Philosophy of Love, Sex, and Marriage

236 Sex not endorse them, view them with skepticism, have them despite his desire to be rid of them, and so on—that is, have various attitudes towards them. This is a crucial point, because the stereotypes might be fully inert and not motivate the person to do or believe anything about the members of the group in question, neither sexually nor nonsexually. To insist otherwise is to be dogmatic. It is to believe that the mere having of stereotypes indicts one’s character. But this is simplistic. The point is not that having stereotypes never indicts someone’s character. Surely it does in many cases. The point is that there is no reason to believe that it always does that. None of the above denies that there are people with racial preferences who are also racist, let alone that many societies are vitiated by racism and ugly stereotypes. But this does not mean that all, most, or even many people with racial preferences are racist. So we cannot conclude that people with racial desires are automatically non-virtuous. That judgment has to be made on a case by case basis. Does this reasoning apply to people like Pill, who does not desire black people? Can she still be virtuous and not desire black people? The worry is that her lack of desire for black people indicates some deep-seated racism on her part. However, I have argued that no such conclusion follows. Whatever made Pill this way, whatever made her someone who does not desire members of a certain group, does not imply any beliefs, attitudes, hostility, and so on, on her part regarding the group in question or its members. Pill’s lack of preference might simply be a fl uke as the result of her specifi c causal history—she just happened to grow up that way, much like all our preferences are usually fl ukes. Granted that this is true, might she still have reason to cultivate such a desire? Whether someone has such reasons, I suspect, is mostly a matter related to the individual person in question. If Pill is not racist, she has no moral reason to cultivate sexual desires for black people. Even if she is racist, she would have such a moral reason only if having sexual desires for black people is the way or at least one good way to combat her racism. And it might be a good way indeed: if she is able to become sexually attracted to black men, she might be motivated to have sex with them, and doing so might make her know them better, which in turn helps in shattering (some of) the barriers that structure racism. In addition, Pill might have non-moral reasons having to do with her own goals and expectations for developing such desires: to broaden her sexual horizons, to cultivate potential relationships with members of these groups (assuming she has no or few such relationships), and to increase her chances of having more sexual encounters (if this is her thing). It is in these senses that I mentioned above that reasons to cultivate such desires are mostly related to the individual in question. I wrote “mostly” because it is an interesting question whether, in general, cultivating sexual desires for members of different races and ethnic groups helps improve interracial relationships, especially in those cases where (a) interracial tensions exist, but such that (b) there is general legal, economic, social, and political equality between the groups, and (c) intermixing among

Sex and Virtue 237 their members is socially accepted or at least not frowned upon. (Cases of inequality usher in the dangers of exploitation on the part of the members of the dominant group and of lack of genuine consent on the part of the members of the dominated group.) Sexual attraction between these groups could lead their members to seek each other out, to know each other better, to mix more together, and to be intimate with each other. Sex is, after all, useful for all sorts of social and political purposes. If it has not been useful in these ways up until now, it is about time to put it to such use, especially since conservative taboos about sex are going away. A virtuous person living under such conditions and who fi nds herself not desiring members of the other racial and ethnic groups in her society has, then, more than prudential and sexual reasons to cultivate desires for members of these groups. She has egalitarian, political reasons to do so. Her individual actions might not amount to much in terms of social and political amelioration, but this does not imply that such reasons do not exist. Much like one individual’s recycling efforts might not even make a dent in fi xing the deteriorating environment, one’s reasons to recycle do not cease to exist because of that. Summary and Conclusion Virtue ethics evaluates both sex acts and the role of sex in a well-lived life. But its main emphasis remains on the virtue of temperance and the vice of intemperance, as far as sexual desire is concerned. We have seen the differences between right actions and virtuous actions, and the differences between the different states of character: virtuous, continent, incontinent, and vicious. We ended the chapter with a discussion of how racial desires do not necessarily tell against someone’s virtue. Study Questions 1. Which do you think has conceptual priority, intemperate actions or intemperate traits or people? That is, with which do we start fi rst and then understand the other, actions or characters? 2. The vast majority of people in the world act in such a way as to do what is convenient for them, displaying utter indifference to the environment, to the poor, the suffering of animals, to give three examples. How are we to categorize these people, as incontinent or as vicious? 3. Imagine three people, A , B , and C , two of whom ( A and B ) have sexual fantasies about raping women. A never acts on his fantasies, while B does not even dwell on them. C has no such fantasies. Are there moral differences in their characters? Is one morally the best (as far as this issue is concerned) and one the worst? 4. Is it correct to claim that someone who gives priority to the pursuit of sexual pleasure is wasting his or her life? Why or why not? Does a positive answer to the question rely on an “anti-sex” view? And what would this mean?

238 Sex 5. Consider people whose lives revolve around sex, sexual activity, and sexuality in general, such as porn actors, sex workers, and models. Are their lives ones that involve a mistaken valuation of sex? Why or why not? Food critics’ lives revolve around food and eating—bodily pleasures—yet we do not believe that they waste their lives. Is there a counterpart to food critics in sexual matters—a sex critic? And what would such a person be like? For help in thinking about this question, refer to the discussion in the previous chapter about whether sexual pleasure is subjective or objective, and compare this to our assumptions about the pleasures of food and why food critics exist. 6. Give two parallel and (almost) identical examples of actions that satisfy the conditions in Set F but such that in one case the action does not satisfy the conditions in Set B but in the other it does. 7. Give examples of sexual acts that are not intemperate but that are wrong because they contravene virtues other than temperance. Give examples of sexual acts that are not intemperate and that are right because they stem from virtues other than temperance. 8. Imagine two people who have wrong sex, by say, cheating on their spouses. One is incontinent and the other is intemperate. What exactly would the difference between them be? What is it, that is, about their characters, beliefs, or values that explains how one is incontinent and the other is intemperate? 9. Think about whether there are sexually obligatory acts. To whom would such acts be? And who bears the obligation? 10. Is temperance attainable when it comes to sex and sexual desire? Or is continence all we can realistically hope for? Attempt to arrive at reasoned answers to these questions. 11. Do we have obligations to be attracted to other people on the basis of their own individual merits? If someone says to you, “I don’t want you to fi nd me sexually attractive because I have dark skin! I want you to be sexually attracted to me because of my intelligence!” Is this a reasonable request? Why or why not? And what does “reasonable” mean in this context? 12. Can you provide an argument for the claim that someone with racial or ethnic preferences has bad stereotypes about the racial or ethnic group to which his preference is connected? 13. Give an example of someone with racial preferences for group G who is not racist and someone with racial preference for the same group who is. How do you explain the difference between them? What makes one racist and the other not? 14. Given the argument that developing our sexual preferences might help ameliorate racial and ethnic tensions under some circumstances, can the reasoning be extended to an injunction to fully democratize our sexual desires to target members of all groups, not only racial and ethnic ones? Should we cultivate our sexual desires for all people, of all ages (well, not for minors!), genders, sexes, and body types and shapes (including abled and disabled bodies)? Why or why not? Are there any limits to such

Sex and Virtue 239 democratization-gone-wild? Are these limits factual, moral, aesthetic, or (inclusive “or”) prudential? 15. Consider the following example. An Arab gay man by the name of Nizar is at a party. He meets a handsome man who would not give him the time of day. The guy—a white man by the name of Jack who is attracted to Arab men—does not fi nd Nizar attractive until he fi nds out that Nizar is Lebanese. All of a sudden he sees Nizar in a different light, as, well, very handsome. (This is a type of case we did not discuss in the chapter, when someone’s racial preferences make them see someone else as attractive once they realize that that person belongs to the group whose members they fi nd attractive.) Is Jack racist? Would Jack fi nd just anyone attractive once he knows that that person is Arab? Further Reading There is a vast literature on virtue ethics, but for some crucial books see Annas (2011 ); Broadie (1991 ); Curzer (2012 ); Foot (2001 ); Hursthouse (1986 , 1999 ); Russell (2013 ); and Swanton (2003 ). On how virtue can be compromised under oppressive, bad, or immoral conditions, see Tessman (2005 ). On virtue ethics and sex, see Blackburn (2004 ); Halwani (1998b , 2003 , ch. 3, 2006b ); and Putman (1991 ), and the essays in Halwani (2007c ). On how dark sexual motives can be, see Morgan (2003b ). For a virtue ethics perspective on sex work, see Halwani (2003 , ch. 3). On the differences between moral traits of character vs. non-moral ones see Brandt (1970 ); Goldie (2004 ); and McAleer (2015 ). On temperance and intemperance, see Halwani (2003 , ch. 3, 2007a ); McCluskey (2014 ); Roberts (2014 ); and Young (1988 ), and the essays in Halwani (2007c ). On race and sex, see Halwani (2017b ). Notes 1. What viciousness amounts to is a complicated matter. It does not refer only to wicked or evil people, because it includes people with mistaken beliefs about the subject matter. That is, a vicious person is not only someone who knows that what he is doing is wrong but does it anyway because he thinks it is okay or because he does not care. It also includes someone who believes that it is morally right to, say, keep women at home, but who is wrong to believe this. Thus intemperance can take various forms, and this is why probably everyone is vicious in some aspect or other. See Aristotle (1999 , bk VII) and Halwani (2007a ). 2. Goldman, whose defi nition of “sexual desire” we discussed in Chapter 5, writes the following about the value of sex: “Sex affords us a paradigm of pleasure, but not a cornerstone of value . . . [The pleasures of sex] give value to the specifi c acts which generate them, but not the lasting kind of value which enhances one’s whole life. The briefness of the pleasures contributes to their intensity (or perhaps their intensity makes them necessarily brief), but it also relegates them to the periphery of most rational plans for the good life” ( 2013 , 70).

