Sex is Profoundly Moral

Mr Holdsworth contrasts the traditional view of sex with the liberal view.

For the past century or so, there have been two competing views about sex that have raged at each other in the hopes of winning the acquiescence of the people through sermons, editorials, research, and even political legislation.

They can basically be summarized like this. One believes that sex, like most things, brings with it an intrinsic moral dimension which means that sex can be partaken in conformity to what is good or in rebellion against that good in the form of evil or perversion.

According to this belief, since sexual behaviour requires moral consideration, we as moral agents, must govern our appetite and behaviour accordingly. This means that whatever we do, we have to do what is right, we have to make good and right choices and actions. – let’s call this the traditional view.

The other view claims that there is no moral dimension to sex or if there is, it’s far less pronounced than the traditional view would have us believe. Sex is just like any other leisure activity that we might choose to engage in and it’s unreasonable to expect people to moderate their behaviour because that will only exacerbate our sexual appetites and it’s unrealistic anyway.

This view encourages us to explore and liberate our sexuality and taste all the fruits and experiences that it has to offer. So, to ensure that we can engage in as much sexual activity as we might want, we’ve developed technology to mitigate the negative consequences. We can call this position, the liberal position.

And we see these two positions clash in a very revelatory way whenever there is a health emergency or an outbreak of sexually transmitted infections. The traditional side will say, if people would just commit to having only one sexual partner for life, then these outbreaks would never occur. And that’s true.

But the liberal contingent will reply that this is far too lofty a solution and it will never work, so the best we can hope for is to continue to encourage promiscuity while promoting a reliance on technology to mitigate these adverse consequences.

Well, I think there are ways that we can demonstrate that sex is a profoundly moral act of the will and how we engage in it will ALWAYS have significant moral consequences. Unlike the liberal advocates, I think it’s abundantly obvious that sex is very different from a range of leisure activities that we might want to compare it to.