Margaret Mead Japan China Religie en seks Moral panics Seks en robots Seksuele ontwikkeling Seksualisering Leeftijdverschillen Geweld en misbruik Consent Sexting Prostitutie Pornografie"Romance is typically assumed to require exclusivity and to preclude giving comparable attention to anyone outside the couple. But why? There’s no reason why intensity of love must be correlated with possessiveness or exclusivity." Patricia MARINO - Philosophy of sex and love - An opinionated introduction, p.212
Patricia MARINO[En weer wordt de halve wereld bedankt, maar toch vooral die ene fantastische echtgenoot. Mag ik een teiltje?]
"Further, it might seem especially peculiar to use the style of philosophy I use here, sometimes called “anglophone” or “analytic” philosophy, which aims for – some might say “fetishizes” – clarity, precision, and logic."(1)
"The kind of thinking associated with analytic philosophy prioritizes teasing out implicit assumptions, questioning them from various angles, and asking whether they should be set aside. In this way, the “thinking” of philosophy, especially when combined with observation from ordinary life and analysis from other disciplines, can give us important new insights, and make us question what had previously seemed obvious or self-evident."(1)
"Though ancient Greek philosophers discussed sex alongside other matters of everyday life, most philosophers in the Western tradition since had little or nothing to say about sex and love. This lack of attention is striking, since sex and love are of such obvious centrality in our lives. With respect to sex, no other personal activity is simultaneously so important to so many people and yet also so widely moralized about and regulated by social constraints like law and religion. And love pervades our everyday lives..."(1)
"Rather than attempting a cross-cultural analysis, I focus here on North America, and I engage mainly with philosophy in the English-language tradition." [mijn nadruk] (6)
[Wat jammer nu...]
"Examining sexual objectification forces us to explore what exactly it means to look on another person as a sexual being and interact with them on those terms, and it forces us to think about the ethics of doing so."(8)
"Many such interactions seem to dehumanize their targets in ways that are clearly unethical, as when women are evaluated only in terms of their sexual attractiveness. At the same time, being the object of sexual desire and feeling sexy and attractive are often good things."(8)
[En hetzelfde geldt voor mannen. ]
"In this chapter and the next, we’ll examine different perspectives on sexual objectification. One way of looking at things is that sex is inherently objectifying, because it is reductive and treats others as bodies. An alter- native framework focuses on the sexist ways that women in contemporary society tend to be valued and appreciated for their attractiveness rather than as full human beings." [mijn nadruk] (9)
[Waarom nu toch Kant van stal halen, mijn hemel... ]
"The basic idea is simple and intuitive. When Kant tells us to treat people as valuable, as “ends,” he means in part respecting their ability to make decisions, for themselves, about the role they will play in an interaction. It is wrong to manipulate people, to force them, or coerce them, because this treats them as “mere means” – as just tools for one’s purposes."(10)
"These dinner examples may seem fanciful, but the preservation of sexual autonomy through avoiding coercion and deception can help us understand what it means to respect people in sex."(11)
"Sex can be seen as objectifying because it causes us to treat others as tools of our purposes, as bodies, as there to meet our needs; it renders us unable to respect people as full human beings."(11)
[Dat is een normatieve visie op seks als je egoïstisch verliezen in je eigen lustgevoelens zonder nog aandacht te hebben voor de ander. Ik zie dat niet. Waarom zou je niet juist samen seks beleven en elkaar ook een plezier doen en zo meer?]
"But if you have sex with them, even consensual sex, the act is inherently dehumanizing, because of the nature of the sexual appetite. As we’ll see in later sections, in contemporary society people often think that the key to avoiding dehumanization in sex is reciprocity: for healthy relationships and good sex, all partners should ensure that the others are not only consenting but are also experiencing sexual desire, pleasure, and excitement." [mijn nadruk] (12)
[Het eerste is dus echt onzin. Dat heb je ervan als je Kant als leidraad neemt, iemand uit de 18e eeuw die niet eens getrouwd was. Het tweede is juist. ]
"Though Kant’s perspective is gender-neutral, feminist scholars of the late twentieth century developed the idea that sexual objectification is especially a problem for women: pervasive forces in our society cause us to value women first and foremost not for their qualities as human beings but for their qualities as sex objects. Women are relentlessly judged on their attractiveness rather than their intelligence, accomplishments, or kindness. In addition, cultural expectation of gender roles are such that women are often expected to be passive and submissive – to let themselves be “objectified” – while men are expected to be active and dominant."(13)
[Een eenzijdige visie en erg ongenuanceerd. Alsof vrouwen alleen maar slachtoffers zijn, er allemaal niets aan kunnen doen.]
"MacKinnon’s fish-in-water metaphor also suggests that when society rewards women primarily for sexual attractiveness, women may then make themselves into sexual objects. That is, women may choose to dress in certain ways and conform to certain beauty norms, despite the fact that this way of dressing or appearing doesn’t really reflect who they are as a person." [mijn nadruk] (14-15)
[Daar gaan we weer: 'ze kunnen niet anders' is de boodschap, het is allemaal de schuld van mannen.]
