The Black and White of Sex: The Evolution of My Own Sexual Morality Part I of ?

I've been thinking about sexual ethics and morality for some time now and cl posted some comments by Dan Savage on her blog and it prompted me to break out the keyboard and re-start my own string of posts where I can explore my own desire to develop a sexual ethic or morality. I noticed as I went back and looked at my blog, morality concerns were some of my first posts, dealing with Georgetown Law School's Moral Value Project, a case study in seduction, and my very first post on the morality of the treatment of two young women coming of age sexually.

Growing up Mormon created an ambiguous arena for determining appropriate sexual conduct. On one hand, the Puritanistic version of Mormon morality gave a simple letter of the law version of sexual morality that made up for what it was lacking in practicality (no necking?) by being extraordinarily clear. No sex before marriage. No extramarital sex. No masturbating. No petting. No necking. Completely impractical in light of most people's biological imperatives, but you always knew how you were sinning.

Most people and at the very least, me, are loathe to think that they are consistently sinners. I started to develop a complex that I was the most lacivious man on the planet and I found strange comfort in the more esoteric doctrine of the religion that had brought me to this spot. Something warps in the brain when you feel you are a sexual sinner, but that your religion offers you the promise of multiple sex partners -- at least at some point in eternity.

The first difficulty faced when abandoning an ethical code is the absence of an ethical code. The ethical and moral restraints are deemed invalid and chaos steps in to fill the gap. The choice I was faced with after abandoning the sexual morality of my youth was what type of behavior guidelines should I set for myself?

What did I personally believe is moral? What do I see as my own personal sexual ethics?

I essentially adopted a scientific approach in my efforts to establish a sexual ethic. (Yes, I know the labs have been hell, but you have to experiment if you are going to be a scientist.) I found out a couple of things fairly quickly, even when I was still attempting to be the quintessential Boy Scout.

The first realization I made as a young teenager was that sexual contact created expectations in other people -- and it didn't have to be much, holding hands could be a significant moral dilemna. The same contact (holding hands for this example) would create totally different expectations in me and in the girl whose hand I held. If she held my hand, I saw it as a signal that she liked me and maybe she would talk to me the next time I called her on the phone. If I held her hand, she would feel like I was crowding her space and she wanted me to get the hell away (or maybe that is just all women). The physical action was the same, the emotional expectations completely opposite. I began to see the hard fast rules as one way to force everyone into the same world vision.

This didn't last of course, because damn it, people wouldn't follow the rules. Fortunately, I did find one advantage to the well known and stringent Mormon morality that was obeyed more in its defiance than observance. It gave me a hell of a way to break up with girls I just wanted to make out with. You meet the girl at church or BYU. You make out for a couple of weeks until you get into the light petting and severe tonsil hockey. You don't call for a couple of days after a make out session. You meet her on a public bench somewhere and tell her that you have been wracked with guilt for violating the law of chastity with her. You are crazy about her, but you just know that if you spend any more time with her, you won't be able to restrain yourself any further, so continuing to see her is out of the question, because she is just so damn hot. And then I was free. Although I felt that somewhere in there, that in my obedience to the letter of the law I was violating its spirit.

Those are only some of the early seeds of my evolving sexual ethics and there is much more to follow, but I'm pushing that unseen blog word limit -- and my bed time (going there alone, thank you very much -- if I was getting laid do you think I'd have time to write about sexual morality?). Let me conclude with two salient features that I believe are essential to a legitimate sexual morality.

1. Compassion and empathy for the other person's expectations. (2nd Person Subjective)

2. An understanding of social and cultural context. (3rd Person Subjective)

If you base your own actions based on a clear understanding of both the other person (or people) involved and on the societal reaction, then you can at least begin to make decisions that border on the ethical.

I would love to hear your comments and thoughts on how you have dealt with sexual morality and ethical issues. Most productive philosophical discussions take place in the realm of dialogue.

Moral Values Project -- Georgetown Law

Today I got the chance to listen to a lecture by Chai Feldblum, a professor at Georgetown Law School. The lecture was geared primarily to addressing the need to restructure the political debate on sexual orientation in terms of moral discourse. I'll summarize the lecture's critical points:


1. Moral bracketing is the current method for addressing issues of homosexuality in political discourse. An example of moral bracketing is a religious person who is opposed to homosexuality on religious grounds, brackets that belief to allow for the law to provide some protection for homosexuals.

