Is it wrong to fantasize about sex with children? If a pedophile never acts on their fantasies are they still guilty of having evil thoughts, assuming that their abstinence comes out of a genuine desire not to do harm?

I'm sympathetic to most of what Professor Heck says, if we consider things from a deontological or even a consequentialist point of view, where the relevant consequences are external to the agent. Fantasy does not violate anyone's rights, and fantasy that never motivates action will not result in actions that harm anyone. But I think there is a plausible way of looking at things that would still find fault with fantasizing about having sex with children, and that would come from the aretaic (or virtue-theoretic) way of thinking, according to which the primary bearer of value is to be found in characteristics of agents. One who indulges in fantasies about sex with children is doing something that both reflects--and also perhaps perpetuates and sustains--a certain trait of character that we might think is not entirely wholesome or admirable. To the extent that we can regard one who indulges in such fantasies as having a trait of character that is improvable, we might also think that some attempt to...

Suppose you have been in a relationship with your partner for several years (no marriage, no children). Even though you still have strong emotional feelings for your partner (to the extent that you would claim to love her/him), you are no longer sexually attracted for him/her. While your partner can do without the physical aspects of your relationship, you feel to miss out on something important in your life. Is it selfish to end the relationship, even though the breakup would be very hard for your partner and you don't want to hurt him/her? In other words: Is it immoral to choose sexual desires over friendship and mutual love?

It sounds to me as if what you need to do is to have a frank conversation with your partner about things. Sexual attraction for a partner can ebb and flow, and one option might be that some good communication would improve things between the two of you on that front. Alternatively, you could stay together in an "open" relationship, where the value of your partnership can be preserved but not at the cost of your sexuality. The point is that between the two of you, communicating well about what you have and what you (now) lack, there might be some creative problem-solving that would give a more optimal result than the options you are currently considering.

If two drunk people have sex, is it rape? Is it immoral?

Let's take your second question first: Is it immoral? First, what counts as immoral will reflect which general theory of morality one has in mind. If you shift away from the having sex part to the getting drunk part, I can imagine that some virtue theorists would think that this alone qualifies as non-virtuous, and thus the decision to have sex being made under non-virtuous conditions. A consequentialist would take into consideration other factors, such as reasonably expected outcomes of drunken behavior (such as lapses in the prudent use of contraception, for example). Given that decisions to have sex can have morally significant consequences, it does seem that the impairments that we all know go with being drunk are morally significant ones. Deontologists stress personal autonomy, and while the decision to get drunk might be made autonomously, it is more difficult to regard the behavior of very drunk people as exhibiting a morally appropriate level of autonomy--including most importantly, the...
Sex

What have philosophers said about the idea that sex results in babies so therefor we should look at the meaning of any sexual act in terms of sexual reproduction? It does seem as if we didn't evolve to have sex without reproduction and therefor sex without reproduction is a modern phenomena not attached to our evolutionary nature. So maybe our emotional responses to sex and the feelings of shame that correspond with sex might be because of this evolutionary nature?

Something seems to have gone a bit wrong here. There can be no doubt that human evolution has effects on our sexualities, but I see no reason at all to agree with the reduction of all sexuality to reproduction. Sexuality can manifest itself in sociality and other very important aspects of human life--aspects required for fitness in the environments we inhabit. The very fact that human females are only fertile for a fraction of each menstrual cycle--but can be sexually active throughout that cycle--seems to me to show clearly that there is more to sexuality than reproduction. So I'm afraid I'm inclined simply to reject the assumption behind this question.

I recently read an article in the New Yorker about a sex offender who had a preference for 13-14 year old girls. One of the things that struck me was when one of the psychologists noted that he was under the delusion that 13-14 were capable of consenting to sex. While I don't personally find 13-14 year old girls desirable it seems strange to say that they are unable to consent to sex. What makes them unable to consent to sex? Is it because they don't understand what sex is? What understanding of sex does a 13-14 year old not know that an adult doesn't? It seems like an interesting claim to say that 13-14 has a fundamentally different understanding of sex than am adult. Of course most have not had experience with sex but nobody thinks that it's wrong to have sex with a virgin. Most 13-14 Year old girls do fantasize about sex though. Aren't there some feminists who believe that the idea of an age of consent is oppressive to women because it treats young girls as incapable of consent? Afterall, we often see...

So there are a few issues to clarify here, but first, a disclaimer: I am not an expert on the law, and will not be speaking from the point of view of interpreting the law. That said, however, it does seem to me that an "age of consent" is an appropriate legal construct. The idea is that 13-14 year old children have simply not developed far enough, not just morally, but most importantly neurologically , to be very good yet at forecasting consequences of their actions. With respect to issues like sex, it is not unreasonable to think that if young teenagers are not yet capable of forecasting consequences of their actions--by which I mean not just being able to think or say, "I might get pregnant," or "I could catch some STD," but actually appreciate what such an outcome would mean for them--then they are reasonably thought not to have what it takes to give genuine (i.e. morally significant) consent. Of course, many girls that age know about sex, and some even have sexual fantasies. Some,...
Sex

Is our society's assumed negative view of pre-marital sex only because of what is said about it in the Bible? Or does this also account the fact that sex is used for procreation? But at the same time, why is it more shocking to hear that a high school student hasn't had sex rather than has?

