Lorraine ends with "which is why most people think sexual relationships between minors and adults are exploitive." Yes, but it is also the reason that some philosophers, legal scholars, and feminists think that heterosexual relations are also coerced and exploitative. Men have power, woman have less. Hence female consent is in doubt. Assuming women are subordinated, how do we then argue against pedophilia but for adult heterosexuality?

What is this question, the confession of a character in Desperate Housewives ? Glad to serve as your priest, or shrink: (1) "I am having an affair with a married man who ismy coworker. I did not begin the affair, he pursued me." What does this matter, that "he pursued me," if you ended up in bed together? Why mention something irrelevant? I suspect because it might not be true; you are engaging in rationalizing exculpation ("it's not my doing!") to evade responsibility. Are you conveniently forgetting or suppressing your attempts (either conscious or unconscious) to get him interested? Men very often approach only a woman who has already sent them subtle inviting messages. You ask, at the end , "Are his actions more unethical than mine?" This, too, suggests, that you are concerned with apportioning responsibility. ("He's worse than I am!") (2) "His wife doesnot know." How do you know this? Because he told you that he didn't tell her? Maybe he's lying. (He's...

Let's see if I got this right. Your GF and her GFs call themselves "sluts," and this bothers you, because you find it demeaning, etc., yet "slut," you say, "is not at all an accurate description of any of them." Well, what if it were? What if they often partied in the football team locker room? Would you find their behavior, and not merely the word, demeaning to themselves? My guess if that if you think the word is demeaning, then you also think the behavior is demeaning. That, I submit, is your mistake.

Instead of my rehearsing the arguments surrounding the Catholic prohibition of contraception (and its permitting, contrary to the teachings of St. Augustine, "natural family planning"), allow me to send you to the literature you should read to get a handle on the philosophical and theological issues. If you want to focus only on the 20th Century (bypassing Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas), you have to start with Pope Pius XI, "On Christian Marriage" ("Casti connubii"), Catholic Mind 29, 2 (1931): 21–64. Then read Pope Paul VI, "Humanae Vitae," Catholic Mind 66 (September 1968): 35–48; reprinted (pp. 167–83) in Robert Baker and Frederick Elliston, eds., Philosophy and Sex , 2nd edition (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1984). For criticism of Paul VI's encyclical, see (originally from Ethics ), Carl Cohen, "Sex, Birth Control, and Human Life," in Robert Baker and Frederick Elliston, eds., Philosophy and Sex , 2nd edition (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1984), pp. 185–99....

In what follows, I ignore "flirting," perhaps merely arbitrarily, because flirting is ubiquitous and seems too innocuous for a serious moral investigation; others might well disagree, and I ask them kindly to fill in the lacuna(e) in my reply. (Perhaps this question and its replies can be added to the "Sex" category of the web site.) I don't know what you mean by "cheated slightly ." We could have (there have been) many arguments, philosophical, theological, and polemical, over what counts as "cheating" and what doesn't, and what moral significance cheating of various types or degrees has. If only we could establish a continuum from tiny cheating to huge cheating.... To my ear, "I cheated [but only] slightly" sounds like an excuse someone might use to get off the moral hook (Clinton), hoping for a generous and sympathetic reply from the other person (he in effect got one from Hilary). As an older sister once said to her just-starting-college female sibling (in a full-page advertisement for a...

You might be interested in reading Innocent Blood by P.D. James. Some conservative sexual theorists would agree with your reasoning and use it as the reductio of the view that homosexuality is permissible (indeed, they might use it to criticize liberal sexual ethics altogether). A libertarian, and some liberals, would also agree with your reasoning, and accept the conclusion that incest, under certain conditions, would be permissible. Your point (3), by the way, is largely irrelevant, if you continue to frame it in terms of "love." Homosexual acts need not be justified in terms of their coming from or expressing love. Moral rights to self-determination (e.g., making decisions about how to conduct a satisfying sex life) seem enough. You could try to block the move from homosexuality to incest by invoking possible harms, but that might not be strong enough, especially because the harms would presumably be "self-regarding" (and few liberals accept moral paternalism). You raise a good question, and...

Emotion-less or emotion-free creatures/beings have been explored in science fiction, including Stanley Kubrick's "2001" and "Star Trek." See what Wikipedia says about the 1956 B&W movie, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers .

One thing you can do is to scroll down the list of panelists, and when you come to a dude named "Alan Soble," click on the arrow to the left of his name (not on the name itself, since all hell will break loose if you do that). Almost all the questions answered by this panelist have to do with sex, many with sexual ethics. If you are slightly more ambitious, you might go to his encyclopedia entry at http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/sexualit.htm or, if you are more than slightly ambitious, you might read his essay "The Fundamentals of the Philosophy of Sex," which is in his book The Philosophy of Sex , 4th edition only (Rowman, 2002), or even the entirety of his reader-friendly book, The Philosophy of Sex and Love: An Introduction (Paragon House, 1998). Your question admits of such a long answer that it is impossible to answer it here without a panelist's other obligations (moral, political, sexual, occupational) suffering a great deal. And, after all, sex is not all that important. As Marcus Aurelius...

You might want to consult question #341 on this web site. There I wrote, in response to the obverse question, "Why monogamy?", the following wiseacre answer that, nevertheless, contains some truth [which answer I have mildly revised, since it was first written on November 3, 2005]: Here are some standard replies to the question "Why monogamy?" (some worse than others): (1) Why not? [Vy a duck?] (2) Monogamy reduces your chances of contracting an STD; polygamy implies that you must trust more than one spouse or mate to be sexually faithful and to practice safe sex effectively if not faithful. (3) Monogamy is better than polygamy because you barely have enough time and energy and money for one relationship, let alone two. [Woody Allen: You want an orgy ? We can barely get 4 people together for bridge or bowling.] But: it is not necessarily true that it is more difficult to get along with 2 or 3 or 4 spouses in one dwelling than with only 1. The presence of the other spouse(s) may very well...

This is not exactly a "sex" question. I think it belongs under "law": what are the proper limits of the law in prohibiting behavior; what is the relationship between law and morality (bad taste, indecency); what are the various senses of "privacy" and how should the law handle violations of privacy? There are indeed many entires in the "law" area of this web site that speak to these questions. One problem I have with the question is that it does not state the law (statute) under which the man was prosecuted. Does Sydney have an explicit law that prohibits the use of photographic equipment on beaches where there is nude sunbathing? If so, why? Or was some other law invoked to prosecute this fellow? (Public nuisance? Environmental hazard?) I once lived, many years ago, in Austin, Texas; in the town there was [still is?] a large pool, Barton Springs, at which women were permitted to be topless. Men would gather around or outside the pool and watch/look/leer and take pictures. No one, as far as I know, was...