ask a question

recent responses

all topics

info

⚲

Gender

Are the psycho-sexual aspects of ourselves fixated from a relatively early age, so that "turn ons" are conditioned if not unalterably then in some way that fixes in ourselves certain ideas about what it is for something to be sexual in nature? Should considerations about this act as impetus to revise any aspects of the media and popular culture, including of course, pornography, which is one of the largest domains of media-culture despite being confined to less blatant forms of presentation (than, say, advertisments for "Big Macs")? Finally, I have the idea that cyber-porn (and to a lesser extent all cyber-sex) is covertly homo-erotic when men use it to get off on "straight" screen sex. This isn't entirely true, sex is sex and breasts are breasts, but the fact that a machine which could be (not unfairly) called a "boys toy" is being used as the platform for a mathematically constructed system of media exchange (viz. the world wide web) that was developed primarily by men. Crucially, the sex scenes...

(1) Are the psycho-sexual aspects of ourselves fixated from a relatively early age, so that "turn ons" [what we find sexually arousing] are conditioned if not unalterably then in some way that fixes in ourselves certain ideas about what it is for something to be sexual [to be sexual or to be sexually arousing?] in nature? ---Some philosophers argue about this. See Ed Stein's edited book, Forms of Desire , on the "essentialism" vs. "social constuctionism" debate. The question appears to be one for psycholgical theory (see Freud, e.g.). Perhaps what philosophers have been doing is to reflect metapsychologically on the issue. Some experimental research has been done on to what extent and how certain sexual desires can be modified (e.g., in the case of pedophilia and rape). See also Sylvere Lotringer, Overexposed : a study in behavioral modification through overstimulation and habituation. (The idea being, if one gets too much of a stimulus, one gets bored of it. Married...
Gender
Sex

What sorts of questions are considered in the philosophy of sex? Beyond questions of sexual ethics, it seems like most of the questions I can think of are better dealt with via anthropology or psychology.

I have but five things, now, to say in reply to this question. (1) Might you post several of the questions that you can think of that are not questions of sexual ethics and seem to you to be anthropological or psychological, not philosophical? Maybe I could show how they are, after all, philosophical, or could be approached philosophically as well as anthropologically, etc. (2) Here is a philosophical task for you: please define "sexual act" for me. I do not mean describe it ("it feels sooooo good"); I mean provide what some philosophers call an "analysis." What is it about sexual acts that make them sexual and that distinguish them from other kinds of acts? This task is not as easy as you might think (and it has practical import; recall Clinton and Lewinsky). (3) Might I suggest that the philosophy of sex deals with ontological, metaphysical, conceptual, historical/textual, and normative (ethical and nonethical) matters? If so, sexual ethics might be a rather small part of the terrain. (4) For a...