240 Sex 3. Of course, there might be no agreement on the list of conditions that goes into each set, especially B (I have noted the problems with some its conditions). But as long as we agree on the difference between the two sets and their respective roles, the exact lists are not needed for this discussion. 4. For those who think that this example is unconvincing and that this action seems right but for a character defect in Ahmad, remember William and what it means for someone to be the recipient of sexual favors out of arrogance. This point remains true even if William himself does not mind or even never feels a bad taste in his mouth from knowing why Ahmad slept with him. 5. Such an end is never permissible, or permissible only in very special circumstances, if one were an anti-natalist. 6. One might think there is no duty in this situation because interfering is risky. But the interference does not have to be risky or severely so; you can, for example, pretend that you know her: “Mary! What a coincidence! I didn’t know you were visiting town. Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?” And then you hug her and walk her away from the man. 7. This three-way division of sexual orientation is deeply problematic given that it leaves out many people with other orientations, such as asexuality and orientations for intersexed people. For an excellent discussion, see Dembroff (2017 ). 8. I have never seen an argument such as this made explicitly. But one sees hints of it. See Halwani (2017b ) for examples. 9. I am not confi dent at all with this analysis. But I will assume its truth because it gives the advocate of the argument of racism the strongest platform. On stereotypes and how diffi cult it is to defi ne them, see Beeghly (2015 ).

8 Sexual Objectifi cation Outline of the Chapter In this chapter, I start by giving a defi nition of “objectifi cation,” and then I explain why the concept is morally important. I next explain and defend Immanuel Kant’s views on sexual desire and how it is by nature sexually objectifying. I discuss various attempts to get around the Kantian problem with sex and argue that they fail, partly because they misunderstand Kant. Finally, I turn to a discussion of pornography and the feminist objection that it objectifi es and degrades women. I argue that although pornography does objectify, it does not do so just to women, and that feminist objections to the contrary do not succeed. What Is Sexual Objectifi cation? At its core, objectifi cation is treating or considering a person as only an object. Sexual objectifi cation is treating or considering a person only as a sex object. Consider the following cases that allegedly involve objectifi cation: (1) casual sexual activity (one-night stands, anonymous sex in sex clubs [including bathhouses and other sexual venues], sex with prostitutes, lap dances, and rape); (2) watching pornography; (3) depictions of people in the nude or having sex in pornographic material; (4) checking out someone or his or her “booty” as he or she walks by; (5) catcalling a woman (or a man) as she walks by; (6) sexually fantasizing about a particular person. All these types of cases allegedly involve objectifi cation. But whether the above cases count as objectifi cation depends on how we defi ne the concept. Consider the following defi nitions or characterizations of “objectifi cation”: “to objectify a person is to treat him or her only as an object” ( Halwani 2008 , 342); “a person is sexually objectifi ed when her sexual parts or sexual functions are separated out from the rest of her personality and reduced to the status of mere instruments or else regarded as if they were capable of representing her” ( Bartky 1990 , 26). Halwani’s defi nition includes only treatment or behavior towards someone. If x only (mentally) regards y as merely an object, no objectifi cation occurs.

242 Sex For x to sexually objectify y , x needs to treat y as a sexual object. If x merely eyes y sexually, or regards y in a sexual way, no objectifi cation occurs. Not so for Bartky’s defi nition: the second disjunct (“or else regarded as if they were capable of representing her”) takes care of the regard business. As Bartky notes, the prostitute, the Playboy bunny, and the “bathing beauty” would be sexually objectifi ed ( 1990 , 26). 1 Should we defi ne “objectifi cation” as involving only treatment or also regard? I have no decisive arguments for either option, but a defi nition that relies solely on the notion of treatment, though less cluttered, does not capture all there is about objectifi cation. For although objectifi cation is often about how someone is treated, it is also as often, if not more, matter of attitude: how we perceive or approach someone. Thus, a defi nition that includes regard is more comprehensive and captures many cases of objectifi cation that do not include treatment. For example, someone looking at pictures of naked women in a magazine sexually objectifi es, yet merely through regard, as no treatment is or could be involved. Let us, then, rely on the following defi nition of “sexual objectifi cation”: x sexually objectifi es y if, and only if, x treats or regards y only as a sexual object. 2 Note that the second “only” in the above defi nition is important, because without it we would treat someone else simultaneously as an object and as person. Since this is the way we usually deal with people on a regular basis, objectifi cation without the “only” seems morally innocuous. “Only” is meant to capture the treatment of someone solely for the sexual purposes of the treater (even if the treatment includes attention to the needs and pleasures of the treatment’s recipient, as I will explain further below). Understanding sexual objectifi cation is important not only in itself, but also for moral analysis. Indeed, among philosophers, the primary interest in the phenomenon has been moral. To them, sexual objectifi cation is worrisome because it involves the reduction of a person from a status he or she should occupy to one he or she should not. If human beings, regardless of individual merit, have elevated status in virtue of having a lofty property, such as rationality, humanity, dignity, autonomy, sophisticated mental structure, or even affi nity with God, reducing someone to a lower level is a moral wrong. But how common the actual occurrence of sexual objectifi cation and how serious it is are different questions. Other than cases of rape, it is rare to treat our sexual partners as mere objects in any obvious and troubling ways: not only are we aware of their humanity but we are attentive to it. This means that if there is sexual objectifi cation in such cases, we have not yet fully uncovered its nature, let alone decided how serious it is. In the vast literature on objectifi cation, especially by feminist writers who focus on pornography, there is a general tendency to argue that the objectifi cation stems from patriarchy and fl ows from the direction of men to women— that is, the men tend to be the objectifi ers, the women the objectifi ed. Feminist writers also insist that they are not against sex as such—they are not prudish or socially conservative about sex. If my arguments below are on the right track, it turns out that we should be worried about sex because it is sex, and that the

Sexual Objectifi cation 243 objectifi cation that feminists see in pornography is not because of some special bad way of viewing women. If objectifi cation in pornography has to do with sex, then it objectifi es both men and women, though to a different extent. I will argue, using the views of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, (1) that sex is by nature objectifying, but (2) that the objectifi cation is usually morally tolerable, and (3) that pornography does not have any additional forms of objectifi cation directed specifi cally at women, as many feminist writers believe. To better understand these issues, let us dive into the moral problems with objectifi cation. What Is Morally Wrong With Sexual Objectifi cation? The core moral problem with objectifi cation is that if people are not only objects, treating them only as objects dehumanizes or degrades them by lowering them to a level they should not occupy. In her essay, “Objectifi cation,” Martha Nussbaum enumerates seven different ways in which a person can be objectifi ed: 1. Instrumentality . The objectifi er treats the object as a tool of his or her purposes. 2. Denial of autonomy . The objectifi er treats the object as lacking in autonomy and self-determination. 3. Inertness . The objectifi er treats the object as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity. 4. Fungibility . The objectifi er treats the object as interchangeable (a) with other objects of the same type and/or (b) with objects of other types. 5. Violability . The objectifi er treats the object as lacking in boundary integrity, as something that is permissible to break up, smash, break into. 6. Ownership . The objectifi er treats the object as something that is owned by another, can be bought or sold, and so on. 7. Denial of subjectivity . The objectifi er treats the object as something whose experience and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account. ( Nussbaum 1999 , 218) Two (or more) people can have sex yet not objectify each other in any of these ways. Two (or more) people can have sex yet objectify one another in one or more of these ways. Let’s use casual sex as a way to see how objectifi cation is morally problematic. In typical casual sexual encounters—I focus on one-night stands (heterosexual and homosexual) and anonymous sexual encounters occurring in especially gay sex establishments—the sexual partners do not treat each other as violable, as owned by each other, as lacking in agency, autonomy, or subjectivity. Not only are they aware of each other’s humanity (obviously), but it is a precondition of their desire; they desire a sexual encounter with another human being, someone who can respond to their sexual desires and has sexual desires

