Philosophy of Love and Sex

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Philosophy of Love and Sex

• Monogamy

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• I. Conventional Monogamy
• This is the standard husband-wife sexually
  monogamous relation.
• II. Modified Monogamy
• Non-exclusive monogamy
• Trial marriage
• Gay marriage

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• Kerista
• Compersion
• III. Nonmonogamous Matrimony
• Polygamy comes in two varieties
• (i) Polygyny, in which one man has many wives
• (ii)Polyandry, in which one woman has many
  husbands
• (b) Group marriage, in which there are at least
  two members of each sex, and each man is married
  to each woman in the group.
• IV. Nonmarital Relationships
• These include a variety of non-binding and
  readily terminable relationships.

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Roger Scruton, excerpt from Sexual Desire

• To give and receive this erotic love is to
  achieve something of incomparable value in the
  process of self-fulfillment.in erotic love the
  subject becomes conscious of the full reality of
  his personal existence, not only in his own
  eyes, but in the eyes of another. 125

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Scruton, Sexual Desire

• It is therefore unquestionable that we have
  reason to acquire the capacity for erotic love,
  and, if this means bending our sexual impulses
  in a certain direction, that will be the
  direction of sexual virtue.there are sexual
  habits that are vicious, precisely in
  neutralizing the capacity for love. The first
  thing that can be said, therefore, is that we
  all have reason to avoid these habits and to
  educate our children not to possess them. 70
  

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Scruton, Sexual Desire

• Because jealousy is one of the greatest of
  psychical catastrophes, involving the possible
  ruin of both partners, a morality based in the
  need for erotic love must forestall and
  eliminate jealousy. It is in the deepest human
  interest, therefore, that we form the habit of
  fidelity. 70
• Sexual virtue involves temperance
• the disposition to desire what is desirable,
  despite the competing impulses of animal lust
  (in which the intentionality of desire may be
  demolished) and timorous frigidity (in which the
  sexual impulse is impeded altogether).

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Scruton, Sexual Desire

• The personal and the sexual can become
  divorced in many ways. The task of sexual
  morality is to unite them, to sustain thereby
  the intentionality of desire, and to prepare the
  individual for erotic love. Sexual morality is
  the morality of embodiment the posture which
  strives to unite us with our bodies, precisely in
  those situations when our bodies are foremost in
  our thoughts. 71

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Scruton, Sexual Desire

• Sexual purity does not forbid desire it
  simply ensures the status of desire as an
  interpersonal feeling. The child who learns
  dirty habits detaches sex from himself, sets
  it outside himself as something curious and
  alien. His fascinated enslavement to the body
  is also a withering of desire, a scattering of
  erotic energy and a loss of union with the
  other. Sexual purity sustains the subject of
  desire, making him present as a self in the very
  act which overcomes him. 71

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Wasserstrom, Is Adultery Immoral?

• It is perhaps not desirable for sexual
  intimacy always to carry messages of
  affection, trust, commitment, etc.
• In other words, it might be good to
  demystify sex by disentangling it from
  monogamous love and allowing the enjoyment
  of sex for its own sake.

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Wasserstrom, Is Adultery Immoral?

• Wasserstrom analyses two approaches to the
  demystification of sex
• 1. The disentanglement of sex from love and
  affection
• 2. The disentanglement of love from
  exclusivity.
• Analogy with love for multiple children

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Wasserstrom, Is Adultery Immoral?

• A1 An open marriage is one in which the spouses
  agree to some combination of 1 and 2.
• O1A1 An open marriage isnt really a marriage
  at all. Marriage by definition aims at sexual
  and romantic exclusivity.
• Wasserstrom rejects O1A1 . He argues that
  marriage, by definition, certainly rules out a
  prohibition on sexual intercourse between the
  spouses. But it doesnt by definition forbid
  extra-marital sex.

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Wasserstrom, Is Adultery Immoral?

• A2 Open marriages / adultery is wrong because
  a prohibition on extramarital sex helps to
  maintain the institutions of marriage and the
  nuclear family.
• Wasserstroms response?

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Bonnie Steinbock, Adultery

• Regarding Wasserstroms suggestion that one
  might separate love from sex
• People naturally have feelings of affection
  for those who make them happy, and sex is a very
  good way of making someone extraordinarily
  happy. At the same time, sex is by its nature
  intimate, involving both physical and
  psychological exposure. This both requires and
  creates trust, which is closely allied to
  feelings of affection and love. This is not to
  say that sex naturally leads to love but a
  conception of the relation between love and sex
  that ignores these factors is inadequate and
  superficial. 229

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Steinbock, Adultery

• Regarding Wasserstroms suggestion that one
  might separate love from exclusivity
• Having an affair (as opposed to a roll in the
  hay) requires time and concentration it will
  almost invariably mean neglecting ones spouse,
  ones children, ones work. More important,
  however, exclusivity seems to be an intrinsic
  part of true love.In our ideal of romantic
  love, one chooses to forgo pleasure with other
  partners in order to have a unique relationship
  with ones beloved. Such renunciation is
  natural in the first throes of romantic love it
  is precisely because this stage does not last
  that we must promise to be faithful through the
  notoriously unromantic realities of married
  life. 229-230

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Susan Mendus, Marital Faithfulness

• Two traditional objections to the marriage
  promise
• It includes a promise to love, but feelings are
  not directly under the control of the will.
• It extends over too long a time period. Only
  short-term promises carry moral weight, since
  peoples character can change radically over
  time.
• Mendus focuses on the second objection, and
  argues that it is an ineffective one.

