College Sex - Philosophy for Everyone: Philosophers With Benefits (26 page)

Second, you could
drop
one or more of the beliefs or principles. For instance, Jane could let go of her particular belief that Li Mai is a slut. If Randy has straightforwardly conflicting beliefs (“Those who have pre- marital sex are sinners,” “I engaged in premarital sex,” and “I am not a sinner”), he can decide which to keep. If “an uninformed pre-orgasmic” person holds the principle that faking orgasms is okay, but would be upset if her partner faked orgasm, she could rid herself of the general pro-faking principle. It’s harder to drop a general principle than a spe- cific belief, but it does reduce the tension, and can be preferable. Consider Richard, who holds the tenet, “All homosexuals are evil pedophiles.” Richard could drop particular beliefs – like his judgment that his gay brother is not an evil pedophile – or he could get rid of the general prin- ciple. In Richard’s case, difficult as it may be, the latter choice is better.

Another approach is to
modify
one or more of the beliefs or principles. Randy might modify his original principle by toning it down: “Premarital sex is usually wrong but is permissible when a couple intends to marry.” Richard could modify his particular judgment by using a distinction many have invoked, between orientation and behavior: “All homosexuals are evil pedophiles, but my brother isn’t. He doesn’t act on his prefer- ences, so he isn’t a homosexual.” Jane could modify her principle (“The double standard is wrong, but promiscuous people are sluts”) as well as her particular judgments (“Not only is Li Mai a slut, so is Luke”).

Finally, a means to resolve tensions and increase reflective equilibrium is to
dissolve
the apparent tension, figuring out that the tension was merely apparent, as revealed by more careful self-examination and clarification. An “uninformed pre-orgasmic” person might take time to discover that the apparent disequilibrium was just a result of an ambiguity, so the two weren’t really in conflict. The “okay” in her pro-faking principle meant okay from the faker’s perspective, and the “not okay” in her anti-faking judgment regarding her partner meant not okay from the fakee’s per- spective, if you will. Randy might figure out that his anti-premarital sex principle never was as strong as he was thinking it was – it must not have been, because he was accepting of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy.

The beliefs and principles involved in wide reflective equilibrium include, importantly, those you’ve gotten from sources outside of your- self. If you learned somewhere that most campus rapes occur after alco- hol use,
15
it’s internally inconsistent to form beliefs that don’t take that knowledge into account. You also have some responsibility to seek out information relevant to your beliefs – for instance, about safer sex, signs of abusive relationships, and cultural influences affecting you. In addi- tion, you can be negligent in avoiding evidence available to you – as in Todd’s selective attention to the evidence of how good he is in bed, and Antoine’s failure to notice Erika’s signals.

John Heil gives us one more way of thinking about changing ourselves epistemically for the better. He argues that purposeful, intelligent activity can have an influence on how you perceive the world, which affects what you believe. You can explore, investigate, and manipulate your environ- ment; keep your eyes open for things that could override or contradict your beliefs; and notice when you should examine evidence extra- cautiously. You may not be able to simply decide to believe something and immediately believe it, but Heil and others argue that you can engage in long-term activities to change your mind (literally).
16

The View from Here

We’ve now looked at epistemological ideas, clarifications, theories, and distinctions that, in an ideal world, all college students would study.What I find most remarkable about the college years is their nearly entire focus on personal transformation. In college, you change and grow by gaining information, discovering alternative perspectives, developing an identity

as an ongoing autonomous being, and building a foundation of abilities. Research has found that few college students learn to evaluate critically and transform their beliefs and ways of thinking.
17
My vision is for stu- dents who may never have considered their own thinking about sex to gain resources for a lifelong process of guiding and developing their per- sonal approaches to sex and sexuality. Philosophical epistemology is an ideal resource of this kind.

Stevenson declares, “One must in the end make up one’s mind for oneself,” since to do anything less is “to be less than what one can and should be as a rational being.”
18
I would add that to do anything less is to be less than what one can and should be as a
sexual
being, as well.

NOTES

1. Alvin Goldman, “Strong and Weak Justification,”
   Philosophical Perspectives
   2 (1988): 51–69; and William Alston,
   Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge
   (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).
   

2. Kent Bach, “A Rationale for Reliabilism,”
   The Monist
   68 (1985): 246–63.
   

3. The Trustees of Columbia University, “Go Ask Alice! Nice Names for Naughty Bits,” available online at www
   .goaskalice.columbia.edu/5887.html (accessed July 20, 2009).
   

4. See discussion in David S. Hall, “Consent for Sexual Behavior in a College Student Population, Appendix A:The Antioch College Sexual Offense Policy,”
   Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality
   1 (1998), available online at www.ejhs. org/volume1/conseapa.htm (accessed August 20, 2009).
   

5. Charles Fried makes this argument well in a section entitled “The Evil of Lying” in
   Right andWrong
   (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 59–69.
   

6. Some good psychological sources clarifying and defending a range of intel- lectual development include the following: William Perry,
   Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years: A Scheme
   (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Bureau of Study Counsel/Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970); and Barbara K. Hofer and Paul R. Pintrich (eds.)
   Personal Epistemology: The Psychology of Beliefs about Knowledge and Knowing
   (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2008).
   

7. The Trustees of Columbia University, “Go Ask Alice! Can a Man Tell if a Woman Orgasms?” available online at www
   .goaskalice.columbia.edu/1413. html (accessed July 20, 2009).
   

8. Hilary Kornblith, “Distrusting Reason,”
   Midwest Studies in Philosophy
   23 (1999): 181–96.
   

9. Jennifer Church, “Taking It to Heart: What Choice Do We Have?”
   The Monist
   85 (2002): 361–80.
   

10. Margaret Talbot, “Dept. of Disputation: Red Sex, Blue Sex,”
    New Yorker
    (November 2008), available online at
    www.newyorker.com/ reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_talbot?currentPage=1 (accessed August 2, 2009).
    

