On Consensual "Plain Sex"

In “Plain Sex,” Alan Goldman develops a very liberal ideal of sexual morality, which claims that “[t]here is no morality intrinsic to sex, although general moral rules apply to the treatment of others in sex acts” (part VI, paragraph 1). His definition of acceptable treatment is, however, troubling. Relating Kant’s demand for reciprocity to sexual morality, Goldman argues that as long as “one recognizes a partner as a subject with demands and desires by yielding to those desires [and] by allowing oneself to be a sexual object as well” (part VI, last paragraph), coitus is morally acceptable. Although Goldman seems to be okay with acts that involve mutually using one another, his logic here is flawed.

    Goldman recognizes the Kantian argument that sex acts with the only intention of satisfying sexual drive lead to “treating another as a means to a private end” (part VI, last paragraph), but he glosses over it with the reciprocity argument. It is not morally permissible to objectify a human being, even if that person objectifies you and you have each consented, because in doing so, one “detaches” the personhood of another human being, in which case one enters an “anything goes” situation in regards to moral permissibility. This is because the personhood is an important attribute to ethical concern. I put “detaches” in quotes because one cannot truly remove the personhood from someone else. Once personhood is associated with a human being (for instance, at conception, the third trimester of gestation, birth, etc.), it remains an attribute of that human until it no longer does. [Personally, this would be at the time of death; however, others may make cases for comatose or vegetative people, or for a variety of other “near death” cases. These are irrelevant to this argument.] Therefore, sexual activity with a person (someone who has personhood) that uses that person for one’s personal gains is immoral. Consent here does not matter, since the personhood is not something that can be willingly given up for the time being.

    If we follow the assumption that objectification does detach the personhood from a human being, we still see problems with Goldman’s argument in the matter of subjectivity and objectivity. We regard a subject as a person with rights that should be respected. An object, therefore, lacks these rights and personhood. Goldman argues that that the sexual partners are consenting for mutual objectification. This is a fallacious, because a subject gives someone the okay to be treated as an object. The partner would then give consent to an object to be treated as an object. The problem with this is that a subject cannot give consent to an object, because an object would be lacking personhood.  Taking Aristotle’s view of a person as a rational, social animal, we see that the object would lack also rational or free thinking. Since consent cannot be given to an object, which lacks free thinking, Goldman’s argument here does not make sense.