The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality

Brian D. Earp, Clare Chambers, Lori Watson, Lori Watson, Clare Chambers, Brian D. Earp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000582024
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This Handbook covers the most urgent, controversial, and important topics in the philosophy of sex. It is both philosophically rigorous and yet accessible to specialists and non-specialists, covering ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language, and featuring interactions with neighboring disciplines such as psychology, bioethics, sociology, and anthropology.

The volume's 40 chapters, written by an international team of both respected senior researchers and essential emerging scholars, are divided into eight parts:

I. What is Sex? Is Sex Good?
II. Sexual Orientations
III. Sexual Autonomy and Consent
IV. Regulating Sexual Relationships
V. Pathologizing Sex and Sexuality
VI. Contested Desires
VII. Objectification and Commercialized Sex
VIII. Technology and the Future of Sex

The broad scope of coverage, depth in insight and research, and accessibility in language make The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality a comprehensive introduction for newcomers to the subject as well as an invaluable reference work for advanced students and researchers in the field.

Part I What is Sex? Is Sex Good?

1 What is a Sexual Act?

Kristina Gupta

DOI: 10.4324/9781003286523-3

In 1998, Americans witnessed, and in some cases participated in, a very public debate about what counts as sex. When President Bill Clinton was accused of having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, he stated in a press conference that he “did not have sexual relations” with Lewinsky. Later, Clinton argued that he believed this statement was accurate because receiving oral sex did not count as “having sexual relations” based on the definition of sexual relations he had been given (Posner 2000). Americans in the late 1990s largely interpreted the relationship between Clinton and Lewinsky as an affair, and debated whether oral sex counts as sex. If this scandal had occurred in 2018, it is likely that the public debate would have been very different. In the context of the #MeToo movement – an international movement to hold men (particularly men in positions of power) accountable for sexual harassment and sexual abuse, particularly of female employees – the debate most likely would have centered on the question of whether what occurred between Clinton and Lewinsky was a consensual extramarital sexual act or the sexual abuse of a young female employee by the most powerful man in the country (see Lewinsky 2018; North 2018).

Just this one example suggests that the definition of sex is a site of contestation and debate, and that the terms of this debate can change over time (Lewinsky 2018; North 2018; Posner 2000). There are a number of ways that we could define what makes an act sexual – we could attempt a biological definition, we could develop a list of behaviors that we count as “sex acts,” we could investigate a particular society’s normative definition of sex, and/or we could ask individuals to share their personal definitions of sex. Scholars have pursued each of these routes and others, and it is clear from their efforts that there is no essentialist definition of sex. In other words, there is not a single criterion or set of criteria that would capture all sexual acts and only sexual acts and that would apply universally across space and time. However, even though there is no single definition of sex that applies in all circumstances, different understandings of sex matter at both individual and societal levels. In this chapter, I will begin by revealing the limitations of most attempts to develop a single, universal definition of sex. I will then offer a model for how people, at an individual level, might come to experience certain acts as sexual, depending on the interpersonal and social context. Finally, I will argue that although there is no essentialized, unifying definition of sexual activity, the ways in which a society conceives sexual activity have important implications for individual well-being and social justice.

Sexual Activity: Do We Know It When We See It?¹

The definition of “sexual activity” may seem obvious to many at first. But in fact, even a cursory attempt to define it quickly reveals that the definition is not so obvious after all. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) does not include a separate entry for the term “sexual activity,” but under the term “sex,” definition 4b reads, “physical contact between individuals involving sexual stimulation; sexual activity or behaviour, spec[ifically] sexual intercourse, copulation (Sex, n.1, n.d. OED Online).” Of the terms included in this definition, only sexual intercourse and copulation have their own entries. Copulation is defined narrowly as “the union of the sexes in the act of generation.” Sexual intercourse is defined as

sexual relations or union between the sexes…, copulation, coition; (now esp.) intimate sexual contact between two individuals involving penetration and typically leading to orgasm, which serves (between a male and a female of various species) as the means of sexual reproduction, and (in humans) typically expresses feelings of love or desire; an instance of this; (also in later use more generally) any form of sexual contact of this kind between members of the same sex.

(sexual, adj. and n)

These definitions from the OED suggest that there is some common agreement that specific activities – such as penile-vaginal intercourse involving penetration and orgasm leading to reproduction – count as “sex.” However, these definitions also suggest that other activities might count as “sexual activity” or “sexual behavior,” but do not give any guidance as to what these other activities might be.

Even scholars in the field of sexuality studies have offered somewhat confused or confusing definitions of sexual activity. In her oft-cited book, Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (2015), Jane Ward argues that heterosexual white men engage in significant amounts of same-sex sexual activity. To support this claim, she argues that some fraternity hazing rituals involving genital contact (e.g., fraternity members grabbing each other’s genitals) should count as sex, even though the participants in these rituals do not define these rituals as sexual acts.² On the one hand, Ward acknowledges that context matters when it comes to defining sex, writing: “I do not, for instance, believe that prostate exams are intended to be sexual experiences (even if some men are aroused by them), and therefore I would not classify them as sexual” (Ward 2015: 38). Yet, at the same time, she uses the judgment of a hypothetical queer couple to determine whether an act counts as sex, writing, “I asked myself, ‘Would a queer couple, perhaps on a first date, be likely to define this behavior as ‘sex’ or ‘sexual’ if they participated in it?” and if the answer was yes, I referred to the behavior as ‘sex’ or ‘sexual’” (Ward 2015: 38). According to Ward, because a hypothetical queer couple participating in the same physical acts required by the fraternity hazing ritual would define the activity as sex, it should be counted as sex. Yet, this definition does not fully satisfy. While reference to a hypothetical person is common in legal systems (e.g., would a reasonable person act this way?), it is also the case that reasonable people, including reasonable queer people, can disagree. Actual queer couples would probably come to different conclusions about whether an act is sexual or not. Not all people who identify as queer experience the same activities as sexual – for example, some people who identify as asexual (or not experiencing sexual attraction) engage in Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, and Sadism/Masochism (BDSM) activities that they experience as “not sex,” while others who engage in the same types of BDSM activities experience them as sexual acts (Sloan 2015). We cannot simply appeal to some kind of hypothetical queer couple to arbitrate the definition of sex for us. This example demonstrates that, when it comes to definitions of sex, even leading theorists of sexuality can end up a bit muddled.