11. Church, “Taking It to Heart,” p. 367.
    

12. Bach, “A Rationale for Reliabilism.”
    

13. Richard Foley, “Skepticism and Rationality,” in M. D. Roth and G. Ross (eds.)
    Doubting: Contemporary Perspectives on Skepticism
    (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989).
    

14. Leslie Stevenson, “First Person Epistemology,”
    Philosophy
    74 (1999): 475–97.
    

15. See Carleton College Wellness Center, “Alcohol and Sex,” available online at http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/w
    ellness/info/alcohol/sex/ (accessed August 20, 2009).
    

16. For instance, see John Heil, “Doxastic Agency,”
    Philosophical Studies
    43 (1983): 355–64; Church, “Taking It to Heart”; and David Christensen,
    Putting Logic in Its Place
    (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
    

17. Marcia Baxter Magolda,
    Knowing and Reasoning in College: Gender-Related Patterns in Students’ Intellectual Development
    (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992).
    

18. Stevenson, “First Person Epistemology,” p. 497.
    

GUY PINKU

CHAPTER 12

EXPLORING THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN LOVE AND SEX

Romeo and Juliet Talking about Sex and Love

We may imagine a modern day Juliet and Romeo walking in a romantic landscape, maybe the his- toric main street of St. Charles, surrounded by modest galleries, inviting small cafés, and glimpses of the slow lazy Missouri river nearby (one may imagine one’s own preferred romantic landscape). Our contemporary Romeo and Juliet

are not lovers but rather undergraduate college students and good friends who enjoy discussing their thoughts openly. Romeo is talking excitingly about a one night stand he had. He is describing the mutu- ally lusty gazes, the harmonious movements, and the extreme bliss he felt. Juliet, who is a romantic person (or a conservative one; it depends on your point of view), is waiting for some ending where both “fall in love”; however, nothing like this has happened. Romeo is describing it as “a perfect hot and lusty one night stand, not a love story.” Juliet can- not understand this. She feels that something is missing, and she believes that sex that doesn’t have any association to love is superficial and meaningless. Once she even tried it – attempting to relax and enjoy the moment, to be light as a breeze – but she couldn’t. The feeling of actually “making love” without feeling real emotion, the empty caresses, the hot but tasteless kisses and the intimate closeness of a stranger, all

seemed absurd to her. She cannot understand Romeo’s use of the phrase “a wonderful one night stand.”

Romeo respects Juliet’s feelings; however, he wonders whether they cover up something else. Maybe Juliet sincerely believes that she is a free and liberal person, but in fact she’s got some semi-unconscious prejudice against sex. Maybe, she assumes that sex is low and animalistic (even immoral in some sense) and that it is, somehow, purified by connecting it to a “noble” emotion of love. Juliet, however, reassures Romeo, that neither of these is true. She does not judge that sex without love is immoral or perverted in any sense, nor is her approach aesthetic (i.e., a view that might say sex without love is ugly). But she keeps feeling that “something is missing in sex without love.” She believes that it is limited and even vain.

I believe that Romeo and Juliet’s disagreement reflects different notions of sex. On the one hand, Romeo’s approach reflects a notion of sex as an activity in which one derives pleasure from physical contact with another person. On the other hand, Juliet assumes that there is an inherently unavoidable interpersonal aspect to sex. First, I will develop Romeo’s notion of plain sex. Then I will explore whether there is an interpersonal aspect to sex and whether this aspect constitutes an association between sex and love.

Plain Sex

One may suggest that “sexual desire is desire for contact with another person’s body and for the pleasure which such contact produces; sexual activity is activity which tends to fulfill such desire of an agent.”
1
This analysis defines sex as an act in which a pleasure is derived by having a physical contact with another person. This is a rough definition. It leaves open various questions, for example, whether
any
pleasure that is derived by a physical contact with another person is a sexual pleasure.

For our purpose, the notion of plain sex is important because it suggests an alternative to a “means-end analysis” of sex, that is, sex conceived as a mere instrument for some end. Traditionally, the analysis of sex as a mere instrument for reproduction was dominant.That is, reproduction was con- sidered as the natural function of sex; accordingly, sexual activity that devi- ated from it was considered as perverse and even immoral (e.g., oral sex, homosexual intercourse).
2
However, “the development of contraception

rendered the connection weaker.”
3
(Moreover, reproduction might be considered as “nature’s role” for sex, but often the individual’s motive is different.) According to the notion of plain sex, a conception of sex as an activity that expresses love is correspondingly mistaken. Sex is not an act that intends to achieve some function or express anything. Sex’s solitary inherent result is sexual satisfaction. Other “purposes of sex” are contin- gent. In other words, of course, sex may answer various needs and may communicate various feelings such as attraction, tenderness and trust, domination, and passivity; however, sex does not inherently communicate feelings (the act by itself does not express anything; it is not supposed to). Moreover, love might be better expressed by activities that are focused only in the receiver’s profit, such as helping your beloved with writing her term paper; however, in sex both of the parties intend to enjoy.

To recapitulate, one may maintain that the sexual act does not express anything all; it is just a plain pleasurable physical act (i.e., a strong posi- tion of plain sex). Alternatively, one may hold a moderate position: sex may express love, but it may express other feelings, or not express any- thing at all (i.e., a moderate position of plain sex).The bottom line is that even if sex may express love in some cases (which is controversial) there is neither a natural connection nor a normative one between love and sex; sex and love are different, not necessarily related phenomena. Therefore, nothing is missing or wrong with sex without love.