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Monday, April 21, 2008 The Morality of Pornography By Diana Hsieh @ 8:02 AM An interesting question for NoodleFood, again on sex: I was intrigued by your posting on the psychology of prostitution. I haven't followed the Spitzer case all that closely, but I read Paul's posting and Ari Armstrong's essay with much agreement. In the past you've suggested that we might ask questions related to Objectivism, and Ari's writing brought to mind the question of pornography. Especially when he writes: "Prostitution is a vice for the same reason that indiscriminate sex is a vice: sex properly involves a connection of consciousness as well as bodies between two people who genuinely admire one another. Purely physical sex undermines the distinctly human dimension of it." Now, I'm no prude and I have no desire to see adult pornography censored by the government. On the other hand, I've often been disgusted by the squalid nature of what passes for erotica. And so... where is the proper place of pornography in the Objectivist ethics? A couple years ago I listened to Peikoff's recording on love and sex, and don't recall his directly addressing the subject. Of course I know Rand did address the subject (In "Censorship: Local and Express"), but always felt her comments to be a reflection of personal taste and context and not necessarily part of her ethics. What do you think? On the one hand, the visual and auditory depiction of consensual sexual activity in itself certainly doesn't seem to violate Rand's fundamental virtues. On the other hand, as Ari writes above, I can't see a follower of Rand sanctioning the quick intercourse (for pay) of two actors who hardly know each other. I'd be interested in your thoughts or any advice on Objectivist writings that address the issue. In fact, Leonard Peikoff does discuss pornography in his "Love, Sex, and Romance" lecture. So that's a good place to start. I would like to distinguish two related moral questions about pornography: When is it moral to watch pornography, if ever? Can it serve a legitimate purpose in a healthy person's sex life or in a healthy couple's sex life? When is it moral to create pornography, if ever? Is the production of pornography (e.g. as actor, director, distributor) a proper career? I have my own thoughts on these matters, but since time is tight for me right now, I think I'll just open the floor for comments. Labels: Ethics, Love/Sex E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Tuesday, April 08, 2008 Opposite Sex Friendships By Diana Hsieh @ 9:08 AM The just-married Dan Edge -- Congratulations, Dan and Kelly! -- recently posted a very interesting essay on opposite-sex friendships. His general policy is that he refrains from developing intimate friendships with women when he's in a committed relationship. I agree with his overall analysis, particularly as applied to married or to-be-married persons. (Before that point, with some exception for long-term couples, I wouldn't regard the relationship as "committed," although it might be "exclusive.") Contrary to our culture's common sappy mysticism, love is not a magic glue that holds people together, come what may. That love can be imperiled fairly quickly -- if a person fails to consistently make his/her spouse (or partner) the most important person in his/her life. One common way of failing in that basic task is to cultivate emotional intimacy with a person who might (absent the primary relationship) be a love interest. That kind of friendship saps time and energy away from the love relationship. Issues discussed in depth with the friend are not likely to be discussed again with the spouse, or at least not discussed so deeply. That weakens the bond between the couple, while strengthening the bond with the friend. Sexual feelings for the intimate friend will have to be suppressed -- but at some point, the requisite self-control might fail. In that case, the affair didn't "just happen," as many people would say. Disaster was deliberately courted, probably over the course of months. Of course, those considerations apply only to intimate friendships -- not merely friendly friendships. Friendly friends talk about their work, hobbies, politics, mutual interests, and so on. They talk about matters that they'd discuss with pretty much anyone they like. They talk on occasion or when convenient. Intimate friends discuss private thoughts and feelings, depend on each other's discretion, and regularly carve out private time to spend together. Mere friendly friends (of whatever sex) are not a danger to a romantic relationship. Intimate friends of the opposite sex can be, precisely because such intimacy is so central to romantic relationships. (Oy, that was less coherent than I was hoping, but oh well. More fodder for debate in the comments, I suppose!) Labels: Love/Sex E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Monday, March 24, 2008 The Psychological Effects of Prostitution By Diana Hsieh @ 7:53 AM Ari Armstrong recently published a defense of legal (but not moral) prostitution in the Rocky Mountain News: Should prostitution be legal?. It's a good analysis: I recommend reading it. As a followup on the OBloggers mailing list, Paul posted the following commentary on prostitution from a former booking agent for a high-end escort service describing the destructive effects of prostitution on the women and the clients. It's fascinating, so I thought I'd repost it here: "I've Seen My Share of Spitzers: The View From an Escort Service" [About the men:] .....But why would a rich, powerful and handsome man pay for extra-marital