College Sex - Philosophy for Everyone: Philosophers With Benefits (28 page)

Romeo, however, may respond that sex without love might be a loving, intimate, and tender act as well. Romeo’s response is justified only on pain of holding a distinction between feelings of love that are limited to the sexual activity alone (i.e., a sexual love, which is related to the realm of primary emotional awareness of interpersonal interaction) and love that is typical to long-term relationships (i.e., a long-term love). A prom- inent difference between these sorts of love is their maintenance: sexual love is limited to the time of the sexual interaction – it is the feeling of “love to be with” one’s partner for sex, which disappears a short time afterwards. This is in contrast to “love as a long-term, deep, emotional relationship, between two individuals. As in this type of relationship, love is permanent at least in intent, and more or less exclusive.”
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More par- ticularly, long-term love assumes conceiving of, and taking care for, the spouse as a person; that is, directing one’s interest and caring of the spouse’s thoughts and emotions independently of a specific context or interaction. This assumes an advanced process of attributing mental states to another person. In contrast, sexual love is limited to a narrow context: the emotional state during a specific sexual interaction without an explicit consideration of the partner’s thoughts and emotions. According to this distinction, Romeo acknowledges that sex without sex- ual love (i.e., a loveless sexual act) might be experienced as limited, but maintains that this has nothing to do with love in the regular sense of the term “love.” That is, one may have loving sex only in the sense of sexual love. Thus, Juliet’s assumption that something is missing in sex with a non-lover might be regarded as adolescent confusion between a sexual love and a long-term love.

We can imagine two sorts of responses: Juliet may deny Romeo’s dis- tinction and argue that long-term love and sexual love are empirically

mingled (i.e., Romeo’s distinction is conceptual, at best). However, this reaction is not convincing; Juliet’s inability to distinguish long-term love and sexual love might be related to her lack of experience or to emotional immaturity. An alternative, more modest response might be to acknowl- edge the distinction between long-term love and limited sexual love, but to insist that these sorts of love have some association; accordingly, sex- ual love is often mingled with long-term love, e.g., sexual love often leads to long-term love. Due to the association between long-term love and short-term love, Juliet (and some other persons) finds it difficult to feel sexual love and intimacy without feeling (or intending to feel) long-term love. The knowledge that the love is limited to the sexual act alone vio- lates Juliet’s ability to feel love at all (even a limited sexual love). Juliet may mention three difficulties: first, a difficulty to “jump” into sexual love from a previous state of lack of love; second, during the sexual act itself she may find it strange to feel emotional accommodation (e.g., inti- macy and tenderness) to a person with whom she soon won’t have any contact; therefore, she experiences her feelings during the sexual act as limited and even artificial; and third, after the sexual act she may feel depressed because of the immediate transformation from a feeling of emotional accommodation to an absence of any feeling. Juliet longs for harmony in her feelings; a fragmentation of her emotion makes it diffi- cult for her to have any emotion at all.

At this point Romeo and Juliet, acknowledging the personal and prob- ably the gender differences between them, find nothing to say anymore; so they may immerse themselves in the delightful landscape of the his- toric main street of St. Charles, embodied in the experience of enjoying it together. And what about us? In order to maintain our integrity we may have to clarify whether (and when) we are more like Juliet and whether (and when) we are more like Romeo. What do we really want to achieve from our sexual life? Do we want to – are we able to – distinguish between short-term sexual love and a long-term bond of love?

NOTES

1. Alan Goldman, “Plain Sex,”
   Philosophy and Public Affairs
   6 (1977): 268.
   

2. Nowadays this approach is still identified with a religious approach. For exam- ple, Pope PaulVI, “HumanaeVitae” in R. Baker and F. Elliston (eds.)
   Philosophy and Sex
   , 2nd edn. (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1984 [1968]), pp. 167–83.
   

3. Goldman, “Plain Sex,” p. 271.
   

4. Immanuel Kant,
   Lectures on Ethics
   , trans. L. Infield (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 168; cited in Alan Soble,
   The Philosophy of Sex and Love
   (Minnesota: Paragon House, 1998), p. 51.
   

5. Russell Vannoy,
   Sex without Love: A Philosophical Exploration
   (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1980), p. 13.
   

6. Based (with some adaptations) on Vannoy,
   Sex without Love
   , p. 26.
   

7. Thomas Nagel, “Sexual Perversion,” in Alan Soble (ed.)
   The Philosophy of Sex
   , 2nd edn. (Savage: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991 [1969]).
   

8 Ibid., p. 47.

1. Ibid.
   

2. Ibid.
   

3. Vannoy,
   Sex without Love
   , p. 66.
   

4. John Barresi and Chris Moore, “Intentional Relations and Social Understanding,”
   Behavioral and Brain Sciences
   19, 1 (1996): 107–54.
   

5. Nagel, “Sexual Perversion,” p. 47.
   

6. Josef Tzelgov, “Specifying the Relations between Automaticity and Consciousness: A Theoretical Note,”
   Consciousness and Cognition
   6 (1997): 441–51.
   

7. Nagel, “Sexual Perversion,” p. 49.
   

8. Based on Bermúdez José Luis,
   Philosophy of Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction
   (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 203.
   

9. Ulric Neisser, “Five Kinds of Self,”
   Philosophical Psychology
   1 (1988): 35–59, here p. 41.
   

18 Ibid., p. 42.

1. Sexual activity between persons is far more satisfying than masturbation. However, according to the notion of sex as pure physical enjoyment, the orgasm itself (i.e., the highest physical pleasure) should be regarded as the main concern of sexual activity. Based on Solomon Robert, “Sexual Paradigms,” in Alan Soble (ed.)
   The Philosophy of Sex
   , 2nd edn. (Savage: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991 [1974]), pp. 39–52.
   

