scholarly journals Snogs of innocence, snogs of experience

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Shilling

The current conventional wisdom is that rape is wrong because it is contrary to the interest in bodily autonomy: human beings are entitled to decide the conditions under which they will have sex. That is, it is grounded in an assumption that sexual pleasure is a good thing, and it is wrong to subject a person to sexual contact contrary to that person's intentions. But this assumption has not entirely replaced earlier assumptions, such as that sexual activity is always wrong and can be justified only by the need to reproduce the human race, or assumptions that sexual activity is right and good in the context of a lifelong marital commitment, but not otherwise. Here, I examine a number of subplots, themes and episodes within the series Dollhouse, Firefly, Blake's 7, The 4400, and Dawson's Creek with a view to analyzing the issues of sexual consent and autonomy raised within them.

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Dougherty

Abstract In “The Opposite of Rape,” John Gardner defends two central claims. The first claim is that consent is not necessary for morally permissible sex and the second claim is that giving consent pride of place in sexual offence policy has the unwelcome consequence of reinforcing sexist ideology. Gardner’s arguments for both claims rely on what I call the “Passive Consent Thesis” which is the thesis that “if A gives consent to B in a sexual encounter, then A is passive and B is active in the encounter.” Gardner argues that if sex that is good in a key respect, then they engage in joint sexual activity that is free of this asymmetry of agency. Building on work by Karamvir Chadha, I respond that even if someone is passive with respect to the action to which they consent, they can still be active with respect to a different action that they perform themselves. Consequently, I maintain that two people can give each other consent while engaging in joint sexual activity.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Jackson

This article presents a conversation analytic examination of a telephone call in which a teenage girl updates her friend about developments in a relationship. The telling is in three phases, from initial reluctance, through first kiss to first sexual contact. Drawing on the notion of lower and upper bounded tellability, I analyse the talk for what is constructed as tellable and as taboo. Eminently tellable, the kiss is a directly named activity, details are sought, and it is assessed in a delighted way. In contrast, the sexual activity is not named and instead is referred to as ‘stuff’. The details of ‘stuff’ are not pursued, and the activity is assessed with (playful) disapproval. The telling speaks to normative gendered sexual expectations for teenage girls in the UK. In talking about personal experience of sexual conduct but without talking in any detail, these speakers position themselves as morally respectable.


Author(s):  
Nandini Sen

This chapter aims to create new knowledge regarding artificial intelligence (AI) ethics and relevant subjects while reviewing ethical relationship between human beings and AI/robotics and linking between the moral fabric or the ethical issues of AI as used in fictions and films. It carefully analyses how a human being will love robot and vice versa. Here, fictions and films are not just about technology but about their feelings and the nature of bonding between AIs and the human race. Ordinary human beings distrust and then start to like AIs. However, if the AI becomes a rogue as seen in many fictions and films, then the AI is taken down to avoid the destruction of the human beings. Scientists like Turing are champions of robot/AI's feelings. Fictional and movie AIs are developed to keenly watch and comprehend humans. These actions are so close to empathy they amount to consciousness and emotional quotient.


Author(s):  
Alan Soble

The philosophy of sexuality, like the philosophy of science, art or law, is the study of the concepts and propositions surrounding its central protagonist, in this case ‘sex’. Its practitioners focus on conceptual, metaphysical and normative questions. Conceptual philosophy of sex analyses the notions of sexual desire, sexual activity and sexual pleasure. What makes a feeling a sexual sensation? Manipulation of and feelings in the genitals are not necessary, since other body parts yield sexual pleasure. What makes an act sexual? A touch on the arm might be a friendly pat, an assault, or sex; physical properties alone do not distinguish them. What is the conceptual link between sexual pleasure and sexual activity? Neither the intention to produce sexual pleasure nor the actual experience of pleasure seems necessary for an act to be sexual. Other conceptual questions have to do not with what makes an act sexual, but with what makes it the type of sexual act it is. How should ‘rape’ be defined? What the conceptual differences are, if any, between obtaining sex through physical force and obtaining it by offering money is an interesting and important issue. Metaphysical philosophy of sex discusses ontological and epistemological matters: the place of sexuality in human nature; the relationships among sexuality, emotion and cognition; the meaning of sexuality for the person, the species, the cosmos. What is sex all about, anyway? That sexual desire is a hormone-driven instinct implanted by a god or nature acting in the service of the species, and that it has a profound spiritual dimension, are two – not necessarily incompatible – views. Perhaps the significance of sexuality is little different from that of eating, breathing and defecating; maybe, or in addition, sexuality is partially constitutive of moral personality. Normative philosophy of sex explores the perennial questions of sexual ethics. In what circumstances is it morally permissible to engage in sexual activity or experience sexual pleasure? With whom? For what purpose? With which body parts? For how long? The historically central answers come from Thomist natural law, Kantian deontology, and utilitarianism. Normative philosophy of sex also addresses legal, social and political issues. Should society steer people in the direction of heterosexuality, marriage, family? May the law regulate sexual conduct by prohibiting prostitution or homosexuality? Normative philosophy of sex includes nonethical value questions as well. What is good sex? What is its contribution to the good life? The breadth of the philosophy of sex is shown by the variety of topics it investigates: abortion, contraception, acquaintance rape, pornography, sexual harassment, and objectification, to name a few. The philosophy of sex begins with a picture of a privileged pattern of relationship, in which two adult heterosexuals love each other, are faithful to each other within a formal marriage, and look forward to procreation and family. Philosophy of sex, as the Socratic scrutiny of our sexual practices, beliefs and concepts, challenges this privileged pattern by exploring the virtues, and not only the vices, of adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, group sex, bestiality, masturbation, sadomasochism, incest, paedophilia and casual sex with anonymous strangers. Doing so provides the same illumination about sex that is provided when the philosophies of science, art and law probe the privileged pictures of their own domains.