244 Sex of his own. Even when they treat their sexual partners as nothing more than “fuck objects,” they are living, breathing, human fuck objects. So except for instrumentality and fungibility, casual sex does not seem to fi t the other ways of objectifi cation on Nussbaum’s list. Fungibility is a pervasive feature of our interactions with each other. The whole idea, for example, of shopping assumes fungibility as an underlying principle: shoppers are entitled to go from one shop to another until they buy what they like, thus treating different sellers and clerks as fungible. All sorts of people are fungible in this way: car mechanics, plumbers, computer geeks, fl ight attendants, teachers. But there are two types of roles in which people are not fungible. First, parents, children, lovers, siblings, friends, and others in similar intimate relationships are not fungible. It is at best a twisted joke and at worst a serious moral mistake to say to a parent whose child just died, “Why not adopt Jake? He looks just like your son, seems as talented, and is certainly much better behaved!” Second, there are people to whom we have obligations. If I promise the fl ower seller on my street to buy fl owers from her, she is not fungible with other fl ower sellers; unless she releases me from the promise or an unusual circumstance arises, I am bound to her . Because all people are fungible in some respect, as long as we treat them with the respect expected in our usual interhuman interactions, there is nothing wrong with treating them as fungible. So if objectifi cation is wrong, it is not because of fungibility. This includes sex. If I go out to a bar wanting to pick someone up for sex, I do no wrong in regarding or treating each person as a potential sex partner, fungible with everyone else or with everyone in a similar category. First, I have no obligations to have sex with any specifi c person. Second, I have no special relationship with anyone that obliges me to treat them as non-fungible. If I have sex with someone, then, yes, I treat him fungibly, but this is not wrong. What about instrumentality? It seems that partners to casual sex do objectify each other in this way: they treat each other as instruments for their own satisfaction. The only diffi culty with this reasoning is that instrumentality is a pervasive feature of our lives. We treat each other as instruments all the time, so if casual sex is sexually objectifying because it is instrumental, then I objectify, though not sexually, the cashier when I pay him money for the groceries I bought. Thus, it seems that instrumentality is not only morally permissible but necessary for life to go on. The problem is not instrumentality as such, but mere instrumentality: treating others only as instruments (something which Nussbaum acknowledges; 1999 , 223), being heedless or disrespectful of the other’s needs, desires, and wishes—for example, stealing from a shop or paying the seller only what I wish to pay as opposed to the actual price. Do partners to casual sex treat each other only as means or not only as a means? We have seen that normally partners to casual sex are attentive to each other’s desires and often heed them, much as I heed the cashier’s desire to be paid. If the cashier’s case is one of permissible instrumentalization, then so should be every case of casual sex in which partners attend to each other’s sexual desires and needs. That is, if what makes the cashier’s case permissible is that

Sexual Objectifi cation 245 I abide by the cashier’s goals, then every case of casual sex should also be permissible given that the partners attend to each other’s (sexual) goals. So casual sex does not seem to be a special problem in this respect. And if casual sex is not, many other sexual encounters also are not. But if in casual sex people do not objectify each other, in which other type of sex do they do so? Isn’t casual sex the home of objectifi cation? How can we make sense of this thought if it turns out on the above analysis that casual sex does not usually objectify? Here’s one plausible way to make sense of the thought: when sexual partners do attend to each other’s desires, they do not do so ultimately for the other’s sake, but for their own selfi sh desires. That is, x gives y sexual pleasure because doing so pleases x or because x wants y to reciprocate the favor at some point. This might not be similar to the cashier’s case. Although I do not give him the money for his own sake, but for my own sake (to get my groceries), his goal of earning money and my goal of getting groceries seem morally innocent, whereas sexual desire and activity might be morally suspect, such that satisfying someone’s sexual goals (whether mine or another’s) might raise moral red fl ags. As we will see in our discussion of Kant, this is a crucial consideration that sets sexual desire and activity apart from other activities. It is indeed here where the discussion of sex and objectifi cation lies. There are clear cases of objectifi cation. Rape is one: the victim is used merely as a tool, as an object, for the rapist’s sexual satisfaction. Another is the case of a man catcalling a woman; this, too, is a clear case of sexual objectifi cation. First, because she does not consent to the act, the catcaller treats the woman as a mere instrument for his pleasure and also as merely fungible. Unlike the usual cases of casual sex, in which the participants at least consent to the act, the woman in this case does not. The man merely uses her. The catcaller also seems indifferent to her autonomy, agency, and subjectivity; he says what he wants regardless of what she thinks, wants, or feels. He also treats her as violable, not physically, but psychologically: he invades her space, her ability to walk freely without unwanted attention. He might even be treating her as owned, as something he can do with as he likes. This, however, is more controversial because the catcaller need not believe that he owns her, which might be necessary to treat someone (or something) as owned. Thus, catcalling someone exhibits more forms of objectifi cation than casual sex does. Now that we have a fl avor of what the problem with sexual objectifi cation is, let us dive into its details. I will explain and defend Kant’s account of it and then look at some attempts to get around the problem of objectifi cation. Kant and Objectifi cation Kant’s Formula of Humanity Kant’s moral philosophy revolves around the idea that rational creatures, of which human beings are a prominent type, have special properties on the basis of which certain kinds of treatment are required. The property of humanity (by

246 Sex which Kant does not mean the same thing we usually do) is one such property, and is the basis on which Kant devised his famous Formula of Humanity, which is a moral command that tells us how to treat each other. The Formula of Humanity, as we have seen, states, “Act in such a way that you treat humanity in others and in yourself not only as a means but also as an end” ( 1981 , 4: 429). To recap, the idea is that we are not to treat each other as only tools for our goals, but we must also treat each other as ends in ourselves. In our treatment of each other, we must take each other’s goals seriously: usually we must not thwart them, and in some cases we must adopt them as our own. In some cases, it is not a simple matter of refraining from interfering but of helping someone attain certain goals. In whatever case, however, we must always approach others with a particular attitude, that of respecting the goals and plans of others, whether this respect is passive (non-interference) or active. Kant’s Formula of Humanity stresses that we should treat the humanity in us as an end. Humanity or rational nature to Kant is a property of rational creatures; it is our ability to set ends or goals, whether good or bad, and act on them, including the capacity to act on moral ends ( Hill 1980 ; Wood 1999 , ch. 4, 2008 , ch. 5). To Kant, humanity is not something we can bring into existence or increase in amount; it already exists and is not something, like pleasure, that can be added to or subtracted from. Moreover, it is an objective end in that it is true for and binding on everyone; whether we should act for its sake does not depend on our individual goals or desires to do so. Most important, humanity to Kant is the most fundamental value and the value on which his Categorical Imperative is based. Because it is the most fundamental value, it commands our respect . The question is: What arguments can be offered for this fundamental value? In one of his books on moral philosophy, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals , Kant gives a brief and dense argument as to why humanity as an end in itself exists, culminating in his statement of the Formula of Humanity: [R]ational nature exists as an end in itself. In this way man necessarily thinks of his own existence; thus far it is a subjective principle of human actions. But in this way also does every other rational being think of his existence on the same rational ground that holds also for me; hence it is at the same time an objective principle, from which, as a supreme practical ground, all laws of the will must be able to be derived. The practical imperative will therefore be the following: Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means. ( Kant 1981 , 4: 429) In what follows, I rely on Allen Wood’s interpretation of this argument ( 2008 , 90–93). In claiming that each human being “necessarily” thinks of his own existence as an end in itself, Kant seems to say that given the way we act and the things