sex? Aren't there tons of women waiting to throw themselves at him for free? Yes, there are. But those women always want something: they want attention, intimacy and romance. They want to enjoy the high of sleeping with a powerful man. Escorts don't want or care about any of those things. At least one of the articles about the 22 year-old escort who slept with Spitzer implied that she didn't even know who he was. Based on my experience, I think it's highly unlikely that she knew or cared. She was in it for the money, and she had as much to hide as he did. One high-powered New York attorney explained it to me like this: "Of course I love my wife. Escorts have nothing to do with that. She comes to my hotel room and I don't have to know her name, because they all use fake names like Amber and Kimberly. I don't have to worry about how she feels or what she wants. It's a simple exchange: I give her a thousand bucks, we have a good time for a couple of hours, she goes away and we never have to see each other again." A thousand dollars is nothing for these men. Money has little value; because no matter how hard they try they will never be able to spend their hundreds of millions. And if you are about to say that for a thousand bucks those girls must supply the best sex in history, then you really do not understand this world. Because it is not about sex; it is about power. And the simple act of ordering up an anonymously pretty 22 year-old girl to do your bidding in the salubrious confines of a luxury hotel suite is an act of power. [About the women:] .....None of these girls was coerced into selling her body for money. Most of them came from middle-class backgrounds, and many had been accepted to universities. But they dropped out as soon as they discovered that they could make $20-30,000 a month as an escort. Then they got addicted to the money and the lifestyle. And then one day, usually between the ages of 25 and 28, once they'd developed that knowing, experienced look that clients instinctively disliked, they found that themselves in a classic bind: they were addicted to high living but could no longer pay for it; they had no marketable skills; and years of late nights and lazy days had left them with no self-discipline. What to do? The really smart ones pulled themselves together and, with the help of a sympathetic client, started some kind of a business. Others married rich, cynical, older men in a sort of paid-wife arrangement. Those were the most common stories. I did not inquire into the fate of the girls who sort of faded away. I did not want to hear about their loneliness and poverty. You can read the full essay here. Labels: Ethics, Love/Sex, Politics, Psychology E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Monday, March 03, 2008 Second Virginity By Diana Hsieh @ 12:06 AM Here's a good article on an insane topic: women who've had sex claiming a "second virginity." Notably, many of these women are not teenagers who regret an early sexual experience. They include women in their twenties with long-term sexual partners and multiple children (!!) and married women spending $5000 to reconstruct their hymens as a present to their husbands (!!!). This notion of a "second virginity" is obviously repugnant for its dishonesty: the simple fact is that a woman with years of sexual experience cannot honestly claim to be a virgin. However, that's not the worst of it. The worst is that virginity -- i.e. mere ignorance of sex -- is upheld as a major value. Women (and men) should be discriminating in their choice of lovers. A young person ought to think hard about whether and when and with whom to have sex for the first time, just as any person ought to do with any new love interest. However, that need for discrimination does not imply that virginity is any kind of major value, as its champions assume. In modern society, virginity not a value at all -- except to jealous fiends and religious dogmatists. Virginity is not even a real quality of a person: it's just an ignorance of and inexperience with sex. Ignorance of sex means incompetence at sex. So for a rational, value-seeking lover, virginity can only be an obstacle to be overcome in the pursuit of the pleasures of sex, not a positive value. For a person to seek virginity requires a mangled set of sexual values. Our culture worships virginity. Even those who reject the dogma of abstinence until marriage often claim to respect the supposed value of virginity. So next time a person speaks of virginity as a prize to be cherished, speak up! Labels: Love/Sex, Religion E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Saturday, January 05, 2008 Seasonique By Diana Hsieh @ 7:05 AM Sometimes Mother Nature is wise and wonderful. Sometimes she's a nasty old hag in need of improvement from modern medicine. Case in point: Seasonique. (Warning to the men: I'm about to discuss the female reproductive system. Steel yourself!) Seasonique is the birth control pill that produces only four periods per year, i.e. every three months. The research indicates that it's as safe and effective as monthly-cycle pills. I just finished my first three-month pack. I suffered absolutely no ill effects. From what my doctor told me, it's actually a lower dose of hormones than my prior pill (Ortho/Novum 135). This pill does not merely eliminate the hassle of the monthly period, this particular pill allows a woman to have more sex. And here at NoodleFood, we're all in favor of that. Hence, this post. Labels: Love/Sex, Recommendations E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis

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