Author(s):  
M. Isabel Gardett

Eugenics is the attempt to improve human traits through intervention in genetic lines, generally for the stated purpose of increasing the proportion of so-called positive human traits and decreasing the proportion of (or eliminating) so-called negative traits. The term "eugenic" was originally coined by Francis Galton (half-cousin to Charles Darwin) in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883). Galton also laid out the approaches to eugenic manipulation that would become common, focusing on them especially in the last chapter of his autobiography, "Race Improvement." In particular, he advocated that those "afflicted by lunacy, feeble-mindedness, habitual criminality, and pauperism" should not be allowed to propagate freely. Eugenicists generally embraced Galton’s belief that human beings have a "duty" to improve the human race by genetically promoting the "higher" human qualities such as beauty, intelligence, and morality, although how to do so has always been a matter of debate, even among advocates—as has the perhaps more consequential debate over who has the right to determine which are "higher" and "lower" qualities, or "desirable" and "undesirable" traits.


2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052095865
Author(s):  
Lindsay M. Orchowski ◽  
Daniel W. Oesterle ◽  
Oswaldo Moreno ◽  
Miryam Yusufov ◽  
Alan Berkowitz ◽  
...  

The current study sought to examine how heavy-drinking college men describe communication of sexual interest and sexual consent. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 12 heavy-drinking college men identified three themes. Themes included: (a) expectations about parties and sexual activity, (b) observing and communicating sexual interest, and (c) communication of sexual consent. Men reported visiting drinking environments to locate women who they assumed would be open to sexual advances. In these environments, sexual interest was inferred indirectly through shared alcohol use. Anticipating token resistance men reported “trying and trying again” to pursue escalating types of sexual activity. Consent was inferred when participants did not hear “no” from a sexual partner, highlighting the importance of continued education on verbal consent in the context of sexual assault prevention programs.


1992 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 201-217
Author(s):  
Brenda Almond

Philosophy, as I conceive it, is a journey and a quest. Conducted individually, it is nevertheless a collective attempt on the part of human beings from differing cultures and times to make sense of the arbitrary contingency of human existence, to find meaning in life. So understood, the impulse to philosophise needs no explanation or apology. It belongs to us all, and it exerts its own categorical imperative. Here I may quote the words of a wise woman, an invented contributor to this debate, who spoke of the common mind, the common store of wisdom which has the power to outlast the individual. ‘For this’, she said, ‘is what philosophy is: not an esoteric discipline, but the common endeavour of the human race to understand and come to terms with its own perilous, fragile and ultimately ephemeral existence’ (Almond, 1990, 185).


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 484-507
Author(s):  
José Maurício Álvarez

In this essay, we debate the image of the Roman Empire represented in films produced by mainstream Hollywood cinema, whose Jewish-Christian ideological matrix placed Rome as the image of evil instead of an excellent idea in the North American version. In contrast, we will analyze Fellini's film Satyricon, which, distanced from the conventions of the historical film produced during the Cold War, created a dreamlike image of Rome and its Empire. Secondly, we will see the historical context of Petronius' work situated at the end of the reign of Emperor Nero. At the time, diversified sexuality presented man's power as a phallic power, which penetrates and rapes as a supremacy strategy. The Emperor is an actor-governor employing wiles and violence to reach the throne and maintain himself there. Petronius portrays the emergence of a new female sensuality whose morals oscillated between Vestal's virginal purity, the wife's pudititas, and sexual bestiality. At the same time, Fellini's film recreates the cultural environment of the classical world shaped by literature and the image of the city of Rome as Cosmopolis or Anthopolis. The ambiguous characters move freely and incessantly through the corners of the Roman Empire. The struggle for power and the representations of pagan religiosity show human beings surrendered to their cunning as a strategy for survival and overcoming existential evils. In conclusion, we will see that both works, Petronius' Satyrica and Fellini's Satyricon, present themselves with their independent and intertwined narratives, composing the account of a journey like the Odyssey, metaphor of the incompleteness of human life and the impermanence of the sexual pleasure and the transience of power.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip D. Clingan

Love is the strong affection a person has towards the other person. Love can be between people of different gender, age, colour, social status, religion, or nationality. True love knows no boundaries, and that is why there exist different types of love. Most of the different types of love are derived from ancient Greek. The purpose of the study is to show why different people will have a different kind of love and why each of the love is important to the parties involved. The love between two people can take different forms, and two parties cannot have all the ten types of love discussed. The ten types of love discussed include love for parents, love for friends, agape love, love for animals, intimate love, selfish love, and unenduring love for friends, love for close friends, obsessive love towards people, and child love. Each of the love is unique in its way and is beneficial to both parties involved. The greatest of these types of love is agape love. A good example of agape love was portrayed in the life of Jesus in the Bible. He loved the human race unconditionally and gave all to save them from humanity. Also, child love and parent love are important types of love because they enhance strong bonds between parents and their children. Animal love can be obsessive because it will make a person become too close to animals in caring for them. However, it’s an important type of love because it creates a good relationship between human beings and animals. Animals tend to feel protected in the presence of human beings.


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