I suspect that you put it well when you state that it is our society's "presumed negative view," since I suspect that it is a minority of people who actually do marry as virgins these days. So if our actual cultural values are reflected in our practices, then I think what we find is that only a minority actually share the negative view of which you speak. Truly, I think even where there is some sort of negative view, it falls within something of a double standard: We have a negative view about others engaging in pre-marital sex (especially if the others happen to be our daughters!), but we do not regard that view as applying to our own behavior. Anyway, I think that most people now realize that pre-marital sex is much more the norm than the exception, which is why it is more surprising to hear of someone in their late teens who has not yet had sex than to hear that they have. I'm not sure what the current statistics are, as to high schoolers, but obviously the percentage who have had sex will go...
Sex

On December 9, 2005, Nicholas D. Smith wrote a response that said in part: "For the ancient Greeks, prostitution was entirely socially acceptable... whereas free males were expected never to commit oral sex (on any sex partner, male or female)." From what text(s) do we know this? Is there some text in which it is explicitly forbidden? Or do we infer it from stories and plays?

The gounds for my claim are twofold. On the topic of committing oral sex on females, it is an inference based upon the practice being treated as shameful in Aristophanic comedy. (See the note on this in Jeffrey Henderson's The Maculate Muse on p. 185; though compare what Henderson has to say on p. 52--obviously, I draw a different inference from the evidence! See also Kenneth Dover's understanding, given in his Greek Homosexuality on p. 102.) As for oral sex on males, those who were eligible to become citizens in Athens could be denied this opportunity if evidence could be given that the candidate had ever allowed any part of his body to be sexually penetrated. For other evidence, see Dover, p. 99.

Why is prostitution considered immoral, as long as it is a service that is provided, just like the service of a driver or a cleaning person? Why is a prostitute seen like a person of low value and why do we think it's immoral that she sells herself for money, because, if we think about it, any person who works and gets paid is also selling himself for money. Thank you!

Kinda depends on what you think is OK to buy, sell or rent, doesn't it? We don't accept slavery, because we don't think people should be for sale or should ever be owned--though we accept that it is OK to pay for the labor that people can perform in some cases. So I agree with the premise of your question: in general, we seem to be OK with paying for services. Is sex something that we should (or could permissibly) think of as a kind of service? Notice that such a view of sex is different from the view we take in romantic circumstances. There, we take sex to be a kind of intimacy between two people--a way of relating lovingly to one another. Prostitution, I think it is safe to say, isn't like that. It is more, as you say, like a service. But surely one could reasonably wonder whether thinking of sexual acts as services is the right way to conceive of them. Now, as with so many ethical questions, we might find that we are led to different sorts of answers if we apply different kinds...

Sexual harassment is often defined as "unwanted sexual attention." Isn't the idea that all sexual attention must be "wanted" by a women for it to be okay simply a perpetuation of the idea that women have no independent existence outside of the wants and needs of men? Don't women have the right to be indifferent to sexual attention? And don't women have the right to interpret unwanted sexual attention in other ways other than thinking of it as harassment? Basically I find it incredibly ironic that one of the the pillars of modern feminism has such a weirdly sexist underpinning.

I just answered a question very like this one. It isn't sexual harassment to express interest in a woman in a social circumstance, at least in the first instance. There are lots of ways of doing this that are rude, crude, and stupid, of course. But it is only "harassment" if it continues after a clear expression of non-interest has been conveyed by her. If I go up to a woman in a bar and express sexual interest, it is not harassment, even if I am clumsy about it. That would make me a loser, maybe, but nothing in feminism (or in the legal concept of harassment) makes it harassment in the first instance. If I continue after she has told me to take a long walk off a short pier, well, then, it starts at that point to become harassment, and yes, women (and men) have a right not to be pestered and...well, harassed!

The law currently defines sexual harassment as "unwanted sexual attention. There is more to the definition but in my own workplace the policy specifically defines sexual harassment as "any unwanted sexual attention". However I recently went out on a date with a girl that I wasn't interested in having "casual sex" with. She however proposed that we do just that. I therefor received "unwanted" sexual attention from her. However, I don't believe that I was harassed one bit. I have seen numerous website that declare dogmatically that women have a "right" to not experience "unwanted" sexual attention. I can't help but to think to myself that that is sheer lunacy. In my mind nobody has a right to not experience "unwanted" sexual attention and that "unwanted" sexual attention is not even a big deal. The term "unwanted" is a fairly neutral term and many things which are neither unpleasant nor pleasant can fit into that category. So how can such a obviously poorly defined definition of sexual harassment continue...

As I understand it, the issue at stake here is that people (and not just women) want to be able to regard their workplace as just that--a workplace. The minute someone in that place begins to give sexual attention to someone else in that workplace, the environment is changed--and changed in a way that makes the workplace no longer an entirely comfortable place to work. There are obviously degrees of sexual harassment, and I frankly don't think that giving unwanted sexual attention (that is in no way coersive) on a date could count--either ethically or legally--as harassment. But it is different in a workplace. If you find someone's sexual interest or expressions thereof unwanted on a date, you can always refuse to go out on another date with that person. But if you have to deal with this at a workplace, your only option is to try to find another job--which these days can be a major problem, and which a good worked should not have to feel that he or she has to do, to avoid someone acting in...

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