Sexual Objectifi cation 247 we say, we can infer that individuals think of their existence as an end in itself (we don’t necessarily consciously think this; many people don’t think of themselves in these terms). When people set goals for themselves, they also set the means or the ways to attain them. Moreover, in setting these goals, people think of them as good (or else why set them?). If I set the goal of writing a book on sex and love, I also set the necessary and suffi cient means to achieve the goal. To me, the goal is good, even if sometimes I don’t feel like taking the needed steps to attain it (a common feature of human action and thought). However, in order to be able to set ends or goals for ourselves, we need to believe that we have the capacity—the rational capacity—to set them. Stated differently, in believing that we are capable of determining which goals to set, and in thinking of these goals as good, we must believe that our capacity to set them is also good. It follows, however, that I must also regard myself as the entity, the being, that has and is able to act on these rational capacities. Moreover, because I have this capacity, I must also respect (or esteem) it; it is the ability on my part to set goals and directions for my life and the means to achieve these goals. Note that because the object of this respect is the capacity to set ends, its being an object of respect does not vary from one individual to another; it does not depend, say, on whether the goals are intelligent, stupid, moral, or immoral. Because every rational entity, not just I, represents its existence as an end in itself (an object of respect), the requirement that I treat humanity in myself not only as a means but also as an end is an objective principle, applying to me and every other rational creature. Moreover, because every rational being has this capacity, I ought to treat it with respect as it exists in me and in every rational being. Hence, we reach the Formula of Humanity. Humanity—the capacity to set ends and act on them—is an object of respect in every rational creature, even if some act foolishly, immorally, or by demeaning themselves. The idea that humanity exists in every rational creature, regardless of his or her actual behavior, makes rational creatures autonomous beings in that they have the ability to act autonomously, even if they don’t always do so. Humanity itself has dignity simply in virtue of being the capacity to set ends and the means to act on them ( Kant 1981 , 4: 436–439). The fact that dignity is grounded in or attached to a capacity that all rational beings have, regardless of how they actually act, makes Kantian dignity metaphysical or transcendental; it is unlike the kind of dignity that we attach to human beings depending on how they actually act and lead their lives. Although it has serious limitations, as Wood acknowledges ( 2008 , 93), this argument is powerful. Having the capacity to set ends is a valuable capacity in general, one that is good to have in particular, and one that commands our respect. We can then proceed on the assumption that it succeeds in establishing the existence of a metaphysical form of dignity—a dignity that everyone has irrespective of how people actually conduct themselves. Indeed, even if we have doubts about the argument, we have a fi rm belief in the existence of such dignity, a belief expressed in our refusal to treat people in certain ways no

248 Sex matter what they have done. It is perhaps such a belief that prevents us from refusing to punish criminals in certain ways (e.g., punishing rapists by having them be raped). However, we have to be careful because social and cultural values often misconstrue what it is to be dignifi ed and what it is not. A white mother might feel that her white daughter is acting in an undignifi ed manner in dating a black man, because society has decided that certain forms of interracial relationships are prohibited and not befi tting the status of the white race (or either race, even). Thus, we might agree that human beings should act with dignity and should not be treated in undignifi ed ways yet disagree on what counts as dignifi ed and undignifi ed behavior and treatment. Because society can get this wrong, people sometimes feel humiliation for doing things they should not feel humiliated about. For example, being found out that one is gay is often experienced as shameful and humiliating, even if one doesn’t believe there is anything wrong or shameful about being gay; as the philosopher Claudia Card puts it, “Our liability to shame or other emotional pain in being defenselessly exposed to others as despicable, contemptible, or ridiculous does not presuppose that we fi nd those attitudes (contempt, etc.) deserved” ( 1995 , 159). Roughly speaking, this happens because when people grow up to do or be the things that society says is wrong, they feel shame for doing or being these things, and they feel humiliated when caught doing them. Sometimes it is right to feel ashamed or humiliated, but sometimes it is not, depending on whether society is right to condemn the things it condemns. One should feel shame for stealing, but one should not feel shame for loving someone from a different race even if one does feel it. The point is that when we judge treating someone as demeaning, degrading, or humiliating, we need to ensure that our accusation is based on the proper moral beliefs and values. Suppose that while watching a pornographic scene in which a female character screams with pleasure and has sex in all sorts of positions and ways, we wince with shame or humiliation on her behalf, thinking that this is demeaning to her. Is this because the sex she has is demeaning, or is it because we have imbibed social, mistaken views about women and sex? I will address this issue in the fi nal section of this chapter. Why Kant Viewed Sex With Suspicion Let us start with two points before we go into sex. First, Kant’s idea that treating the humanity in people only as a means (and not also as an end) is wrong is another way of speaking about objectifi cation, because when we treat the humanity in someone as a mere tool or means, we treat the person as an object, as something to do with as we please to achieve our purposes. Moreover, we normally talk of someone objectifying another person. But to Kant, equally problematic is the idea that in sexual encounters each person also objectifi es him or herself ( Soble 2013b , 323–324) Thus, discussing Kant on objectifi cation adds a new twist, which is self-objectifi cation.

Sexual Objectifi cation 249 Before we proceed, two notes on terminology. (1) Whenever I claim that “sexual desire is objectifying,” I mean to refer to (a) sexual desire that does not lead to sexual activity, (b) sexual activity fueled by sexual desire (as opposed to something else, such as duty or money) for the person(s) with whom the sexual activity is occurring, or (c) sexual desire that leads to sexual activity and the ensuing sexual activity stemming from that desire and fueled by it. (2) I will eventually defend Kant on sex and objectifi cation by developing a more charitable way of understanding Kant on sexual desire, a way that does not make him come out saying something simplistic about sexual desire. This I do by fi lling in what I consider to be the details of the account, which Kant only sketches. Thus, I will often use “Kantian view (or account) of sexual desire” to refer to this way of understanding Kant. Now to sex. Kant was especially suspicious of sexual desire and thought it objectifying by its nature . This is because when we sexually desire someone, we desire her body and body parts, especially the sexual ones, which makes it very hard, if not impossible, to treat the humanity in her as an end. Kant states, Because sexuality is not an inclination which one human being has for another as such, but is an inclination for the sex of another, it is a principle of the degradation of human nature. . . . The desire which a man has for a woman is not directed toward her because she is a human being, but because she’s a woman; that she is a human being is of no concern to the man; only her sex is the object of his desires. Human nature is thus subordinated. . . . Human nature is thereby sacrifi ced to sex. . . . Sexuality, therefore, exposes mankind to the danger of equality with the beasts. ( Kant 1963 , 164) To Kant, only the sexual impulse among our inclinations is directed at human beings as such, not “their work and services.” He adds, “Man can, of course, use another human being as an instrument for his services; he can use his hands, his feet, and even all his powers; he can use him for his own purposes with the other’s consent. But there is no way in which a human being can be made an Object of indulgence for another except through sexual impulse” ( 1963 , 163). It is morally permissible to use each other for all sorts of purposes as long as those purposes are morally permissible and consensual. By hiring a plumber, I use his hands and some of his abilities to fi x my plumbing. As long as the plumber consents, and given that getting my plumbing fi xed is morally permissible, the interaction is morally permissible. Sexual interactions are different. If two people consent to a casual sexual encounter, consent is not enough, because the very activity is morally wrong, since sexual desire makes another an object . Kant says: Human love is good-will, affection, promoting the happiness of others and fi nding joy in their happiness. But it is clear that, when a person loves another from a purely sexual desire, none of these factors enter into the

250 Sex love. Far from there being any concern for the happiness of the loved one, the lover, in order to satisfy his desire and still his appetite, may even plunge the loved one into the depths of misery. Sexual love makes of the loved person an Object of appetite; as soon as that appetite has been stilled, the person is cast aside as one casts away a lemon which has been sucked dry . . . Taken by itself [sexual love] is a degradation of human nature; for as soon as a person becomes an Object of appetite for another, all motives of moral relationship cease to function, because as an Object of appetite for another a person becomes a thing and can be treated and used as such by everyone. ( 1963 , 163) In brief, we cannot treat someone as having dignity if we treat them as an “Object of appetite.” Something has to give. We need to explain Kant’s argument and trace its implications. Only then can we fi gure out whether his views are convincing. There are two crucial ideas in the above passages. The fi rst is that sexual desire is very powerful, so much so that a man “may even plunge the loved one [read: desired one] into the depths of misery” to satisfy his desire. This is a crucial point to which I will briefl y return below. The second and, to my mind, primary reason why Kant indicts sexual desire is that it is, “taken by itself,” nothing but an appetite for a human being as such. Because this is the nature of sexual desire, when we sexually desire others we regard them as objects, thus inhibiting “all motives of moral relationship.” This is the fulcrum of Kant’s argument for why sexual desire is by its nature objectifying. What does Kant mean by it? Suppose that Mark is sitting in a café, watching passersby. A good-looking woman walks by and he checks her out: he looks at her breasts, her butt, and her thighs. Mark is not interested in any other aspect of the woman. He cares about her only as a sexual being. Now suppose that the woman—Mandy—sits in the café, sees Mark, and also fi nds him sexually attractive—she checks out his crotch, his biceps, and his dark brown eyes. Mark strikes up a conversation with her and soon enough she invites him over to her hotel room (she’s visiting town) for a bit of “fun.” They go to her room and have sex—they satisfy each other’s sexual desires on and with each other. Once they are done, they say their goodbyes and they discard each other like lemons “sucked dry.” From sexual desire to sexual activity, the partners view and treat each other merely as sexual beings, to be used for sexual purposes. But this cannot be all that Kant means. Suppose I hire a plumber. I don’t care about any other aspect of him except for his plumbing abilities. He does not care about any other aspect of mine except for my paying abilities. Once he’s done fi xing my sink I pay him and we say our goodbyes. I view him as a plumber, and he views me as a client. When we fi nish, we discard each other like lemons “sucked dry.” Kant must have been aware of situations like these. So why did he single out sexual desire?

