PHL243H1 Chapter Notes -Casual Sex, Foreplay, Voyeurism
Document Summary
The ends or purposes of sexual acts aren"t central to understanding sexuality. Sexual desire is simply the desire for certain pleasures produced by bodily contact and sexual activity is activity that tends to fulfill this desire for pleasurable contact. Means-end analysis = there is a specific purpose of sexuality, whether it"s reproduction, expressing love, communicating, etc. So sex which doesn"t fulfil this function is deviant and incomplete. The alternative, simpler analysis is that sexual desire is desire for another person"s body and for the pleasure that such contact produces and sexual activity is activity which tends to fulfill this desire. Although aristotle and butler assert that pleasure is a byproduct rather than the goal of a purposeful action, in the case of sex this is not so clear. The desire for another"s body is naturally the desire for the pleasure that physical contact brings.