"MacKinnon and her colleagues, like feminist legal scholar Andrea Dworkin, say that sexual objectification ties together these various ways women are treated as one-dimensional and less important than men; it therefore forms a root cause of sexism and gender inequality more gen- erally. Pornography, in this view, is a crucial mechanism through which gendered norms are perpetuated."(15)
"Many people want to resist the idea that sex is always a problem. From the perspective that sex is about personal autonomy and freedom of expression, we may find puzzling the idea that sex is radically unlike other activities: as long as we’re consenting and not harming anyone, what is the difficulty? From a perspective that sees sexual pleasure as a positive, MacKinnon’s and Dworkin’s views may seem overstated and overgeneralizing: is male sexuality always and unavoidably infused with a drive to dominate and objectify? Nancy Bauer (2007) suggests that it is “soul crushing” for women to be told that having sexual feelings and wanting to be desired is incompatible with self-respect." [mijn nadruk] (16)
[En terecht. Waarom zouden we dat soort belachelijke opvattingen accepteren? ]
"In some ways, Nussbaum’s analysis fits with many modern, widely shared ideas about sex and love. She says that when people who love and care about one another engage in sex that is objectifying, this can be good – precisely because they love and care about one another. But when people objectify one another in other ways – in pornography, or sex work, or in casual sex where they’re just hooking up and getting each other off – then something has gone wrong. This fits with some modern platitudes: sex is OK when it goes along with love but bad when it becomes a part of hook- up culture. But even though it may seem like commonsense, I think this aspect of Nussbaum’s theory is mistaken (Marino 2008)." [mijn nadruk] (20)
"Whether objectification is one-sided, or among strangers, or whatever, what matters is what you choose, and also whether you choose freely. Social factors play an important role in distinguishing choices that are freely made from those that are made in response to pressure or outright coercion."(24)
"Before we discuss this further, let me explain a bit more about the idea about saying “yes” to objectification. It might seem that there is something paradoxical about consenting to be used or objectified: some philosophers say that if you consent to an activity, your choice is being respected, so by definition you’re not being “used” or “objectified” in any meaningful sense (Mappes 1987). But I think Nussbaum’s multi-faceted analysis shows this isn’t so." [mijn nadruk] (24)
[Dat is naïef, omdat keuzes altijd in een context gemaakt worden en niet zo 'vrij' zijn als veel mensen denken. ]
"What it means to choose autonomously is complicated and variously understood."(26)
[Precies. ]
"One possibility is that in certain social and political settings it becomes impossible to autonomously consent to being objectified because you can’t opt out: you can’t choose not to be objectified. The most obvious example of this is a society in which people accept being objectified because they do not have a choice in the matter: it is either imposed on them, or it is necessary to survive. In societies in which women are very frequently treated as, and valued primarily as, sexual objects, they cannot freely choose to be objectified because objectification is forced on them; in a sense, they have no choice."(26)
"An inability to opt out is particularly troubling when it comes to sexual objectification because of the particular way that being treated as a sexual object – not by a given individual but by one’s cultural and social world – can take over a person’s entire life."(26)
"The pornography reflects and reinforces an existing problem, the same problem MacKinnon and Dworkin started with: that in general, women are treated as valuable for their sexual attractiveness so much more than men are. Women are so often objectified that they can’t really opt out, and therefore can’t choose autonomously. Pornography often reinforces this" [mijn nadruk] (29)
[Hier wordt iets omgedraaid. Vrouwen die roepen dat ze vrij kunnen kiezen, vergeten vaak dat die keuze ingebed ligt in een context die die keuze stuurt. Maar dat betekent ook weer niet dat die vrouwen door de context gedetermineerd worden en niet anders kunnen dan die keuze te maken. Die opvatting maakt vrouwen onterecht tot slachtoffers. Je kunt leren om autonoom te worden en vrijer te worden in je keuzes. Opt out is principieel mogelijk.]
"Many think the harm argument shows something important ethically about pornography. If pornography depicts women in certain ways – as subject to violent and degrading acts, and even as consenting to or enjoying these acts – this dehumanizes them."(31)
"This means that even if you consent to acting or appearing in pornography, and even if you do not think it degrading or disrespectful, and even if the pornography depicts mutual and respectful sex, you still might be harmed by it, because – especially as a woman, or a person of color, or anyone who is socially oppressed – people might lose respect for you. Consenting to appear in pornography is one thing when your depiction will be received in a respectful way, and something else entirely when viewed by people who think sex is dirty or bad."(32)
[Maar je hebt geen greep op hoe anderen op je reageren. Waarom zou je dat dus belangrijk vinden? Waarom zou dat je meer kunnen schaden dan allerlei ander smerig commentaar? ]
"It’s interesting to consider, more generally, why it might be a bad thing, and not a good thing, if pornography depicts everyone as endlessly interested, always eager, and having orgasms at the drop of a hat. I think one answer to this question has to do with the way pornography has come to set the stage for what people expect from sex."(34)
"In pornography, sex is always good and never awkward. Men have big penises and never lose their erections. Women are depicted as enjoying, and orgasming from, activities that are not the ones they would typically enjoy most in real life. For example, in real life, women typically do not have orgasms without direct stimulation of their clitoris. Some women have orgasms from heterosexual intercourse because their clitorises get stimulated in this activity, but many have orgasms only when other things, like hands or vibrators or tongues, are used to touch and stimulate the clitoris directly. Yet much mainstream pornography depicts women as if they almost always have orgasms from intercourse alone. If young women and men learn about sex from pornography, they learn mistaken information that will impair their ability to enjoy sex, since they might have a false understanding. Some women and men believe, mistakenly, that if a woman does not have an orgasm during intercourse there is something wrong with her. Analogously, many men think something is “wrong” with them if they can’t get an instant and long-lasting erection at the slightest stimulation. These mistakes could make a big difference in sexual happiness." [mijn nadruk] (34-35)
"Now that pornography is so easily accessible, young people are watching it more and more, and at earlier ages. At the same time, in many places there is less sex education in schools, and parents often feel awkward talking to their children about sex beyond just giving them the basics. This means that for a lot of people pornography is how they learn about sex. Because of the way pornography typically differs from real life, if pornography is how people are learning about sex, this has huge implications." [mijn nadruk] (35)
"In this chapter, we’ll consider what it means to consent to sex, and we’ll consider its negative counterpart, nonconsensual or coercive sex."(38)