Sexual Objectifi cation 251 The answer lies in Kant’s remark that sexual desire targets people’s bodies, not their “work and services.” What he means, I think, is this: When I hire a plumber, I am interested in a particular ability of his, the ability to fi x whatever plumbing problem I have. When I hire a math tutor, I am interested in her mathematical abilities. When I hire a masseuse, I am interested in his massaging abilities. In virtually every interaction we have with another person, we are interested in some ability, talent, or service he or she can perform, an aspect of people intimately connected, according to Kant, to their rationality—we need practical or theoretical reasoning (or both) to develop, maintain, and act on any talent, skill, ability, or service. In these cases, what I desire is not the people’s bodies or body parts as such, but their abilities, talents, or services. If I do desire their body parts, it is only in service to their abilities (and the desire does not feel sexual). Only with sexual desire (and, Kant says, in the rare case of cannibalism; 1963 , 162–163) do I desire the person as such, as a body, as an object . I want to enjoy the person himself , not his beautiful voice, his company, or his massaging abilities. If I desire his abilities, it is in service to his embodiment and his physicality. Thus, sexual desire renders people objects by reversing our normal relationship to their bodies. Their bodies become the ultimate, not the mediate, objects of our attention. To be clear, Kant did not mean, and could not have meant, that the person who desires another’s body is indifferent to whether the person is dead or alive; he did not mean that the desiring person would have been as happy to desire the other’s corpse. He also did not mean that during sexual activity he does whatever he wants with the person he desires, no matter whether the desired person agrees or not. Had he intended any of these meanings, his view would have been utterly implausible, as it clearly fl ies against the obvious facts of sexual interactions, about which Kant surely knew. 3 Instead, according to Kant, one desires a living human being, but as an object, as something on which one can satisfy one’s sexual urges. With sexual desire, we are not interested in the other person’s abilities, talents, and intellect, but in the person’s body as a tool for the satisfaction of desire. Thus, when the desiring person—Mark, say—interacts with Mandy through the lens of desire, he allows his desire to take charge: it is under its umbrage that he interacts with Mandy. Mark’s sexual desire for her oversees and directs his interactions with her. Although he can interact with her as a fellow human being—he might offer Mandy a glass of water before having sex, he might ask her if what he is sexually doing to her is okay with her, and so on—this happens under the direction of sexual desire; all for the purpose of satisfying it. On the other hand, viewing Mandy through the lens of rationality is different: it is Mandy’s purposes and goals that guide Mark’s interaction with her. He adopts her goals as his own, as Kant would say. Thus, and except for the sexual parts, the interactions between Mark and Mandy might look similar under the guidance of either sexual desire or rationality, though the underlying motivations would be different. Imagine the case of Mark and Mandy differently: Imagine that Mark, for whatever reason, has sex with Mandy out of pity for

252 Sex her and not out of his sexual desire for her (indeed, he does not sexually desire her). Imagine him going through the same actions and steps he does go through when he has sex with her out of desire. The cases will behaviorally look the same, but they will have vastly different motivations (on the part of Mark). Indeed, in the variation of the case, Mark does not sexually objectify Mandy (though he allows himself to be objectifi ed by her). There is thus a deep tension between viewing someone through the lens of sexual desire and viewing him or her through the lens of humanity or rationality. Note three things. First, even if Mandy’s goal is to also have sex with Mark, one cannot argue that by heeding her goal Mark is approaching her through the lens of rationality by adopting her goal. This is because in this case the goal is wrong: it is to use Mark as a body, period, stemming as it does from sexual desire. We can then also note that to Kant consent is not suffi cient to render sex permissible (though it is necessary). Suppose that Mark and Mandy, instead of having sex, agree to rob a bank, go cow tipping, or burn down a forest. The fact that they consent to these activities does not make them morally permissible. Similarly, because to Kant sexual desire aims to use another as a mere body, consent to it does not make it permissible ( Soble 2013b , 304–305). The above point shows how Kant’s understanding of sexual desire does not satisfy the Formula of Humanity, which, as a reminder, states, “Act in such a way that you treat humanity in others and in yourself not only as a means but also as an end.” This moral command requires treating people in two ways. First, we must not use them as mere tools. Second, we must share or adopt their goals as if they were our own, which does not mean that we do so in order to attain our own, but for their own sake . Moreover, the goals have to be morally permissible ( Soble 2013b , 304–305). Thus, not only do Mark and Mandy use each other as mere tools, they also cannot adopt each other’s goals to use each other sexually given the wrongness of these goals. Note, second, that when Mark and Mandy agree to have casual sex, each views the other as an object. But in agreeing to allow Mark to use her as an object, Mandy treats herself—or allows herself to be treated—as an object. Ditto for Mark. To Kant, the moral problem with sexual objectifi cation is not just Mark treating Mandy as an object, but also treating himself as an object ( 1963 , 162–164). This happens when he allows Mandy or someone else to treat him as a sexual object. 4 Given that each of Mark and Mandy should not treat the humanity in themselves as a mere means, they should not adopt the other’s goal of being treated in this way. 5 Note, third, that Mark and Mandy do not treat each other badly in the usual ways we think of bad treatment: they do not force each other to do things they do not want to do, for example. Yet they still view, regard, or approach each other as sexual objects, as mere tools for the satisfaction of their desires. We thus see the importance of defi ning “sexual objectifi cation” in such a way as to include both treatment and regard. In summary, sexual desire and activity are to Kant especially problematic because they make us treat people as objects, an attitude incompatible with

Sexual Objectifi cation 253 treating people as rational human beings endowed with dignity. We approach them as objects on which to satisfy our lust, making it diffi cult to take their goals and ends for their own sakes. Even if two sexual partners are considerate of each other’s sexual goals, they do so only instrumentally, to satisfy their own sexual ends. Thus, it is diffi cult to see how two people who desire to have sex with each other can fulfi ll the requirements of the Formula for Humanity. The bottom line for Kant is that sexuality, sexual desire, and sexual activity are incompatible with viewing and treating others and ourselves as beings with dignity and rationality. Evaluating Kant’s View of Sex The evaluation of Kant’s views targets two issues: Kant’s view of the nature of sex, and the moral implications that Kant draws from his view of the nature of sex. Kant is right about a crucial aspect of sexual desire: it targets the human being as a body or body parts. As Soble puts it, “The other’s body, his or her lips, thighs, buttocks, and toes, are desired as the arousing parts they are, distinct from the person” ( 2013b , 302). The phenomenology of sexual desire—how it feels when we undergo it—confi rms this point over and again (see Hamilton 2008 ). As much as many people like to accuse Kant of being prudish, anti-sex, a virgin, or in the grip of a religious ethic that made him lose his senses, we must admit that he is right about this. 6 When under the infl uence of sexual desire, others’ bodies, whether real or imagined, are our target. Even sex between lovers is bound to at some point yield to this pure animalism: during a good sexual act with one’s lover, especially when the lovers have still not tired of each other’s bodies, at some point they focus on ass, cock, pussy, tits, and so on. In this respect, Kant is correct that sexual desire and activity are different—perhaps even unique—from the usual ways with which we view others and interact with them. Given that this is how sexual desire works, the conclusion that it objectifi es is inescapable: it makes us treat our sexual partner as an object of desire. Adding to our woes, sexual desire is not only bad in that it targets people’s bodies, and not their humanity. It is also a powerful desire. Imagine were sexual desire to focus on others’ bodies and body parts but meekly—a mere twinge that occurs every so often in our cacophonic psyches and whose voice is drowned in the clamor of other desires and emotions. If this were the nature of sexual desire, it would be merely a funny, albeit sometimes irritating, quirk. And its moral danger would be as dire as being threatened by a harmless child. But, alas, it is not like this. It is a desire whose voice and pull are loud, insisting, and persistent, so much so that we do irrational, stupid, and immoral things to satisfy it. It is a strong person indeed who can resist its power over and over again. Of course, in our sexual interactions with others, sexual desire does not bring all moral considerations and behavior to a complete stop. Parties to sexual

