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If love can be meaningfully said to be rational and irrational, as I have argued in my latest book On Romantic Love: Simple Truths about a Complex Emotion, one cannot help but wonder what to say about sex.
In my opinion, there is little doubt that sex can be unjustified in almost exactly the same circumstances as love. If having sex with someone is likely to subtract from your wellbeing, then the activity is unjustified or irrational. Continuing to have sex with a heedlessly selfish partner who is concerned only about his or her own gratification is irrational. But when sex is unlikely to subtract from your wellbeing, it is perfectly permissible as long as the encounter is consensual. There is nothing inherently bad about casual flings, loveless hookups and friends-with-benefit arrangements. Whether or not love or attachment is involved does not matter.
This lenient attitude toward sex is also known as “the casual view.” Although there is religious opposition to this position, the view is widely accepted outside of religious circles.
However, philosopher David Benatar has offered a grim challenge for those of us who believe it. He argues that the prevalent opinion that casual sex is without moral significance is squarely at odds with the widely held view that rape and pedophilia are intolerable moral violations.
Benatar contrasts the casual view with what he calls the “significant view.” This is the view that sex is wrong whenever it does not involve love of a kind that fits the act, as well as a certain level of understanding of the relationship between sex and love. Benatar believes that the popularity of sex with no strings attached suggests that many people agree with the casual view that sex is morally unproblematic and not something that needs to involve a special kind of love and understanding. But most of us who think casual sex is innocuous also happen to believe that pedophilia and rape are unspeakable, insufferable crimes. Moral decadences of the nastiest kind. This, however, is an inconsistent set of views, says Benatar.
The significant view can explain why pedophilia and rape are inexcusable, egregious moral crimes. A sexual act between a child and an adult, though it may involve love, does not involve the right kind of love—it does not involve a kind of love that fits the act. Even if there happened to be instances of pedophilia involving the right kind of love, those instances would not involve the right kind of understanding, because children are unable to grasp the ramifications of sex. But, Benatar says, the casual view cannot explain the extreme moral wrongness of pedophilia and rape. Sexual acts between adults and children need not physically hurt the child. Depending on the age of the youngster and the nature of the interaction, it may not hurt her emotionally either. Pedophilia does involve a level of force or coercion but, Benatar argues, that by itself need not be troublesome. We coerce or force kids in a number of ways. We force them to go to bed at a particular hour, to eat their green beans, to learn their multiplication facts and to practice before their violin lessons. So the advocates of the casual view cannot appeal to coercion to explain why pedophilia is as grotesquely nasty as it is.
Nor can they appeal to a lack of informed consent. There are things that children can consent to and things they can’t consent to. Children can consent to eat a Ding Dong but not to buy real estate, because the latter, but not the former, requires a type of understanding that a child is not capable of. But, Benatar argues, on the casual view, sex is not significant. It is not something that involves a great level of understanding. If, however, sex is not significant and does not involve a great level of understanding, then it ought to be something that a child can consent to.
The casual view does not imply that rape is morally acceptable. Rape involves force by someone who does not have the authority, or right, to exert that force. However, says Benatar, advocates of the casual view cannot explain why rape is an ultimate sin. It would be bad to force your neighbor to eat an apple. But it wouldn't be an extreme moral violation and certainly not one that's on a par with raping her. Yet because the casual view does not attach significance to sex, its cheerleaders cannot appeal to force to account for why being raped is so much worse than being forced to consume a piece of fruit.
Benatar’s argument may appear tendentious but it’s not. It presents a genuine dilemma. On the one hand, it appears that the causal view of sex ought to be right. On the other hand, it seems that rape and pedophilia are among the worst and most foul sins one could commit. Yet if Benatar is right, then we cannot have it both ways. You cannot rise above the fray.
There are two ways to save the causal view from embarrassment. One turns on the level of discomfort involved in being forced to engage in sexual activity. While sexual pleasure can be unbelievably good, displeasure or disgust during sex is at the other extreme. It is unbelievably bad. So, advocates of the casual view could say that while there is nothing inherently wrong with sex between two consenting adults, there is something wrong with forcing another person to engage in sexual activity because it involves a form of displeasure or disgust that is exceptionally bad. This would allow the advocates of the casual view to explain why rape is so much worse than many other activities involving force. They can appeal to similar considerations to explain why pedophilia is profoundly unacceptable. The pedophile cannot predict in advance what sort of grave consequences having sex with the child will have, and because a sexual encounter between a child and an adult may involve extreme displeasure, it is wrong to coerce a child to engage in that kind of activity.
Another way out for the advocate of the casual view would be to appeal to the special relation that obtains between a person and his or her body. It’s a relation that is similar to ownership but more intimate; we might call it “super- ownership.” You own your car but you super-own your body. Even if I don’t care about my car and lend it out to strangers all the time, it would be wrong for you to paint it behind my back or coerce me to hand you my car keys. Violations of ownership are wrong. Likewise, violations of super-ownerships are very wrong. So using another person's body without consent is profoundly morally unacceptable. This could account for why rape or other forms of sex that involve force or coercion and a lack of consent are extreme moral wrongs, even if the casual view is right.
Berit Brogaard is the author of On Romantic Love