"Some of the difficulties arise from wider societal realities that extend beyond the scope of this book. For instance, the harms that result from sexual assault properly play a large role in our understanding of these issues, but philosophical reflection isn’t well suited to understanding the texture of these harms." [mijn nadruk] (38)
[Wat bedoelt ze met dat laatste? ]
"In this chapter, our main focus will be on the more abstract problems that surround efforts to define sexual consent and coercion."(38)
"Hence this chapter will also explore some specific questions about of how laws and policies should be crafted to protect victims and punish aggressors, while also protecting everyone’s rights. Although sexual coercion can arise in a variety of contexts and involve men and women alike, most cases in fact arise in heterosexual contexts and involve female victims and male aggressors; the discussion here will mainly refer to those situations."(39)
"In most places in the US and Canada, there have been changes to this framework: there is no force requirement, and only nonconsent is needed to establish criminality. But even in this context there are many questions and difficulties over the concept of consent itself, and there are many cases in which it is impossible to successfully legally prosecute cases that seem like rape."(40)
"But even reasonableness criteria can only go so far, because the people making legal judgments – jurors and judges – can be as affected by background social beliefs about sex and social norms as anyone else. So, for example, a jury might judge belief in consent reasonable even if the woman clearly said “no,” because they might believe that women like to play hard to get, that women say “no” when they mean “yes” in order to avoid being thought promiscuous or slutty, or that “no” really means “keep trying.” They might think that a short skirt or going to back to someone’s room really does mean that “she asked for it.”" [mijn nadruk] (41)
[Nee, echt? En zeker in de VS. ]
"One proposal for addressing these difficulties is found in the principle that “‘No’ means no.” The idea here is that if someone says “no,” that means stop, and if you don’t, you’re doing something obviously wrong. In this set-up, there is no force requirement, sex in the absence of consent is rape; and whenever a person says “no,” they signal their nonconsent. Proponents of such approaches point out that the principle is simple and that the framework shows respect for a woman’s choices and decisions. It doesn’t matter what she is wearing or how she is acting; if a woman says no, this is enough. Instead of appealing to a vague idea of what is a “reasonable” belief, subject to interpretation, the “‘No’ means no” criterion lays down a specific principle that must be followed. But critics say that “‘No’ means no” doesn’t go far enough in protecting women (Anderson 2005)." [mijn nadruk] (41)
"With respect to this question of a “no” that is followed by a “yes,” some questions concern high-pressure tactics – when, for example, a man is unwilling to take “no” for an answer – and the line between appropriately persuading someone to have sex with you and coercion."(42)
"If a woman is browbeaten, harassed, coerced or deceived into saying yes, this should not be interpreted as a kind of consent. So how should law and policy be crafted to help address such situations appropriately? Some laws and policies are shifting away from a “‘No’ means no” framework and toward “affirmative consent”: these latter require positive signs of ongoing intention, willingness, or desire." [mijn nadruk] (43)
"Some critics say that formally allowing nonverbal cues to communicate consent leads to problems for two reasons. First, it allows for potential misinterpretation, which may be particularly hazardous in the context of sex. As Michelle Anderson puts it, “study after study indicates that men consistently misinterpret women’s nonverbal behavior. They impute erotic innuendo and sexual intent where there is none” (2005: 1417). Allowing a facial expression to communicate willingness and enjoyment means running the risk that a warm or welcoming facial expression will be misread to mean “yes” to sex when it’s really a result of someone being friendly or nonconfrontational. Second, because it allows for nonverbal expression, communicative sexuality encourages people to consider responses after and during an activity rather than before. Just because you’re enjoying kissing doesn’t mean you want to go further – in fact, that you’re enjoying any one thing means nothing in terms of whether you’ve consented to something completely different. Suppose you are enjoying making out but you are determined not to have sexual intercourse or any kind of penetration. As things progress, you may be enjoying yourself more and more, and communicating that enjoyment. From the point of view of communicative sexuality, that would seem a green light to go ahead. But it is wrong to think that your communicating that enjoyment is grounds for thinking you’ve consented to further acts like penetration (Anderson 2005: 1406)." [mijn nadruk] (45-46)
"Against this backdrop, affirmative consent is about changing our attitudes so that it’s expected that each partner is paying attention to whether the activity is something both people want.
The goal of reorienting our thinking about sex so as to emphasize women’s engagement and pleasure, rather than just her “permission,” is of crucial importance."(47)
"Even though verbal communication might seem to disrupt the flow of sex more than nonverbal communication, I think the virtues of verbal communication are underrated. As we’ve seen, nonverbal communication can be tricky: expressing pleasure with what is happening now is not the same as expressing consent for something else that is yet to happen. I think nonverbal communication also helps with the problem of ambivalence or not enjoying it. One virtue of verbal communication is, I believe, the way it allows people who are conflicted, ambivalent, or uncertain to make the decisions they want to make without someone prying into their reasons. For the person who has a mix of feelings but, all things considered, wants to go ahead, all they have to do is say “yes” – they don’t have to falsely express enthusiasm or pleasure. In Michelle Anderson’s framing, the focus on verbal communication also encourages discussion ahead of time – the “pre-negotiation” – which could be helpful for people who don’t feel too demonstrative or expressive during sex." [mijn nadruk] (51)
"When it is incorporated into law or policy, critics have said that it moves perilously close to “guilty until proven innocent”: if an accuser claims not to have conveyed affirmative consent, the burden of proof is on the accused to prove that such consent was communicated (Halley 2016: 272)."(51)
[Dat denk ik ook.]
"Sex work is the exchange of sexual activities for money or other goods, and in recent years it has raised a series of fundamental, hotly debated questions. Some of these have to do with whether sex work could be like other forms of work. Given the right conditions, could it be an unproblematic or even self-expressive way to make money? Or is there something inherently dehumanizing, unethical, or wrongly commodifying in the exchange itself? (...) However, the philosophical questions about sex work have to do rather with whether, under the right conditions, it could be like other forms of work and how concepts of sex as work fit in with broader social structures and gender norms." [mijn nadruk] (54)
"But understanding sex in terms of individual freedom shifts this perspective dramatically. In the absence of coercion and mistreatment, it seems that sex work could be a mutual exchange among consenting adults. It follows that from an autonomy perspective, there is a straightforward answer to the question of whether sex work could be unproblematic. If we grant that people generally have the right to make decisions about their bodies and sexuality, then it would seem to follow that they have the right to buy and sell sex, and the answer would be “yes.”