254 Sex encounters still observe limits on how they treat each other: they do not violate each other, treat each other literally as objects, and so on, exactly because we understand that we cannot treat people in just any way we want, nor, indeed, do we want to treat people in any way, to satisfy our desires. Instead, sexual desire usually operates within moral red lines, so to speak: it works alongside prohibitions against the improper treatment of others. But beyond this, sexual desire uses the other as a mere instrument for its satisfaction, including, as mentioned, the attentive nonsexual treatment often given to a potential sexual partner and the attentive sexual treatment often given during the sexual encounter. Thus, sexual desire objectifi es by using others as mere tools for its satisfaction. Of Nussbaum’s seven ways of objectifi cation, it is mere instrumentality that is the usual way in which sexual desire objectifi es (though of course it could objectify in other ways). Thus, heeding it is morally wrong. Is there a way around this conclusion? Failed Attempts to Resolve the Kantian Problem With Sex There have been a few ways that try to circumvent or solve the Kantian problem of objectifi cation. One quick way with the Kantian problem is to deny that the objectifi cation is bad in any problematic way. Alan Soble adopts this approach. In his book, Pornography , Sex , and Feminism , Soble makes the following claim, no doubt shocking to many: “To complain that pornography presents women as ‘fuck objects’ is to presuppose that women, as humans or persons, are something substantially more than fuck objects. Whence this piece of illusory optimism?” ( Soble 2002 , 51–52). The illusion to which Soble refers is “the belief that humans are more than their bodies, more than animals, that, therefore, there is something metaphysically special about humans, their essential dignity, their transcendental value, that makes using them, dehumanizing, objectifying them, morally wrong.” If we don’t have transcendental value, then, in depicting us as mere animals, pornography does nothing wrong. It objectifi es us for sure, but the objectifi cation is not morally problematic ( 2002 , 67). This point can be extended to sexual encounters more generally: If Mark and Mandy view and treat each other as basically “fuck objects,” they are not doing anything wrong because it is illusory to think that they are anything more than animals. Why does Soble believe that we do not have such a metaphysical property? One reason is that “most people in the real world are dirty, fat, ugly, dumb, ignorant, selfi sh, thoughtless, unreliable, shifty, unrespectable mackerel” ( 2002 , 53–54). Although he’s probably right, neither Kant nor Kantians are under the illusion that most people are dignifi ed in the ways that Soble denies they are. Indeed, Kant himself was very aware of human beings’ tendency to heed their inclinations, instead of moral motives ( 1996b , 6: 26–32). Kantian respect is directed at a property that people have in virtue of being persons, even if in their actual lives they make a bad job of properly displaying it. So Soble’s criticism in the above quotation is not directed at the proper Kantian view.

Sexual Objectifi cation 255 Soble gives another reason against believing in dignity as a metaphysical property that people have in virtue of being persons, namely, that it is diffi cult, if not impossible, to prove its existence ( 2002 , 55–63). This line of reasoning can be put as follows. On the one hand, it is diffi cult to see how we can know that this property exists if we merely observe people, because most people do not conduct themselves in a dignifi ed way. Moreover, studying people and animals indicates that there is no sharp break between them, so we have less reason to believe that human beings possess a property that elevates them above animals. On the other hand, and if we cannot discover this special property empirically or by observation, we might offer philosophical arguments for its existence, but without empirical support, believing in its existence would be not much more than philosophical faith. So whether we have such a property is undecided. However, the Kantian argument as rendered by Wood that I have explained above is a strong argument in favor of the existence of such a property. Moreover, as I have mentioned, we seem to believe in its existence regardless of what Kant himself believed. We do believe that we have dignity, and much of our interaction with each other, and most of our political, legal, and social institutions are built on, and make sense only in light of, this belief. Nor is it far-fetched to think that this belief is true, that we do have dignity or something like it. We might not see it when human beings act normally on a day-to-day basis (we instead see many repulsive things), but we do see it every time a human being is humiliated or tortured or made to grovel. I would venture to say that even many non-human animals have it, and in their case, too, we see it when we treat them as objects. Thus, it is implausible to deny that human beings have dignity. Moreover, sexual desire is such that it makes us bypass it, in us and in those whom we desire, to pursue sexual pleasure. Yet Soble might be correct that the objectifi cation in pornography is not selective as feminists think it is, in targeting only women. And he might be right that it is not as morally dreadful as feminists make it out to be. (I will argue for these points throughout the rest of this chapter.) The second attempt to resolve the problem of objectifi cation is by Martha Nussbaum. Nussbaum argues that, “In the matter of objectifi cation, context is everything” ( 1999 , 227) and that in some types of relationships, objectifi cation is morally permissible. In which relationships? They have to be ones in which there is “mutual respect and rough social equality” between the two people, and the sexual objectifi cation, when it occurs in the sexual encounters between the couple, has to be symmetrical and mutual ( 1999 , 230, 238). So if two people sexually objectify each other but do so in the context of a mutually respectful relationship, the objectifi cation is “all right,” even “wonderful.” 7 Thus, Nussbaum seems to offer three necessary conditions for objectifi cation to be morally permissible or wonderful. First, the objectifi cation has to be “symmetrical and mutual.” Second, it has to occur within an otherwise mutually respectful relationship. Third, the parties to the relationship have to be (roughly) socially equal. 8 The objectifi cation would be morally impermissible, then, if (1) two people have sex in a mutually objectifying way but don’t have a

256 Sex respectful relationship; (2) if two people in an otherwise respectful relationship have objectifying sex but the objectifi cation is not mutual; or (3) if two people have an otherwise mutually respectful relationship and mutually objectifying sex, but they are not of (rough) equal social status. Note that Nussbaum’s view implies that casual sex, including sex with prostitutes, involves morally impermissible objectifi cation. Nussbaum explicitly states this point: “For in the absence of any narrative history with the person, how can desire attend to anything else but the incidental, and how can one do more than use the body of the other as a tool of one’s own states?” ( 1999 , 237). Thus, the presence of a mutually respectful relationship is necessary for objectifi cation to be permissible or “wonderful.” But unless Nussbaum addresses the very nature of sexual desire and activity, it is not clear what is so problematic about casual sexual encounters that is also not problematic about the vast majority of our (nonsexual) interactions with each other. And thus it is not clear what the context of a mutually respectful relationship adds to make the objectifi cation acceptable. Why is narrative history necessary for acceptable sex but not for other casual yet nonsexual encounters? This points to the main problem with Nussbaum’s account. To see it, suppose that Belinda and Brian are in a mutually respectful relationship. Every now and then, however, Brian slaps Belinda around and orders her to clean his feet and then drink the water as a sign of respect for him. Obviously, slapping Belinda and making her wash his feet and drink the fi lthy water is wrong. Would the fact that they have an otherwise mutually respectful relationship make it morally acceptable, even “wonderful”? Clearly not, because if an action is wrong, it is wrong even if it is part of an otherwise morally good relationship. Therefore, if sexual objectifi cation is wrong, it will remain wrong in such a relationship. As Soble puts the point, “But it is not, in general, right . . . that my treating you badly today is either justifi ed or excusable if I treated you admirably the whole day yesterday and will treat you more superbly tomorrow and the next day” ( 2013b , 316). So Nussbaum’s view is mistaken, and the main reason is that it leaves the nature of sexual desire untouched. On the Kantian view, the nature of sexual desire remains the same, relationship or no relationship. Nussbaum might be better off accepting that the sexual encounters in these relationships are wrong because they involve objectifi cation, but argue that other factors make their wrongness tolerable (this is what I will argue below). A third attempt to resolve the Kantian problem is to argue that in sex we often attend to the other’s sexual needs and desires. This, however, is not convincing, because, as I have emphasized, we often attend to the other’s needs and desires because it is sexually pleasurable to do so: when Mark performs oral sex on Mandy, he does so because he desires to, because her clitoris and vagina are objects he wants to smell, lick, and (gently) bite. That it gives her pleasure is either incidental to Mark’s sexual desire or it enhances his sexual desire; after all, not many things are more sexually pleasurable than witnessing your sexual partner moan and shudder with the sexual pleasure that you provide. To be clear, we sometimes please another out of nonsexual desire.

