Philosophy of sex
Related: adultery - sexual ethics - feminism - gender theory - philosophy - sexology - sex - sociobiology
Treatises: Ars Amatoria (c. 1 B.C.) - Ovid - A philosophy of lasciviousness (1792) - Mary Wollstonecraft - Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795) - Marquis de Sade
Definition
Philosophy of sex is the part of applied philosophy studying sex and love. It includes both ethics of phenomena such as prostitution, rape, sexual harassment and homosexuality, and conceptual analysis of concepts such as "what is sex"?One of the leading contemporary philosophers of sex is Alan Soble. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_sex [Aug 2004]
Sexual morality
Sexual morality refers to the beliefs and practices by which a culture, group, faith, etc. regulates their members' behaviour in matter of sexual activities. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_morality [Oct 2004]Philosophy of Sex () - Alan Soble
Philosophy of Sex - Alan Soble [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Now in its third edition, this fascinating book illustrates how a philosophical approach to sexuality can shed light on various sexual phenomena, such as pornography, prostitution, sadomasochism, homosexuality, masturbation, sexual perversion, and adultery. A definitive work on a provocative topic.
Philosophy and Sex () - Robert Baker et al
Philosophy and Sex () - Robert Baker et al [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
A classic sourcebook that has, for two decades, helped thousands rethink their views of ethics and human sexuality, now all new and totally revised for the challenges of a new century. It features essays on adultery, monogamy, perversion, homosexuality, pederasty, sex without love, sexual equality, and much more.
Studies in the Psychology of Sex
- Studies in the Psychology of Sex: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse, Love and Pain, the Sexual Impulse in Women
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Havelock Ellis, M.D., produced a groundbreaking study of sexuality: Studies of the Psychology of Sex, in which he wrote that the concept of pain is much misunderstood:"The essence of sadomasochism is not so much "pain" as the overwhelming of one's senses - emotionally more than physically. Active sexual masochism has little to do with pain and everything to do with the search for emotional pleasure. When we understand that it is pain only, and not cruelty, that is the essential in this group of manifestations, we begin to come nearer to their explanation. The masochist desires to experience pain, but he generally desires that it should be inflicted in love; the sadist desires to inflict pain, but he desires that it should be felt as love...."
Havelock Ellis, M.D. (1926). Studies of the Psychology of Sex, F.A. Davis Company, pg. 160.
The Poisoned Embrace: A Brief History of Sexual Pessimism () - Lawrence Osborne
Defining sexual pessimism as the "equation of sexual love outside the prerequisites of reproduction with death," and musing that it may be "Catholicism's most eccentric trait," Osborne ( Paris Dreambook ) offers a thoughtful, sometimes elegant and somewhat selective history of this theological tenet. Exploring folklore, church writings and history, he traces the source of sex hatred to the cult of Gnosticism. Osborne examines the role of sexual pessimism in the development of the Virgin myth, witch hatred during the Inquisition, 19th-century images of the Jew as sexual predator and archetypes involving lepers, Don Juans, Orientals and Androgynes. He concludes with a look at examples of modern "sexual optimism" in early Soviet communism's promotion of free love and the veneration of fertility in German Nazism, both of which degenerated into blends of promiscuity and puritanism. He does not extend his analysis into the effect of AIDS on views of sex today.
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