Because this argument in favor of individuals making their own decisions about whether to sell and buy sex is so straightforward, this chapter will focus largely on examining challenges to it. With respect to these challenges, there are two lines of thought. One is that there are ethical problems inherent in the very idea of sex work itself – that there is something essentially wrong about exchanging sex for money or other goods, regardless of the context, because it is damaging to the sex worker or because sex is just not the kind of thing that can be appropriately bought and sold. A second is that there is nothing inherently problematic with sex work, but that in certain cultural contexts, such as societies with hierarchical gender roles, sex work is a problem. We discuss these positions in the sections below."(54-55)
"From the liberal point of view, sex work is just a contractual exchange that happens to involve sex: if the sex worker wants to provide services and the client wants to pay, then each is getting something they want out of the exchange. Of course, many commercial enterprises are regulated to lessen any potential ill effects, and the same could apply to sex work; indeed, in some countries this is how things work: sex workers, for example, might be required to undergo tests for diseases and might receive various protections."(57)
"In any case, the sex worker loses as well because she must distance herself from her true feelings, and this alienation causes a fragmenting of the self. Echoing Pateman’s idea that selling one’s sexuality is selling one’s self, Estes says that the sex worker must alienate herself from her true sexual self. This is partly because sexual interactions often cause intense emotions and sensations, both positive and negative. It would be dangerous and potentially self-damaging for the sex worker to allow herself to fully feel and experience these. If she is feeling something positive, she risks being attached to her client, who sees her only as a worker he will leave. If she feels something negative, she must repress it to please the client. So she cannot integrate her sexuality into herself, and so she is harmed – and loses – by the interaction as well. The sex worker loses."(59)
"We might also challenge Estes’ point about the client losing because they can’t access the sex workers’ subjectivity. On the one hand, this may well be so, on grounds that even the person motivated by novelty might want to experience sex with a real person, and the payment might make interacting with the sex worker’s honest subjectivity impossible. On the other hand, maybe the client can enjoy the experience even while knowing that it is, in part, fake. Most movies are fiction, and this does not count against our enjoyment of them. Maybe a client can enjoy the performance of a sex worker even while knowing that what it represents is not her genuine inner thoughts, feelings, and desires. Similarly, with respect to alienation, we may note that many jobs in modern society require us to distance ourselves from our true feelings. Working in retail or in the food service industry requires being cheerful with customers even when you don’t feel like it. Even skilled workers, like therapists and teachers, might have to seem patient and caring when they are feeling frustrated and annoyed." [mijn nadruk] (60)
[Daar ben ik het mee eens. ]
"But other people might have different relationships with their sexuality, experiencing it as more variable, or as something they can feel in different ways (see Satz 1995: 71). For these people, perhaps sex work may not be very different from other kinds of work – such as nursing or childcare – that involves touching other people and taking care of their emotional and physical needs and desires." [mijn nadruk] (60)
[Idem. ]
"In some societies, some sex workers were seen as providing a useful, and even sacred, service, embedded in spiritual values (Shrage 1989: 349–350). A woman could be a sex worker for part of her life, then move onto a different phase with no stigma attached. This is very different from seeing sex work as a degraded or inferior kind of work. As this variation suggests, acts have different social meanings depending on context."(62)
"And so, Shrage says, the meaning of sex work is affected by its context. In our society, what matters is less the inherent values at play in buying and selling sex and more how the practice of sex work functions socially. In our society, she says, the practice of men buying sex from women reinforces problematic assumptions about sexuality, gender, and sex roles: that men have a constant “need” for sex, that they are naturally dominant, that sexual contact “pollutes” women, and that our sexual practices tell the world who we “really” are."(63)
"Overall, Shrage says, sex work is problematic because of the ways it reinforces and fits with these problematic and deeply held cultural beliefs. There’s nothing inherently wrong with buying and selling sex, but the social meaning of sex work makes it a problem. This means that it’s impossible to evaluate the sex-work industry by looking at individual people or specific cases, or by asking whether a person is inherently misused by paying for sex. Even if there is nothing essentially bad about it, its social meaning can be bad – not because of the kind of act it is but because of the social meaning it takes on in our society." [mijn nadruk] (64-65)
[Maar moeten we ons dan maar aanpassen aan die slechte culturele (rol)opvattingen en sekswerk veroordelen? Die (rol)opvattingen zouden juist veranderd moeten worden.]