Sexual Objectifi cation 257 Perhaps we believe that we owe it to give him or her sexual pleasure. If we do so, then we treat him or her in a non-objectifying way. But, of course, this is true only because we do not act from sexual desire. A fourth attempt to resolve the problem is to argue that in sexual attraction and interaction we still view the other as a human being. Goldman claims this: “Even in an act which by its nature ‘objectifi es’ the other, one recognizes a partner as a subject with demands and desires by yielding to those desires, by allowing oneself to be a sexual object as well, by giving pleasure or ensuring that the pleasures of the act are mutual. It is this kind of reciprocity which forms the basis of morality in sex” ( 2013 , 70). What distinguishes this fourth attempt from the third is the idea that we recognize the other during sexual encounters as a “subject with demands and desires.” This attempt, however, also does not succeed because the recognition of the other as a “subject with demands and desires” is not something that Kant denies or need deny. Indeed, as we have seen, it is (except for cases of necrophilia) a precondition for sexually desiring another human being. A variation of this attempt is given by the philosopher Irving Singer, who states that “though sexual interest resembles an appetite in some respects, it differs from hunger or thirst in being an interpersonal sensitivity, one that enables us to delight in the mind and character of other persons as well as in their fl esh. . . . [S]ex may be seen as an instinctual agency by which persons respond to one another through their bodies” ( 1984b , 382). But, again, Kant need not deny anything in the above. Yes, sexual desire can be thought of as an “interpersonal sensitivity,” yes “it enables us to delight in the mind and character of other persons as well as their fl esh,” and yes it allows people to “respond to one another through their bodies.” Yet all of these are compatible with thinking of sexual desire as using people purely instrumentally: the delight, for example, in the mind and character of another person is in the service of the satisfaction of lust when sexual desire is at work. Sexual desire would hardly attain its goals if it always worked in the crass and obvious ways that philosophers like Goldman and Singer (and Shrage and Stewart; see note 3) believe Kant thought of it. A fi fth attempt is to think of sexual desire not as a brute desire for someone else’s (live) body, as a mere desire for the contact with another’s body, à la Goldman’s defi nition of “sexual desire,” but as a potentially and usually sophisticated desire infused with intentionality, à la Seiriol Morgan (2003b ). Allen Wood puts this point in this way: “Plainly there is far more to sex than the desire to use another’s body in a degrading manner for your selfi sh pleasure. Even the elements in sexual desire closest to this are combined, at least in healthy people, with other elements of human emotion that radically transform their meaning ” ( 2008 , 227, my emphasis). But a Kantian view of sexual desire can accommodate the psychological complexity of human beings. It can accommodate Morgan’s insights on how sexual desire is infused with intentionality and Wood’s view that it can be combined with other emotions. For example, I might sexually desire Jonathan because he is, among other things, a kind person, such that I would not have

258 Sex desired him if he were not kind. But once I do desire him, I desire his body and body parts. Wood underestimates the ability of sexual desire to be selfi sh while layered in other elements of human emotions, and he attributes to Kant an unnecessarily simplistic view of sexual desire—a Kantian view of sexual desire need not imply that it is crassly selfi sh or that having sex will always be in a degrading “manner”—it can be quite attentive and sensitive to the other’s needs, as I have explained. Nonetheless, Wood’s remarks open up the possibility of combining sexual desire with “other elements of human emotion” to make it less morally toxic, though how to do this remains to be argued for. For such arguments to succeed, what needs to be shown is not just claiming that, say, sex can come with love and leave it at that, because a sexual encounter between two lovers can be purely sexual or can alternate between being purely sexual and being loving. During those moments when it is sexual, the objectifi cation is there. That is, during the sexual encounter, sexual objectifi cation emerges and recedes depending on how the lovers are feeling at any moment during the encounter. So any argument that takes up Wood’s suggestion must inject sexual desire with these healthy emotions, so that its very nature—its chemical nature, so to speak—is changed on that occasion. It will be like injecting an angry tiger with a tranquilizer—it makes its ferociousness subside, but only for a while. It is interesting to see whether such arguments can succeed. I am not holding my breath. Thus, if Kant is right, and I suspect that he is (I have certainly yet to see one convincing argument that he is not), there is no escaping the fact that sexual desire objectifi es and reduces the person to the status of an object. Sexually desiring someone is simply not compatible with treating him or her as an end in him or herself. Sexual objectifi cation is inescapable: once we sexually desire someone, we invite it in. This does not mean that all sexual activity is objectifying: the routine, boring sex that a couple of many years has may not be objectifying insofar as it does not stem from sexual desire for each other, and a prostitute who fellates a client she does not desire does not objectify him (though she allows him to objectify her). Any sexual activity that does not stem from sexual desire might not be objectifying. Living With Sexual Objectifi cation Elsewhere I have argued that Kant was right that objectifi cation was wrong but he was wrong to make much of it. It is a wrong that can be overcome or trumped by other factors so as to make its existence tolerable ( Halwani 2013 ). What I argued (and by which I still stand) is that objectifi cation is not a serious moral wrong because of three general reasons. First, many sexual acts involving objectifi cation are consensual, not harmful, and in which the partners pay attention to each other’s sexual needs. Compared to other wrongs, such as lying and coercion, which involve serious harm to the victim and using them as a mere means, objectifi cation looks innocent.

Sexual Objectifi cation 259 Second, sexual activity contains good things that can overcome or weaken the wrongness of objectifi cation. For one thing, sex is very pleasurable and exciting. Indeed, “for many people who are not able to experience lofty pleasures (e.g., from reading classical Arabic poetry, contemplating Velázquez paintings, or drowning in the joyous seas of interpreting Wittgenstein), sexual pleasure is one of the few pleasures they have” ( Halwani 2013 , 456). For another, sexual activity is recreational, “often providing (like other activities, such as solving jigsaw puzzles) needed entertainment, release, intense focus, and other forms of distraction from the humdrum or toil of everyday life” ( Halwani 2013 , 456). Finally, some people do not want love, sexual commitments, or monogamous relationships, and some people prefer bed-hopping and sexual variety. To them, no-strings attached sexual activity is especially important. Third, on some moral views, “leading a rich, human life is important for human beings to fl ourish or live well. If sexual activity, undertaken moderately and in overall morally permissible ways, is part of such a life, then [casual sex and promiscuity] can contribute to it” ( Halwani 2013 , 456). For all these reasons, sexual objectifi cation is a wrong we can tolerate. It is like getting tipsy or slightly drunk: in doing so we subvert our rationality and our brain goes out on a hike for brief period of time, and we even degrade ourselves (the sight of an inebriated person, no matter to what degree is the inebriation, is never pleasant), but it is on occasion overall okay. None of the above is to say that moral objectifi cation cannot be serious. Indeed, rape, among other things, is a serious form of sexual objectifi cation— just think of how it fi ts all seven ways of objectifi cation on Nussbaum’s list. Catcalls fi t also a few on that list. And there are cases in which partners are not attentive to each other’s sexual needs. The degree of the seriousness of sexual objectifi cation depends on the case. In some cases, it is morally tolerable, in others it is not. In the discussion of pornography that follows, I take it for granted that Kantian sexual objectifi cation is at work in pornography: the actors or participants, insofar as they sexually desire each other, sexually objectify each other, and the viewer, in desiring them, sexually objectifi es them also. The discussion will focus on whether pornography especially objectifi es women in additional, perhaps non-Kantian ways. Pornography and Degradation Consider the following two examples. Rodrigo, a sexually active gay guy, goes out one night to a bar and picks up two guys. He takes them back home for sex. Most of the sexual activity consists of Rodrigo on all fours with one guy fucking him doggie style while Rodrigo fellates the other guy. The guys rotate fucking him and getting sucked by him. Rodrigo enjoys the act thoroughly. It is one of the best nights of his life. Has Rodrigo engaged in any degrading activity? Has his dignity been compromised in any way?

260 Sex Now consider the same example but this time with Rita instead of Rodrigo: she picks up two guys in a bar and they have sex with each other in the same way that Rodrigo did with his buddies. Has Rita engaged in any degrading activity? Has her dignity been compromised in any way? Before we begin, note that the following discussion will be couched in terms of “degradation.” This is the concept I will use because much feminist criticism of pornography relies on it. I will assume, however, that other concepts are not far behind. Specifi cally, I will assume that if a sexual act is degrading, it is also objectifying. Why think that such behavior is degrading? Let’s consider a few reasons. First, perhaps deeply religious or socially conservative people (let’s set aside their worries about gay sex) might think that only degenerate people engage in such sexual activity (e.g., threesomes, doggie-style), so when a decent person does it he or she degrades him or herself. To them, only certain forms of sexual activity are fi tting for human beings: sex only between two people (only missionary style?) who, perhaps, should be spouses or committed to each other. But since such a view has a hard time justifying where it draws the line between acceptable and unacceptable sexual activity, I will set it aside. A second reason to believe that the sex that Rodrigo and Rita have is degrading is that it does not take into account the humanity of the participants because it focuses solely on their bodies. This is the Kantian claim that I have explained above. In the cases of Rita and Rodrigo, there is degradation because there is objectifi cation. However, the objectifi cation is tolerable because all the factors I mentioned above are present (e.g., consent and pleasure). So, although this activity is degrading in the Kantian way, all sexual activity is degrading in that way, and we want to know whether these cases have an extra layer of degradation unaccounted for by the Kantian one. A third reason to think that the sexual activity in which Rodrigo and Rita engage is degrading is that some sexual positions are degrading in their nature, so to speak. Which sexual positions? Well, maybe those that require us to put our faces in someone else’s crotch, or those positions that make us look like animals, such as being on all fours ( Soble 1996 , 215–216). Maybe the best we can hope for is missionary style sex, under the sheets, looking at the face of your partner, in the dark, and using your hand to guide your organ (when or if necessary). There is some truth to the idea that some sexual positions might be degrading. To see this, consider a case in which John brings his friend Dixon, say, a spoon or a fork because Dixon forgot to bring it before he sat at the table. There is nothing morally problematic about this case. But consider a variation of the case in which John brings the spoon to Dixon but he does so while crawling and holding the spoon in his mouth. Such an action, we would agree, is degrading to John (even if John consented to it or enjoyed it). Something similar goes on in the case of sex. There is something about us standing up or standing “tall” that we associate with pride and dignity; there is something similar also about looking each other in the eye that we associate with dignity. Our ability to stand

