like “well, they consented, whether they’re happy about it afterwards is their own business.” Or “well, they consented, I don’t really have to care about whether they liked it.” Or “well, they consented, never mind I had to ask them half a dozen times first.” Yay, you get the coveted Not A Rapist Award,** go you.
And partially because I’ve noticed– in both my case and the cases of people I’ve talked to– that sex is actually the most fun when we have it with someone we like and want to be happy. Sex we’re having for validation, or as a conquest, or because everyone else is doing it, or out of a sense of duty or obligation, or to prove something to ourselves, or because we’d feel like a loser if we didn’t, or out of desperation, or because it’s something you’re supposed to do– that is, instrumental sex… well, it’s just less good sex.*** I’m a utilitarian. I want there to be more good sex in the world!
This is not, of course, to say only relationship sex or sex where you’re in love with your partner is good sex. You can like someone and want them to be happy and want to fuck them if you met them two hours ago! You can certainly like someone and want them to be happy and not be in love with them or want to date them. Conversely, you can be in love with someone or in a relationship of long standing with them and have all the instrumental sex.
*Please note that I mean “enjoying themself” in the broadest possible sense– for instance, someone can enjoy giving their partner pleasure, or playing a particular role, or exploring the limits of what their body can take, or whatever. Talk about what you want out of sex ahead of time! This message brought to you by Sex-Positivity.
**Except the third person, who gets the Possibly A Rapist Depending On The Exact Circumstances And What Definition of Rape We’re Going By Award. ***Every time I make a generalization about sex I get at least three people in the comments telling me that they are, in fact, completely the opposite of my generalization. So this footnote is to say that if you have sex for those reasons and it works for you and you aren’t hurting anyone else, great, knock yourself out. I dunno how much you’ll get out of the rest of the series though.
That movie is so awful. You’re completely right; it’s creepy.
The problem, for me, with the idea of “assume it is relevant unless you have evidence that it’s not” is that there are too many things that could be relevant to assume them all, and the only reason I see proffered for why we should assume only particular ones is that some are commonly prioritised by society, which has never struck me as a good enough reason for anything. For example, would you say that it’s more important to disclose your risk of having contracted an STD than your risk of having contracted a similar disease contagious in some other way? I can’t imagine why these should be different, but I have noticed that many people seem to think STDs are somehow special, presumably because they are associated with sex, which has always been treated differently from anything else by the culture in which I assume most of us (certainly me) exist. But I – as I said above – don’t think sex should be treated differently, and, by analogy, I don’t think there’s a good justification for picking some “potentially relevant concerns” as more important than others unless you know that they apply to a particular person, because the particular person asked about them.
On the other hand, it seems like we might actually largely be on the same page here – if, as your analogy seems to me to imply, you would agree with me that making those assumptions might be a good idea (because, after all, while individuals are in theory distinct, in practice picking the choices suggested by culture is a decent bet when the person you’re picking for is also part of that culture), but not an ethical obligation, which would, to me, demand a general theoretical justification. I’ve only been concerning myself with the question of whether it is *unethical* to fail to volunteer the information, which strikes me as wildly unfair for the above reasons, but I can certainly sign onto the position that failing to volunteer the information is a bad idea.
(I am also, I admit, not really bothering to address Irene at this point because I feel I made it clear that I simply disagree that a “promise” can or should carry any such moral obligation. Consent must be continuous to be valid. I don’t see the problem with that.)
I think it’s true that many people think STDs are special, but I think you don’t have to treat them as special in order to say it’s good to inform people that you have/may have a disease if they are about to take an action that puts them at risk of catching it. Especially if it’s a serious/long-lasting/incurable disease, but I also warn people if I have or think I’m getting a cold/flu and they ask to/normally do share my food, and I wouldn’t call colds/flu serious or long-lasting diseases. (They can be for some people or with some versions of the disease–but that doesn’t apply to the cases I’m thinking of.) I doubt that not wanting to catch diseases is a culturally specific thing, even though our culture gives us extra incentive to not want to catch STDs in particular.
I think what I’m trying to say is, I still haven’t forgiven Andrew Speaker.
Hm, all right. If you’re applying the principle consistently, there’s really nothing I can say except that I don’t really share it (at least, if you are implying that you consider it an ethical obligation rather than a personal preference). I generally feel like knowingly engaging in risky behaviour (from having unprotected sex to sharing food) means accepting the possibility that the risk might be otherwise than expected, so long as you weren’t explicitly lied to about it. That said, I don’t have any issue with other people choosing to live by different standards as long as nobody is trying to forcibly impose their views on anyone else – if those standards are internally consistent, which seems all too rare. Obviously, a self-contradictory standard must be intrinsically wrong, of course, which is one of the reasons there’s still so much room for argument, heh heh.