"Could things change? Could we live in a society in which people could buy and sell sexual services and there would be no problem? Maybe. If men and women were seen as equal, if sexual experience were not seen as a negative for women, if there were no ideas of men as naturally dominant – in a society like this, sex work would have a completely different social meaning and would function in a radically different way. " [mijn nadruk] (65)
[En dat streven we dus na. ]
"some sexual surrogacy is for people who have psychological issues with sex: the client might meet for talk therapy with one person, then meet with a sex surrogate to learn to experience healthy intimacy and sex by engaging in it physically. Other sexual surrogacy is for people with disabilities who might find it difficult to have sex on their own."(66)
[Dat zou er al lang moeten zijn. ]
"In the next three chapters, we discuss two theories of love, starting with the question of why love is a concept to theorize about. There are many other theories of love, but I focus just on two, to engage with details of the views and they fit with the role that love plays in our lives."(69)
"After exploring the question of “why a theory of love,” we’ll consider various aspects of, and challenges to, the union theory. Many of these have to do with the possibility of conflicting interests. Surely what is good for one person is not always what is good for another, but if love involves a merger, the distinctions between people are blurred, so how can we say that this is so? This suggests that the individuals must somehow exist alongside the union of selves, raising difficult questions about the rela- tionship between the individual selves and the unity between them."(70)
"Ultimately, I’ll argue in this chapter that for reasons related to fairness these questions have no satisfactory answers."(70)
"It’s common to hear people talk about love as a merging of souls or selves and to use that idea to motivate and understand the caring or selflessness of love. We’ve seen in this chapter various problems with taking that idea literally. Once we move away from the gendered idea that a woman’s self will be subsumed into that of man, all kinds of difficulties arise. The union theory faces problems in contexts of conflicting interests: we must retain some sense of individuality, but then the relationship of the individuals and the selves becomes obscure. When interests are shared, the person with stronger interests can dominate their loved one. And we cannot explain the sense that one person has acted for another. These challenges to the union view are particularly salient to our contemporary situation in which an equal love between two adults is the paradigm case we’re trying to understand." [mijn nadruk] (84)
"As we’ll see in this chapter, though, concern theories of love also raise difficulties. One has to do with the question of whether love requires caring for the other exclusively for their own sake, or whether wanting something for yourself out of love can be a good thing. The concern theory is also potentially one-sided: it seems to imply that love can be unreciprocated and still be romantic love. Finally, just like the union theory, the concern approach raises difficult questions about cases in which what is good for one person is not what is good for another."(85)
"Frankfurt doesn’t say much about why, exactly, he thinks disinterestedness is so important for love, but maybe it has to do with the widely shared idea that true love has to be “other-regarding” – oriented around the loved one. After all, if you are ultimately acting purely out of self- interest, it’s less like love and more like using another person to get what you want, like a kind of manipulation."(89)
"Like the union theory, the concern theory thus ultimately elides the distinction between the lover and the one who is loved. As we’ve seen here, however, this elision leads to problems. To say that love means taking the other person’s well-being as your own might sound good, but when you take it literally, the idea doesn’t work very well. Taking parental love as paradigmatic, the theory fails to fit the kind of situation we’re most interested in today: how to understand love so that it is compatible with both equality and mutual individuality." [mijn nadruk] (100)
"As we’ve been discussing, some of the most persistent and difficult problems in modern loving relationships have to do with decision-making when interests conflict. We’ve seen the importance of maintaining individuality in relationships. We’ve seen how the importance of individuality means that we have to balance concern for ourselves with concern for the couple or the other person. We’ve seen how coming to a perspective on shared decision-making requires being willing to take up the other person’s perspective and finding appropriate ways of honoring both people’s needs and interests. But people who love one another face a further question: what does it mean for the resulting decisions to be fair and equal?
How much must we sacrifice our time and energy to mutuality when doing so means we can’t satisfy our own interests and desires? When is it unloving to insist on doing things our own way and when does love require us to give up what we would otherwise want? What does it mean to have fairness and equality in the way we resolve our competing interests? "(107)
[Deze insteek vind ik zelf ook veel beter. Dit zijn de belangrijke vragen.]
"The need for such a theory rests on the idea that the relations we have with people we love are radically different from the relations we have with others: not just different in degree, but different in kind. To think we can have a theory of love is to think that love is somehow importantly different from other relationships. But, as we’ve seen through these chapters, a plausible view of love is one in which love relationships are a lot like other caring relationships. They are different in degree, perhaps, or in emotional texture, but they are not deeply different in kind." [mijn nadruk] (110)
"But love and family life challenge the social individualism we encounter in our culture more broadly. Love is generous and caring, not self-interested. We want to feel giving toward the people we love, not that we’re always looking for some return on our investment. If rationality is understood as self-interested maximizing of our own well-being, then the generosity of love might seem irrational. If autonomy means “self-governed” in the sense of not being influenced by others, then how could love, which involves constant mutual influence, ever be compatible with autonomy? The felt need for a theory of love might have to do with finding a way that interactions with those we love can be completely different from interactions with everyone else."(111)
"This chapter has explored the idea that trying to show how love is special may be a misguided enterprise. " [mijn nadruk] (112)
[Mooie uitspraak.]
"Relatedly, there has been a lot of recent scientific research into orientations, with the implication that the science will be relevant to politics: if orientations are genetic and biological, the thinking goes, they are fixed and stable aspects of a person, aspects that must be treated with respect. But, as we’ll see in this chapter, the “born that way” and “not a choice” arguments have various conceptual and ethical complexities, and they are insufficient for grounding the relevant equal rights and freedoms. Furthermore, taking a scientific view of orientations can have surprising negative effects. What is needed, I’ll argue, is positive affirmation and valuing of the ways of life of LGBTQ+ people." [mijn nadruk] (114)
"As we’ve seen in the Introduction, I write from the widely shared philosophical perspective that queer and same-sex partnerships are as ethical as any other relationships and don’t require any special defense. But some people believe that LGBTQ+ relationships are wrong, for religious or other reasons, and not that long ago in North America being gay or lesbian was illegal."(114-115)
"We’re not going to be talking a lot about gender and sex identity here because we’re focusing more on the sex that you want to have than the sex that you are, but it is crucial to understand that gender presentation, gender identity, sex identity, and sexual orientation are all distinct and don’t align in any necessary way." [mijn nadruk] (115)
"Central to the North American fight for equality and respect are the “born that way” and “not a choice” arguments, centering on the idea that our sexual desires and attractions are not simply lifestyle choices to be taken up or discarded on a whim but are embedded deep in who we are and so demand respect." [mijn nadruk] (118)
[Het lijkt er hier zwaar op dat ze zelf getrouwd is en haar eigen behoefte aan zekerheid inbrengt.]
