Many people in society today are having casual sex outside of the marriage more and more. Has sex lost its true purpose and morality? If so, is this correct and morally acceptable? Alan Goldman and Roger Scruton see sex and the morality of sex very different. Goldman believes sex is just that, sex between two people for pleasure while Scruton believe sex should always have love and emotion with a spouse or long term relationship. What is the true morality of sex and who is correct? Sex should be between two consenting people, but does emotions and love have to go hand in hand with sex?
Can there be morally acceptable sex without the love and emotions? Should sex be only with a life time partner or spouse or is sex morally acceptable between two consenting adults who sole purpose is for pleasure? About the only thing Goldman and Scruton agree on is that sex should be consensual, neither believe one should be forced or raped. Alan Goldman believes that it is morally okay to have sexual relations with anyone they choose and as often as they choose as long as both desire and behavior are present and both. No reason to assume that sex is only a good thing when engaged in love and desire.
There is nothing wrong with “Plain Sex” between two adults. There is nothing wrong with the simple desire for contact with another person’s body for pleasure and pleasure alone. Goldman feels that marriage is not required to experience sex. Sex is a pleasure. Just like having that bowl of ice cream after dinner. You do not need the ice cream, but is tasted good and is pleasurable so you enjoy and indulge. Goldman feels sex is the same, it is merely an activity that you enjoy and is pleasurable. Just like Kantian’s theory as long as oth enjoy themselves and receive pleasure, then sex is not morally wrong between two people outside a relationship, Goldman feels the same way.
Alan Goldman feels that a long term monogamous relationship with its goal of love will only feed to a repression of sexual desire. A sexual desire that is not always meet in a long term relationship. Sexual desire is just a desire for contacts with another person’s body with the goal of sex is the pleasure that the person gives. Goldman admits that sex can be a means of love and reproduction, but that those aspects are not needed for the act of sex to receive the desire and pleasure.
Bringing in emotion and love can complicate the activity that could potentially take away that pleasure one is looking for. MeansEnd Analysis is an activity as a means to ones end with the end purpose of pleasure. Goldman says we are like animals and to let our animal impulses free and not hold sex as anything more than just that, Sex. Sex is a natural purpose like an animals impulse. That there is no such things as casual love, but there is casual sex. Sex is plan sex and nothing else. Goldman says sex is more like a business agreement between two consenting adults.
Both adults desire for contact with another person’s body for the pure pleasure. Adding anything in to the activity takes away from the pleasure and the desire such as emotions. Roger Scruton says that sexual desire is always about interpersonal relations between two people in a long term loving relationship. Sex should only involve love and that love is the fulfillment of desire therefore love is its purpose and that sexual desire resides within the marriage. Sexual activity should have love, emotions and reproductions. That the whole person is desired for love and compassion, not just for sex organs.
That to have the ultimate sexual experience is with someone you love. Scruton views takes on more of an Aristotelian view. Aristotelians are more to do with feeling, right choices for the better, and acting will. More on the characteristics of peoples and their values, like putting value into sexual relations, not just sex. Per Scruton, sex is not a sexual consumption. Focusing only on the body over the person themselves, we turn sexual desire into sexual consumption. Sexual relations have love, compassion and desire. Plus sex is not only a desire but an escape of a force of two bodies in a deep connection.
When you have a sexual relations with someone you do not love, you are just alone. When you have sexual relations with someone you love, you are not alone but yet you are hand in hand with that other person. Unlike Goldman saying people have animal instinct and we are like animals when it comes to sex. Scruton says sexual desire is what distinguishes us from animals. Animals do not have that desire, compassion and love that we humans need. To connect to another human in sexual relations always involves emotions and feelings.
That we cannot just shut down our emotions. Sex should involve love. That love is the fulfillment of desire therefore love is its purpose. Roger Scruton says sexual morality is that sexual desire makes it in intuitively obvious that torture is more abhorrent, but only astonishing for a few seconds. To have loved and cared for one person in a long term relationship though sexual desire is how to value them and not to act towards them. So who is right and who does most people agree with? I feel sexual desire is best shared, loved and desired with that special someone.
I do not hold anything against anyone for having sex outside a long term relationship, but feel that one should wait. Waiting for that right person puts that love and compassion into the activity that makes it feel whole, otherwise it is just sex and unfulfilling sex. Alan Goldman and Roger Scruton have good points on the views of sex and its morality. To some people, sex can just be sex, but the things is, sex wasn’t meant to be just sex. Sex is the intimacy between two people that should be cherished and enjoyed, not to degrade it as just another activity.
I feel that we have a lot of children outside of marriage because we have become so free with having sex with anyone we choose. Sexual activity was meant for reproduction with someone you love so that you can have a family. We have a lot of children growing up outside of the typical family setting that have siblings with different fathers or mothers. What happened to our family units and values? Talso feel that waiting for sex with that one person, prevents so many different diseases. We have so many different diseases anymore today that can all be prevented.
Even though there are a lot of different contraception out there that is to help keep from spreading diseases, none of them are full proof. The only full proof is abstinence until you find that right someone. It keeps you, your partners, and your future safe and protects you. You will experience the sexual desire you should, not just empty sex. There are many different views on sexuality being morally acceptable outside a committed relationship. Yes people can have plain sex outside a marriage, but it being morally acceptable is the big debate. This will probably continue to be a debate until the end of time.
I do not personally hold it against people for having sexual relations outside a committed relationship, but I do feel that sexual relations outside a committed relationship loses its meaning. I believe it is morally unacceptable to have sexual relations outside a marriage or committed relationship. If we were to stay inside a long term relationship, the likelihood for a transmitted disease would greatly decrease if not exist at all. Plus there are so many unplanned pregnancies. We have so many different children today being born in broken homes. Is sex just sex? Maybe to some, but not to everyone.