Philosophy of Sex(2)

 #4(p. 19) Does the marital status, age, sex or gender, species, or race or ethnicity of one's sexual partner make a difference to the morality of sexual acts carried out with that partner? Why or why not? What other features of potential partners might be added to this list? Their physical attractiveness? Income? Aspects of their biography?

In evaluating the morality of any act, a tempting starting point is that golden rule which is most simply stated as the premise of medical ethics: Do no harm. Indeed, if all one dealt with were objects, things and creatures without self-awareness and so what we consider volition, such a premise might suffice; damage is, after all, something universally recognized as at least unpleasant, if not outright reprehensible when imposed on a sensitive creature.

Humans, though, at least in dealings with our peers, take exception to this rule. We place the greatest emphasis, not on a choice of pain or comfort, but on the choice itself. We find it horrible to think that we should be subjected to anything, good or bad, without our consent. Consent, then, respect for the independent will and thus recognition as agent rather than object, is our highest priority in determining how we wish to be treated, and by extension how people should treat each other generally.

Consent is variably influenced by the characteristics listed: social phenomena like race/ethnicity, gender, and marital status will be treated as having no bearing on a person's will, and thus ability to consent. Being social characteristics, qualities which only exist relative to others, they don't exist as qualities in the paradigm case of a solitary person being acted on or affected by the faceless challenges of life; to say that their ability to be willing participants in such trials, to agree with justice or object to its absence, comes into being with the existence of other people does not follow. Physical attractiveness, then, must be similarly considered irrelevant to one's ability to consent.

There are two qualities which determine the degree to which one is able to agree, or not, to endure their particular circumstances: power(the availability of options) and knowledge(the awareness of one's options). Personal characteristics which are related to the possession of one or both of these will then be characteristics which influence one's ability to consent; someone lacking either the power to refuse or the knowledge that they may do so can be reasonably described as lacking some ability to consent. Age, under this definition, is very definitely a factor in the morality of sexual activity with one's partner, since both knowledge and power are relatively lacking for the young. Further, any aspect of one's biography which impaired them in either such respect would likewise complicate their ability to refuse a sexual advance, making such an act an acting-on rather than an acting-with; objectification, in other words.

Income is a tricky consideration. An abundance of personal possessions may well increase one's sense of power and thus resilience to the influence of others, but on the other hand it only proves to be a factor in consent when there is a significant disparity in the income of the participants. Considered this way, though, the concept of social power arises, and so admits the several qualities excluded above as independently non-existent to be in fact important; though being poor in itself has no bearing on a person's will, there are situations in which refusing a particular sexual advance while being poor may be more difficult. Does this difficulty influence one's ability to choose, or just the choice itself? Are the factors which would make a choice difficult the same as those which would take it away?