"One of the many contested questions about marriage is whether it is primarily an institutional matter, related to laws and policies, or whether it is primarily a private matter, something two people make an agreement or contract about. Marriage might seem like a contract: a promise or agreement between people to do certain things. But the image of marriage as a contractual promise raises several puzzles."(129)
"On the other hand, it can also seem strange to think of marriage as an institutional affair. Some of the burdens associated with marriage may be ones we want to opt out of. For example, marriage laws say that marriage requires sexual exclusivity: to have sex with someone outside of marriage is seen as a violation. As we discuss further in Chapter 14, in some jurisdictions in North America adultery is against the law. But what if individual people do not want to arrange things this way?"(129)
"From one point of view, these kinds of considerations suggest that you can’t, or shouldn’t, promise unending love or commitment, because they are things you can’t make happen in the first place. Normally, people shouldn’t promise things they know they can’t make happen, and especially things they know are going to be difficult. And unending love and commitment are very difficult! In fact, they’ve begun to seem implausible as well as difficult, because there are very good reasons to think you’ll be unable to carry them out."(130)
"Brake (2011) disagrees with Mendus’s idea that a promise is more like a statement of intention. For one thing, she says, we generally expect one another to actually keep our promises. An intention isn’t really sufficient."(132)
"Furthermore, Brake says that it is not cold-hearted or unloving to rationally contemplate the possibility that love may end. You can hope that it will not, while recognizing that it might. In fact, she says, if a marriage promise forces a denial of the mere possibility that love will end, then it is intrinsically delusional. And delusional people are in no situation to be making big decisions – like the decision to get married!"(133)
"Everyone in our society finds themselves affected by deep and pervasive attitudes about gender roles. Men are expected to be tough, to be successful breadwinners, to be strong; women are expected to be nurturing, passive, caring. The more these roles and expectations are entrenched, radical feminists [Claudia Card 1996 wordt besproken] sometimes point out, the worse things are for everyone. No one can really be themselves, everyone must act as something they’re not. For people to live good lives, in this view, a deep reordering of how people relate to one another is required."(135)
"From the point of view of radical feminism, traditional family roles, in which women stay home with children and are thus dependent on men and men’s earnings, can’t help but recreate this same problematic connection to control and abuse. And monogamy, which is socially enforced more for women than for men, can be seen as another societal tool for controlling women, by controlling their sexuality and tying them to sex with one man for ever, as if she belonged to him.(...) If marriage is a flawed institution that perpetuates social injustice, destroys love, and functions coercively, why should we expand it? It would be better to get rid of it altogether."(137)
"Furthermore, an institution of marriage that confers benefits on married people might be coercive to those who need those benefits. Marriage is associated with a wide range of benefits impossible to get in any other way. (...) As we’ve seen, legal family members have “visitation rights”: if someone you love is in the hospital, you might not be allowed in to visit them unless you are officially a member of the family. Before same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian people were being turned away from hospitals where they were hoping to visit their life partners, on grounds that they were not formally married." [mijn nadruk] (137)
[Wat heeft getrouwd zijn nu toch te maken met iemand opzoeken in het ziekenhuis? Dan zit je echt een ideologie op te leggen aan mensen.]
"With respect to divorce, though, it’s interesting to consider whether there are any positive aspects to the pressure to get or stay married. The practical and legal difficulty of divorce is sometimes considered one of the positive aspects of marriage. (...) You’ll be put off divorcing because divorce is difficult, and then having failed to divorce, you’ll find yourselves staying together and perhaps finding a renewal of love and affection." [mijn nadruk] (138)
"Earlier, I suggested that the metaphor of Odysseus might help us see the good in the external constraints associated with marriage. Against this idea, though, Eric Cave (2003) says that the obligations of marriage, however you interpret them, can damage love."(139)
[Ik voel gewoon dat zij erg enthousiast is over het eerste en in het huwelijk gelooft. ]
"While it would be wonderful for everyone to have the kind of marriage they want, I think there might also be challenges to the idea of allowing multiple forms of marriage to coexist."(141)
"I’ve suggested, though, that embracing variability may have complex consequences, especially when people come to the marriage question with different background assumptions, desires, and life plans. It’s not always easy to have social concepts work the way each person would like best."(142)
"Choices, preferences, and decisions in sex and love perpetuate racial injustice in a range of ways. As an entry point for examining some of them, we’ll be focusing in this chapter on racialized preferences in sex, dating, love, and marriage.(...) One question we’ll consider is whether racialized preferences can be innocuous expressions of taste, or whether they are generally racist or bad in some other way."(143)
"I’ll suggest here that racialized sex and love preferences are controversial partly because they lie at the intersection of two social norms. On the one hand, because they are such intimate and personal domains, we tend to think we have rights to make decisions in sex and love for our own reasons, whatever those reasons are. On the other hand, our sexual decisions reflect and reinforce the social racial attitudes of our society, and from this point of view can lead to social injustice and racism, which would make them appropriately subject to ethical evaluation and criticism. Reflection on race, sex, and love shows how dramatically these two norms can conflict."(144)
[Ik vind het allemaal nogal vergezocht.]
"Of course, motivations are always complex and difficult to sort out, but, as Mills points out, a Black man’s choice to marry a white woman may nonetheless be interpreted as expressing the same kind of thinking and thus constituting a “slap in the face” to Black women by implying “you’re not good enough” (1994: 149)."(154)
[Een voorbeeld van de onzin op dat vlak. ]
"While racialized sex and love preferences might seem, on the surface, similar to other innocuous preferences, we’ve seen in this chapter many ways in which they are not, and several reasons to be wary of both racial aversions and racial attractions. Sometimes these preferences are exoticiz- ing and objectifying. Sometimes they are caused by or perpetuate racist stereotypes. Sometimes they are informed by beauty and status norms that favor whiteness. Sometimes, even when they are positive, they can cause doubt and harm to the people who are their target.(...) There are therefore limits to the sense in which we can say we are free to have and express whatever sex and romance preferences we want: sexual liberty must be interpreted if it is not to conflict with anti-racist social obligations."(156)
"Discussion of sex, love, and disability is complicated by various factors. Often, people with disabilities are desexualized, that is, seen not as sexual persons at all. Sometimes they are seen as having a malignant form of sexuality that is dangerous or sexually out of control. In various times and places, people with disabilities have been sterilized, often against their will, sometimes as part of a program of eugenics that sought their elimination. People with disabilities face various kinds of discrimination, are disproportionately the targets of sexual misconduct and violence, and are often not seen as romantic partners.(...) Much of our discussion focuses on ensuring that people with disabilities are able to exercise their rights to freedom of sexual and romantic expression."(157)
"People with disabilities, and especially women, are disproportionately the target of sexual abuse, sometimes by caregivers and sometimes by intimates. "(158)
"An important part of the disability-rights perspective has to do with the possibility of seeing disability through a social lens rather than a medical one (Shakespeare et al. 1996). "(159)
[Niet zo simpel op te lossen. De problemen zijn eindeloos groot in een samenleving die vaak niet eens rolstoeltoegankelijk is. Seksvijandigheid geldt voor deze groepen. Verder gescand.]