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Frederick Elliston, Gay Marriage

• Arguments Against Gay Marriage
• A1 Marriage historically has functioned to
  provide a secure and loving context for
  raising children. Gay marriages are not
  reproductive.
• O1A1 Unless we are prepared to deny
  marriage to other non-reproductive couples,
  it is morally inconsistent to deny it to gays.

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Frederick Elliston, Gay Marriage

• A2 Roman Catholicism asserts that conjugal
  love is intrinsically bound to procreation
• O1A2 Why should the special teachings of one
  sect decide the law for all of society?

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Frederick Elliston, Gay Marriage

• A3 Children of gay couples will suffer
  ridicule, identity confusion, etc.
• The discussion of this point is long and
  complex. Here lets focus on one response
• O1A3 The source of ridicule is social
  prejudice, not homosexuality per se. (Analogy
  with interracial marriage) Identity confusion
  is no more a problem for gay couples than for
  single parents.

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Frederick Elliston, Gay Marriage

• A4 Homosexuals have no right to demand
  that society promotes through marriage laws
  something it does not approve of.
• O1A4 Societys actual values may be
  misguided on this matter they should not
  be the final court of appeal.

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Frederick Elliston, Gay Marriage

• A5 Legalizing gay marriage puts us on a
  slippery slope to legalization of group
  marriage, polygamy, etc. which would undermine
  the family institution.
• O1A5 Gay marriages retain the essential
  characteristic of monogamy, so the slope is
  not so slippery.
• O2A5 There may be good reason to challenge
  our binary frame of reference for
  legitimate sexual behaviour.

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• Human beings were meant to be monogamous like
  other animals, it's how we bond and mate.
• just the opposite has been argued (Barash and
  Lipton, The Myth of Monogamy Fidelity and
  Infidelity in Animals and People)
• monogamists, according to this argument, are
  going against some of the deepest evolutionary
  inclinations with which biology has endowed most
  creatures.
• most animals actually not monogamous

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• 2. Open relationships are unnatural, abnormal,
  and immoral.
• based on the notion that monogamy is natural,
  normal, and moral and that any other relationship
  style is wrong
• is a norm in our current society, but norms
  change over time, monogamy is a norm like any
  other that is subject to reevaluation, and that
  some people might not choose as best for
  themselves

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• 3. People in open relationships have
  psychological problems.
• people in nonmonogamous relationships no more or
  less dysfunctional than those in monogamous
  relationships
• one study showed that an individual in an open
  relationship tends to be individualistic, an
  academic achiever, creative, nonconforming,
  stimulated by complexity and chaos, inventive,
  relatively unconventional and indifferent to what
  others said, concerned about his/her own personal
  values and ethical systems, and willing to take
  risks to explore possibilities.
• open relationships require well-developed
  relationship skills people in them tend to have
  more self-awareness, better communication skills,
  and a better sense of self.

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• 4. People in open relationships have intimacy
  issues and trouble with commitment.
• assumption underlying this is that true intimacy
  can only be achieved between two people in a
  monogamous relationship
• assumption also - if you are emotionally and
  physically intimate with more than one person, it
  "dilutes" the intimacy of each relationship.
• monogamy does not automatically foster intimacy
• -people in non-monogamous relationships are
  cultivating an intimacy/relationship style that
  works best for them - they are not (necessarily)
  running from intimacy and commitment

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• 5. If you're nonmonogamous, it's because you are
  confused and indecisive.
• it's not because they can't choose between
  partners - it's because they feel/believe
  strongly that they shouldn't/don't have to.

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• 6. Polyamory is just a fancy term for
  promiscuity.
• not all about sex
• may encompass friendship, companionship, support,
  camaraderie, love, intimacy, connection,
  commitment.
• also - having an active sex life with more than
  one person - why is that so automatically assumed
  to be a bad thing?

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• 7. Nonmonogamy is physically dangerous you're
  more likely to get diseases because you have
  multiple partners.
• -There is no evidence that nonmonogamous people
  have a higher rate of STD/STI than monogamous
  people.
• -safer sex is generally one of the main rules of
  peoples' open relationships.

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• 8. Nonmonogamy is no different from cheating.
• Cheating involves lying, deception, and breaking
  a commitment previously made.
• successful nonmonogamy involves everyone telling
  the truth, and respecting the rules agreed upon.
• consensual nonmonogamy - all parties involved
  have agreed to the arrangement.

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Myths about Polyamory from Opening Up, by
Tristan Taormino

• 9. Polyamory is an unhealthy environment in which
  to raise kids.
• monogamous family situations - have often proved
  to be completely unhealthful for children (not
  necessarily so - just that monogamy doesn't
  ensure a successful and healthy environment for
  children)
• important thing for children is to have
  stability, and for parents to be honest with them
  (age-appropriate level) about their
  relationships.
• often more adults/support for children in
  polyamorous family situations

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• Primates and monogamy
• Gibbons - mainly monogamous
• Chimps - polyamorous
• Gorillas - dominant male / harem structure
• Where are we?

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• Mixed monogamy many mostly monogamous relations
  with moderate infidelity, and dominant males
  taking several partners where possible.
• In hunter-gatherer cultures its hard for any
  one man to accumulate vast resources.
• With the rise of agriculture accumulation became
  feasible, as did massive harem structures.