More generally, it is clear from the work of scholars from a variety of disciplines that we cannot identify a single, consistent definition of sex that could accurately apply across time and culture, or across a range of contexts within a particular culture (for an overview of this discussion in philosophy, see Halwani 2010). If we define sex behaviorally, as a list of specific acts (e.g., penile-vaginal intercourse, oral-genital intercourse, solo masturbation), we come up against the problem that some acts or behaviors might be considered sexual acts in some contexts but not others. For example, as Ward suggests, the insertion of a finger into a vagina or anus might be considered a sexual act by participants in some contexts, but (perhaps) not in the context of, for example, a medical exam.³ Similarly, we cannot define sexual acts solely based on what part of the body they involve (e.g., acts involving genitals) as not all genital acts (e.g., urinating) are necessarily sexual and not all acts considered sexual by participants involve the genitals (e.g., foot licking or foot massage can be a sexual act for some). We also cannot define sex based on the presence or absence of orgasm, as not all acts considered sexual by participants involve orgasms and some acts that are not (necessarily) considered sexual by participants can produce orgasms (e.g., some people experience orgasms while exercising).⁴

We might define sex based on goals or objectives – for example, some might argue that sex is an activity that is engaged in for purposes of reproduction or pleasure or orgasm. Indeed, in an early philosophical discussion of what counts as sexual activity, Alan H. Goldman offers this kind of definition, stating, “sexual desire is desire for contact with another person’s body and for the pleasure which such contact produces; sexual activity is an activity which tends to fulfill such desire of the agent” (Goldman 1977: 268). However, this definition does not leave us any better off. People engage in what they and their societies consider to be sexual acts for a variety of reasons other than reproduction or pleasure, including money, security, reputation, curiosity, and interpersonal bonding, as well as domination, fear, insecurity, and so on. In addition, people gain pleasure – including bodily pleasure – from many activities that they and their societies would not consider to be sexual.

We might attempt to differentiate between sexual and non-sexual pleasures, but this takes us back to the original question of, what is sex(ual)? In popular culture, the similarities between subjective experiences of sexual and nonsexual pleasures are acknowledged through terms such as “foodgasm.” Studies of neurobiology also suggest that there is a connection between sexual and non-sexual pleasures, at least in terms of the brain system(s) involved and some of their characteristic operations. Based on a review of neuroimaging studies, Berridge and Kringelbach write,

Over the last decades, a growing set of results from neuroimaging studies have suggested that many diverse rewards activate a shared or overlapping brain system: a “common currency” reward network of interacting brain regions. Pleasures of food, sex, addictive drugs, friends and loved ones, music, art, and even sustained states of happiness can produce strikingly similar patterns of brain activity.

(Berridge and Kringelbach 2015: 659–660; see, also Georgiadis and Kringelbach 2012)

Far removed from the field of neurobiology, feminist poet Audre Lorde makes the related point that many different types of activities can produce qualitatively similar forms of pleasure, although in different quantities. In her famous essay “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Pleasure,” Lorde writes that many different activities – including home maintenance, writing, and sex – can produce what she calls erotic pleasure, stating

there is a difference between painting a back fence and writing a poem, but only one of quantity. And there is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the body of a woman I love.

(Lorde 1984: 58)

In this quote, Lorde is arguing that physical intimacy with a woman she loves produces a similar kind of pleasure as writing a good poem and painting a fence, although both physical intimacy and poetry-writing produce a greater quantity of pleasure, for Lorde, than fence-painting.

In addition to attempting to develop a conceptual definition of sex based on behaviors, body parts, and/or goals, scholars have also investigated how societies and individuals define sex normatively and in practice. It is clear that societal and individual definitions of sex vary cross-culturally and over time. The Western anthropological literature on sexual practices in non-Western societies is suspect, as anthropological observers have often viewed non-Western cultures as inferior, seen any sexual practices that differ from normative Western sexual practices as “deviant,” and used their own biased observations of “deviant” sexual practices in non-Western cultures as evidence of non-Western cultural inferiority, in a vicious reinforcing cycle (Lyons and Lyons 2004; see also Johnsdotter, this volume). Still, even when subjected to a suspicious reading, the anthropological literature suggests that different cultures have offered their me...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I What is Sex? Is Sex Good
• Part II Sexual Orientations
• Part III Sexual Autonomy and Consent
• Part IV Regulating Sexual Relationships
• Part V Pathologizing Sex and Sexuality
• Part VI Contested Desires
• Part VII Objectification and Commercialized Sex
• Part VIII Technology and the Future of Sex
• Index