"This chapter examines some of the issues surrounding this tendency toward the medicalization of sex and love. Especially when new treatments like pharmaceuticals are involved, medicalization is often accompanied by a shift in our understanding of what is a problem or dysfunction. As we will see below, when it comes to sex and love, judging what is a problem or dysfunction is a complex evaluative matter with a deeply social dimension. To a large extent, values and commitments, rather than biology, shape what we see as healthy.(...) Reframing traditional models of sexual function shows that what may seem dysfunctional from one point of view may seem entirely normal from another." [mijn nadruk] (171)
Het Viagra-verhaal wordt uitgwerkt.
"Crucially, impotence is mostly normal, in the sense that every man will experience it at some time or other and that it can be a healthy and appropriate response. If a man is angry, or stressed, or frightened, or exhausted, maybe it’s not the best time to be having sex; the lack of an erection is the body’s way of responding to this appropriately. As men get older, they often get fewer erections and their erections take longer to develop; this, too, is normal and part of aging for a healthy man."(173)
"Jay Baglia says that the rhetoric associated with Viagra replaced “impotence” – a “psychologically and relationally flaccid term” – with the term “erectile dysfunction” – a term that is not only “masculinized and structurally based” but also focuses our attention on physiological issues alone, pushing aside relational and psychological considerations (2005: 3)."(173)
"Rather than being a completely normal part of life, what used to be called “impotence” was now a dysfunction, a failure, needing treatment. Tiefer calls this cultural understanding the “Viagra narrative”: in it, impotence – and what counts as “normal sex” – is medicalized."(173)
"The “Viagra narrative” reinforces the idea that “sex” for men requires an erection, obscuring the idea of other possibilities like giving oral sex or gaining pleasure from being stimulated in other ways. And there are effects on our cultural understanding of masculinity as well. As Tom Digby (2014) explains, masculinity in our society is profoundly impacted by themes of toughness and invulnerability; Digby argues that the suppression of empathy and caring emotions required by norms of modern masculinity is damaging not only to men but also to women, for the way it creates pressures on men to act badly to women. Baglia (2005: 4) points out that the construction of masculinity as requiring erections may block progress on finding alternative conceptualizations of masculinity, opening up space for men to be who they are instead of conforming to existing problematic masculinity norms."(174)
[Heel goed uitgelegd, goede standpunten.]
"As Emily Nagoski says in her fascinating book Come as You Are (2015), recent scientific research about women’s sexuality not only shows why developing drugs is difficult but also helps us understand women’s sexuality in new and fruitful ways. Nagoski and others emphasize that interpreting women through the lens of a traditional model of sexuality, one perhaps more suited to men, can cause us to incorrectly see something as a problem or dysfunction."(175)
"In general, women vary with respect to what turns them on and why and how what seems like a low or high sex drive can be produced by different mechanisms."(177)
"The shame is unwarranted: the body’s physiological response does not reflect who we are.(...) Even if it is a mistake to assume that the body is generally a source of truth, maybe sometimes it is a source of relevant information."(179-180)
"Is this kind of waning desire a suitable target for intervention? In one sense, it could easily be seen as a dysfunction: if lack of desire causes women not to engage in sex, and they are unhappy about that, wishing the desire to come back, it’s natural to think of “lack of desire” as a problem. But there are two perspectives from which this could be a mistake. First, if the waning of desire happens in contexts of monogamy, why not challenge monogamy itself? Second, why should we prioritize eagerness over enjoying?" [mijn nadruk] (181)
[Inderdaad. Daarna breekt ze tot mijn grote plezier evolutionaire denkbeelden over monogamie af tot de grond. ]
"You know how people talk about women who crave sex with unpredictable and commitment-phobic partners while lacking desire for the long-term domestic partner they love and adore? Nagoski calls this “solace sex” – “sex that’s motivated by your desire to prove that you are loved” (2015: 135); she says it’s like the pleasure when you really have to pee, and then you get to pee. Huge relief! Feels great! But only because it’s a relief from something. What’s so great about craving in the first place?"(183)
"It might seem bizarre or futuristic to worry about medicalizing love, but we already have various mood-altering drugs, and maybe one day there will be pharmaceuticals that affect whether we feel in love or out of love.(...) There’s something creepy about the idea of love drugs, but it is difficult to pin down exactly what it is."(184)
"The story is disturbing along multiple dimensions, but part of what makes it so frightening is that the love it describes does not seem authentic or real: it feels less like love and more like manipulation. Given that taking drugs like Viagra for sex enhancement has become common, it’s interesting to consider whether love enhancement poses a special challenge with respect to authenticity." [mijn nadruk] (185)
"When economists apply their methods to the domains of sex and love, various philosophical questions arise. For example, economics typically models people as rational, self-interested maximizers of their own well- being who make contractual exchanges to get what they want. But, as we’ve seen, love and sex do not fit neatly into this paradigm: being completely self-interested seems to be inconsistent with love, and it’s often thought that sex is best when it is mutually pleasurable and not a tit-for-tat contractual exchange. Can sex and love be aptly interpreted in terms of the self-interested exchange of commodities?" [mijn nadruk] (189)
[Dat economisch denken alleen al is totaal belachelijk.]
"These choices rest on value judgments about the role sex and love play in our lives and can lead to potentially contentious implications; one reason is that sex and love may resist interpretation as scarce resources that can be used for other ends."(205)
[Om maar iets te noemen. Ik vind het ook totaal oninteressant.]