2. James Barrel, “Sexual Arousal in Objectifying Attitude,”
   Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry
   13, 1 (1974): 98.
   

3. Goldman, “Plain Sex,” p. 273.
   

M ATTHEW BROPHY

CHAPTER 13

SEX FOR A COLLEGE EDUCATION

Degradation for a Degree:A Tragic Paradox

Natalie Dylan, a 22-year-old college student, is auctioning off her virginity to afford her education. John Gechter, also 22 and a former college student, became a gay porn actor so that he could manage to pay tuition. The “girls” of VoyeurDorm.com are 13 students who allow themselves to be broadcast over the Internet so that they can meet col-

lege expenses. College students are turning toward sex exploitation as college expenses become unattainable. Is college tuition so high now that our youth have to prostitute themselves in order to pay for it?

In this essay, I explore a contemporary paradox confronting many col- lege students: that to become autonomous through higher education, they must subjugate themselves, sexually, to afford it. Higher education increases one’s autonomy, cultivates individual flourishing, and affords graduates greater opportunity. Paradoxically, the expense of a college edu- cation often coerces students to engage in sexual enterprises that betray a lack of autonomy, inhibit flourishing, and often result in personal degrada- tion. Though there are many manifestations of sexual exploitation, I will focus primarily on two: prostitution and webcam pornography.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate forms of sex exploitation among college students that are circumstantially coerced by the increasing expense of college. The arguments should not be mistaken as a sermon

against prostitution, pornography, or casual sex. I accept the possibility that prostitution could be ethically acceptable, if in idealized non-sexist, non-coercive circumstances. Unfortunately, these are not the circum- stances in which prostitution typically occurs, and it is not under these “ideal conditions” that college students are used, sexually, for money. My examples focus mostly on women, as they tend to be the first subjects of exploitation; however, I will discuss cases of male sex exploitation as well.

Prostitution for Higher Learning

Avia Dylan was 19 years old when she financed her education by working as a prostitute for Nevada’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch.
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She worked three weeks and earned several thousand dollars. Her sister, Natalie, is cur- rently auctioning off her virginity: the bids had reached $3.8 million dol- lars as of January 15, 2009.

Both of these sisters claim that their respective decisions to prostitute themselves were rational, free, and voluntary. Natalie attests that her sis- ter didn’t pressure her into auctioning off her virginity, and says that her own decision to auction off her virginity is actually empowering:

Deflowering is historically oppressive.… When I learned of this, it became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place. But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what’s to stop me from benefiting from that?
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Natalie, a former women’s studies graduate from Sacramento State University, plans to use the money to pay for a master’s degree in mar- riage and family therapy. She reasons, “We live in a capitalist society.… Why shouldn’t I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?”
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Natalie’s statements deserve philosophical examination. Namely, they introduce us to two moral controversies: commodification and consent.

Commodification: Using Oneself as a Mere Means

Students are increasingly viewing their own bodies as tools that they can exploit in order to gain much needed cash. The sharp line between the intrinsic versus instrumental value of the individual has become blurred.

Legally, commodification of a person is illegal: one cannot, for instance, sell one’s kidney for profit. Presumably, the law recognizes the intrinsic dignity of the human body, so it prevents the human body from being exploited.

A fertile woman, however, can sell her ova for implantation into another woman. The money gained – up to $10,000 – is supposed to be “com- pensation” and should not be motivating her to donate an egg if she wouldn’t otherwise have done so. This veneer of compensation is trans- lucent, especially when one Los Angeles company advertised for egg donors simply: “Pay your tuition with eggs.”
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The sexual exploitation of college students increases yearly, and it has been changing the way that such students view themselves.The advent of the Internet is one main catalyst for this change. Internet media teem with advertisements about “barely legal” pornography of supposed soror- ity girls performing X-rated acts, and “webcams” where a consumer can pay to watch a woman behave sexually while gratifying himself. Inundated with such marketing messages, college women cannot help but view themselves as potential sexual commodities to a vast sex market.

Human beings, however, possess intrinsic and unconditional value. This is the view presented by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) in his seminal book,
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
.
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Kant states in his “second formulation” that one ought not treat another or oneself as a mere means to an end, since doing so would be contrary to the recognition of this intrinsic and unconditional value. Humans are not objects to be used; they are subjects to be respected. Any action that treats a human being as a mere tool or object rather than as a person, who is worthy of respect and consideration, is an immoral action. For this reason, Kant condemns cas- ual sex as an act in which an individual objectifies not only the other person as a tool for his own sexual gratification, but moreover as an act in which he uses himself as a mere tool to satiate his lower-minded lusts. Religious morality echoes Kant’s sentiments, for many of the same rea- sons. Engaging in promiscuous, recreational sex can be fun for awhile, but it allegedly debases the dignity of the individuals involved.

While we might reject Kant’s condemnation of casual sex, his second formulation seems apt concerning prostitution.The prostitute rents out his body in a way that is not fully voluntary, and in a way that disrespects his intrinsic value and dignity as a person. A college student who prostitutes herself to afford college is denying her intrinsic worth: allowing her own body to be used as a mere tool by a stranger. Human beings are not tools, however, and so should not be treated as mere objects for another

person’s use.The intrinsic and unconditional value of human beings can- not be captured in terms of dollars and cents.While student prostitutes have a noble end in mind – to better themselves by earning a college degree – their means of getting there deeply violate their own integrity and value.