Sexual Morality

Abstract

Ethical discussions of sexual morality focus on two related questions. The first is about the content of sexual morality: what is right and wrong, morally good or bad, in relation to sex? The second concerns the nature and standing of sexual morality: is there a set of moral considerations that apply only to sex‐related behavior, or is such behavior to be guided by and judged in terms of moral considerations that also apply elsewhere? Are there distinctively sexual rights and wrongs, virtues and vices? Our answers to these questions will obviously be determined, wholly or largely, by our views of the nature of sex and its significance in human life. The entry presents and discusses four such views: the traditional view that links sex to procreation, the romantic view that binds sex to (erotic) love, the view of sex as primarily a source of pleasure, and the Marxist‐feminist view of sex as a basic human need that should not be engaged in for some extrinsic reason.