"Yet, as we’ll see in this chapter, both the practice of ethical nonmonogamy and societies’ resistance to it raise wider philosophical issues, with implications for understanding other forms of sex and love. Ethical nonmonogamy offers the possibility of expanding the quantity and diversity of love and sex that individuals experience; it thus raises questions about why this does not seem self-evidently desirable to most people in our society. Likewise, thinking about ethical nonmonogamy draws attention to the values associated with it and raises questions about how these might be better integrated into mainstream relationships; as we’ll see, ethical nonmonogamy implies high levels of honesty and open communication, and it also entails considerable tolerance of our partners’ desires and limits." [mijn nadruk] (206)
"At the same time, I’ll argue that examining ethical nonmonogamy points to some problems that widening its practice might present. For one thing, difficulties about pressure, coercion, and consent could be exacerbated by multiplicity, if for instance, one member of a couple finds non-monogamy more appealing than the other; and not everyone can muster the trust and openness that nonmonogamous relationships require. Like- wise, the social acceptance of nonmonogamy may pose problems for equality, exacerbating the problem that we’ve encountered previously of the “haves” and the “have-nots” of sex and love. As we’ll see, resistance to nonmonogamy raises important questions about how people experience monogamy itself. Resistance may spring from the idea that the nature of love requires exclusivity and is antithetical to sharing." [mijn nadruk] (206)
"Ethical nonmonogamy comes in many different forms, some centering primarily on sex, others on loving commitment; sometimes it’s about people who continue to have a primary relationship with one other person but engage in sex or romance with others as well, and sometimes it can involve more complex arrangements such as more than two people in a committed loving relationship. Participants understand this situation as distinct from cheating, since honesty and openness are crucial, and everyone has to agree to what is happening."(207)
"While it’s commonly thought that men are more likely to want the freedom to have sex with multiple partners, some evidence challenges this line of thought."(207)
"Just as promiscuity in general is socially punished for women, transgressing monogamy has historically been treated as much more of a violation for women than for men. So resisting monogamy is a way of reclaiming sexual autonomy for oneself in the face of problematic or oppressive social pressures."(208)
"The example of the four-partner family highlights the ways in which ethical nonmonogamy requires a lot of mutual decision-making. There is no formula for how to make it work – no set of expectations embedded in social norms, no cultural script like those that surround monogamy; instead, the people involved have to communicate with one another and define their expectations. In these situations, ethical reflection becomes especially important. "(209)
"As we’ve seen, there is widespread social resistance to nonmonogamy. In the early twenty-first century, as the United States was debating same-sex marriage, critics of marriage equality used a “slippery slope” argumentative strategy: they said that if same-sex marriage were allowed, then so would all kinds of other bad things, and these might include “polygamy” – that is, marriages involving more than two people at a time. Strikingly, the response was often not “Well – and so what?” but rather efforts to show how polygamy and same-sex marriage are different. This suggests how deep and widespread is resistance to the idea of more than two people being in intimate relationships at one time." [mijn nadruk] (211)
"This resistance to nonmonogamy is striking in view of the multiple problems that are thought to confront monogamy itself. While precise numbers are difficult to measure, adultery is common enough that in one 1994 survey, 20 percent of married women and 35 percent of married men admitted to adulterous sex; given people’s reluctance to admit to culturally sanctioned behavior in surveys, the real number may well be much higher. Even people who never practice nonmonogamy may feel the desire for sex and love with others: being romantically faithful to one person for a lifetime is famously challenging. The intensity of resistance to nonmonogamy is striking for another, more general reason: in most domains of life we admire and encourage sharing, and we usually want our loved ones to be happy and get the things they want. Yet with romantic love and sex we tend to insist on exclusivity and to be suspicious of sharing; and our cultural norms, social lives, and marriage laws still reflect that suspicion." [mijn nadruk] (212)
"Romance is typically assumed to require exclusivity and to preclude giving comparable attention to anyone outside the couple. But why? There’s no reason why intensity of love must be correlated with possessiveness or exclusivity."(212)
"A related issue has to do with children and family life. We have a belief that children are best served by two parents. But, as Emens points out, in a society that allows divorce, children are already experiencing a form of polyamory. Parents might feel they are experiencing serial monogamy – one spouse at a time. But for children, remarriage often means getting more parents. Children stay in touch with ex-spouses, some who are their biological parents and others who have helped raise them. A child might have two biological parents, then also step-parents who married their biological parents at some point, and also spouses of step-parents, who might be among their caregivers over time as well. The more remarriage, the more this web spins out." [mijn nadruk] (212)
"Furthermore, maybe more caregivers for children would be better.(...) In contemporary life, many parents find it really challenging to do for their kids all the things that they want to do. Polyamory – especially where there are multiple people sharing loving commitment – raises the possibility that families might do better with more than two parents."(213)
"In particular, it’s worth considering whether ethical nonmonogamy would only ever work for a minority of people, or whether it is the kind of thing that could be a good way of life for many, or most, people. This leads to questions about the challenges we might face putting into practice both the values of nonmonogamy and the legal changes that Emens proposes." [mijn nadruk] (215)
"It’s also interesting to think about the way trust and intimacy work in nonmonogamous versus monogamous relationships. Nonmonogamy requires a great level of trust, which in turn requires that people be trustworthy. One reason for skepticism that nonmonogamy could be widespread might have to do with whether people are generally trustworthy enough to make it work. After all, we know from the discussion of monogamy that many people cheat. Isn’t it possible that the same people would cheat in “ethically nonmonogamous” contexts, when their desires are for things their loved ones do not want?"(216)
"With respect to love and sharing, we might wonder about the limits of non-exclusivity. As Justin Clardy (2013) points out, we often desire to feel special in our romantic relationships – valued above others – and, in addition, there are practical limits to the time and attention we can pay to others."(216)
"Another issue has to do with the honesty and communication aspect of nonmonogamy. As we saw with the “four-partner family,” there is a lot of work to be done to make sure things go smoothly, to make sure everyone feels OK with how things are going, to make sure everyone feels included."(216)
"Taken together, these ideas show how understanding philosophical issues related to sex and love requires taking up a perspective that transcends the question of what individuals have a right or obligation to do and what they owe to other individuals. As we’ve seen throughout this book, preferences, choices, and their effects have to be understood with reference to context: with reference, that is, to background norms, family life, patterns of inclusion and exclusion. Understanding sex and love is always contextual. Instead of asking only one what person owes to another, as individuals we should also be asking what kind of world do we want to live in."(223)