2. Solely relying on moral bracketing weakens the moral arguments that the homosexual community currently has access to. Relying just on an argument that government should stay out of the bedroom, prevents arguing about the actual moral issues.

3. Gender or sexual orientation is a morally neutral, while lack of gender equity is morally bad.

4. The moral argument is then restructured so the debate is focused on the morality of pleasure, the morality of tolerance, the morality of behavior and the morality of government imposing religious ideology (if religious grounds are the only reason you have for abhorring a behavior, then the imposition of penalties for that behavior is an unconstitutional establishment of religion by the State).

I went and checked out the Morals Value Project website and I was hoping for more information, but the project was only introduced officially about a month ago. I will be interested to see how it develops. The website does have some good information on federally mandated abstinence only sex education policies, but that is for another day.

I listened to the lecture and tried to restructure the arguments in a Mormon setting. Obviously when discussing morality within a religion, you don't have the secular constitutional arguments, but I like Professor Feldblum's idea of not seceding the moral high ground so easily. Mormon doctrine is so filled with contradictory messages about sexuality that it fucks up or unfucks anyone who comes in contact with it. Yet, a discussion of ethics and morality relating to sex has relevance, regardless of past, present or future religious affiliations or sexual orientations.

My very first post on this blog was just the kind of moral discussion that I think Professor Feldblum has in mind. What is moral when it comes to sex? What is ethical? What causes harm? What creates pleasure? What creates joy?

An Email Following Up On An IM Chat

First -- yes, I was shamelessly flirting with you.

Second -- yes, the flirting got me aroused.

Third -- I truly wish there was a way to maintain the mystical connection I feel with all the women (not really that many) who I've had the great honor of being able to make love to. It isn't hard for me to love them all in their individuality and sexuality. That isn't a line or a seduction
technique, I genuinely feel this way. The fact that you granted me access to your body last week is something that I find very sacred and wonderful -- So, thank you.

Fourth -- Circumstances had conspired to make me quite bold tonight. I'm home alone (in my
cluttered house).

Fifth -- I know you had some rejection issues with me and I can assure you that it had nothing to do with your sex appeal, which is significant. Even more so after tasting you, licking you and entering you. If food metaphors weren't cliched, I'd say you were a dish I'd like to devour again.

Sixth -- I do wish there were a way to divorce negative emotion from sex, but hey -- there must needs be opposition in all things, or something like that. Great physical pleasure opposed by emotional strife.

Seventh -- I wouldn't mind talking to you face to face about some of these things. I was serious about my invite. I'm home alone, naked and in bed until about 6:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, so if you want to take advantage of me you'll need to call and I'll be sure to pick up the phone.

Eighth -- My Girlfriend. You know I don't write an email without thinking about how she would feel if she were to read it. We both have our mechanisms for keeping each other at bay, of keeping the relationship from becoming too serious. (Hers is refusing to live with me and mine is being OK with that.) Is the fact I'm proposing to fuck you again immoral as a result? I don't know. Maybe I'm truly polygamous at heart? I do love you all and would prefer to not see any pain for any of you -- even my former spouse (who I'm quite irritated with right now, but still don't wish her ill). Maybe it is my fear of death and my attachment to the female goddess in all its glorious forms that grounds me, albeit momentarily and ironically, in eternity.

Could be or that could be a massive bullshit rationalization for getting laid. There goes that opposition thing again. So, from one screwed up human being to another -- thanks for keeping me "up" as long as you did tonight. I will always consider you a dear friend and will always be honored that you let me worship in that holy temple of your body.

Tale of Two Daughters

Daughter One:

She first had sex at the age of nineteen, with a returned missionary. Being a good little Mormon girl she confessed to her parents. Her father, who at one point in a church service had indicated that he would rather see her in a coffin than fornicating, saw to it that she married that fornicating returned missionary. The marriage lasted three years.

Daughter Two:

Her first sex was at the age of eighteen. Her father saw to it that she felt loved and accepted despite the bad sexual experience. She was told that sex could be wonderful and not to judge all sexuality by an obviously traumatic experience. She almost immediately stopped seeing the guy and is now unmarried and going to college (and probably fornicating with condoms).

I can't help but feel that one response was better than the other.