Sexual Objectifi cation 261 up and face others, and the humiliation we associate with being on our knees, seem to be universal human beliefs, not the remnants of some discarded (or one that should be discarded) belief system. However, I would like to set such forms of indignity aside for the rest of the discussion for the simple reason that they are not essential to sex. That is to say, being on all fours, or putting one’s face in another’s crotch or behind is demeaning, whether done sexually or nonsexually. Sex is not special here. So let us assume that such sexual positions are not degrading because they are sexual. A fourth reason has to do with how the men treat Rita and Rodrigo during the sexual encounter. If they bypass Rita’s and Rodrigo’s desires, wishes, and decisions, the men would have mistreated Rita and Rodrigo. However, the only way for this to happen is for Rita and Rodrigo to not consent to the activity (or parts of it). As long as they consent to it (even if they do not desire or enjoy some parts of it), they would not be used merely as a means. This form of degradation occurs in rape or cases of non-rape sexual activity that lacks consent (if such cases exist). Here’s a fi fth reason. To see it, let’s change a bit the case of Rodrigo: let’s assume that he is black and the two guys with whom he has sex are white. Would that make the case degrading to Rodrigo? Assume that none of the guys is racist and that no one was into racializing the sex—no one, say, uses racial slurs as part of the sexual activity to make it more pleasurable. Still, someone might argue as follows: “Whether we like it or not, fucking someone is associated with power or high social status, and being fucked is associated with a low social status. Even our language refl ects this (e.g., ‘I got fi red today. I’m so fucked’). So when a black guy gets fucked by two white guys, the sexual activity just reads differently and seems, well, demeaning. Being black and getting fucked by white guys does not sound right.” Similar reasoning applies to the case of Rita: Given the power dynamics between men and women, given the history of sexism and how women have been viewed as sex objects, having a woman be fucked by two guys seems just demeaning. Rita might be degraded by such an activity and she lets herself be degraded. It is on considerations such as this that feminist writers on pornography rely to make the case that pornography degrades or objectifi es women. We will, of course, investigate these considerations. But, for now, a brief remark about the Rodrigo case is merited. There is no doubt that socially and politically aware people might be made uncomfortable with Rodrigo’s example. There is something about a black man being fucked by two white guys that seems to replicate social inequality. But this discomfort might be due to our sensitivity to race issues in general, not to anything in the sexual activity itself. If Rodrigo, as the case has it, initiates the activity, if he has suffi cient say in what goes on, if he asserts and acts on his desires, and if he consents to what goes on, we have no reason to think that the activity is morally amiss. It might be that one or more of the participants is racist—perhaps Rodrigo buys into white standards of beauty, or the white guys are exoticizing Rodrigo (whatever this means). But it also might not be,

262 Sex and surely not all cases of interracial sex are problematic for these reasons. If something else is still morally lacking in this case, I cannot think of what it is, and it might be simply a refl ection of our own (well-intentioned and generally properly positioned) sensitivity about race and racial relations. So far, then, we have no good reason to believe that such sexual activity contains any additional sexual degradation to the Kantian one. Now suppose that the two cases of Rita and Rodrigo are pornographic scenes: they take place on camera, by actors (who, say, enjoy the activity that ensues), made by one of the many existing pornography companies, and is eventually posted on the Internet and can be accessed by anyone. Does this add a new factor to the discussion? Many feminists who are against pornography would say yes. That is, many feminists argue that the sexual depiction of women in pornography adds a level of degradation that is not as such sexual. The problem, in other words, is not sex as such, but pornography and how pornography depicts sexual activity. How do arguments for such a position go? Let’s look at and evaluate three such arguments. Three Feminist Anti-Pornography Views In what follows I will assume a general familiarity on the part of the reader with the fi eld of pornography. I will be concerned with visual pornography (not the type that is read), including still images (of individual men and women and of sexual acts involving two or more people) and moving images (videos, fi lms, streaming activity). I will also assume that the reader knows that pornography is a hugely diverse fi eld catering to every sexual taste, though some forms (straight and gay mainstream pornography) predominate. Anti-porn feminists claim to not be against sex as such. They criticize pornography on grounds having to do with women’s issues, implicating it in abuse against women, in higher incidents of rape, and in even creating a climate in which women are silenced and their civil rights eroded. A common element to feminist and conservative criticisms is harm: pornography harms women, either because it constitutes harm or because it leads to harm, for society in general or women in particular ( MacKinnon 1993 , 1997 ; Langton 2009 , esp. chs. 1 and 10; Eaton 2007 ) The criticisms I address are different. They are Kant-inspired ones, basically, that pornography degrades women. I will explain and examine this criticism by referring to the views of three of its advocates: Judith Hill, Helen Longino, and Ann Garry. It is crucial to note before we begin that although these criticisms of pornography are Kant-inspired, none of them relies on Kant’s views of the nature of sexual desire. The inspiration is simply Kant’s view of dignity. As we will see, however, such feminist objections do not actually rely on Kant but only on a general view of what it means to be degraded. Judith Hill claims that to be degraded is to be lowered in moral status: “[T]o give this account a Kantian interpretation: degradation involves being treated as though one were a means only, as though one were not an end in herself,

Sexual Objectifi cation 263 as though one were something less than a person” ( 1991 , 64). But she insists that “it is a necessary condition of degradation that a person be perceived —by herself or by others—as being treated as something less than a person. Degradation occurs with the creation of a public impression that a person is being treated as something less than a person” ( 1991 , 64). We can immediately see one implausible implication of this point, namely, that some clearly degrading activities turn out to not be degrading on Hill’s view: if someone privately treats me as his personal mule by forcing me to carry his furniture on my back as I crawl on all fours, but such that no one, including myself, perceives this as degradation, I am, according to Hill, not degraded. This is an implausible claim (not to mention an un-Kantian one). Unlike some other anti-porn feminists, Hill does not wish to condemn the entire pornography industry but only what she calls “victim pornography,” which is: the graphic depiction of situations in which women are degraded by sexual activity, viz ., (a) situations in which a woman is treated by a man (or by another woman) as a means of obtaining sexual pleasure, while he shows no consideration for her pleasure or desires or well-being, and (b) situations in which a woman is not only subjected to such treatment, but suggests it to the man in the fi rst place. Furthermore, Victim Pornography presents such activity as entertaining. There is no suggestion that women should not be treated as less than persons; and often there’s no hint that a woman might dislike such treatment. ( 1991 , 67–68) But what is “victim pornography”? For a type of pornography to count as victim pornography, according to Hill, two conditions must be satisfi ed. First, women must be depicted as degraded, in the way explained above. Second, there must be no suggestion that the depiction is wrong (I take it that Hill equates “being entertaining” with “no suggestion that women should not be treated as less than persons,” even though they need not be: a documentary can be entertaining as it cautions its viewers against treating women as less than persons; but I think by “entertaining” Hill means “aimed at sexual arousal”). 9 Let’s evaluate this view. Hill’s fi rst condition is unclear because Hill characterizes it in two different ways. The fi rst is what we fi nd in (a) above: that the woman’s desires are not taken into account even if the woman requests such selfi sh sex. The second is found in Hill’s claim that “I am . . . concerned here with . . . Victim Pornography: depictions of women being bound, beaten, raped, mutilated, and, as often as not, begging for more” ( 1991 , 68). This characterization is different from the fi rst. Binding, beating, raping, and mutilating are a far cry from sexual activity in which the man does not heed the woman’s pleasure. One doesn’t even include the other: very few women, if any, would desire to be mutilated, beaten, and raped, though being bound and gagged is different. Moreover, one hardly fi nds scenes depicting such behavior in pornography, not

264 Sex even in specialized subgenres that cater to, say, S/M desires (there’s fl ogging, to be sure, but using “beating” to refer to such activity is underhanded and misguiding). I will thus set aside such accusations against pornography. Note also how the two characterizations need not coincide. A man can unselfi shly cater to a woman’s desire to be bound and tickled even if he is not turned on by it. Conversely, a man can selfi shly have anal sex with a woman despite her lack of desire for this activity (that the woman does not desire the sex does not mean that she does not consent to it). So let us then understand “victim pornography” as the claim embodied in (a). If the depiction of much sexual activity in pornography is one that seems to be mere use of the women for the pleasure of men, then much pornography will indeed depict the degradation of women, and in a very Kantian way: as mere use, as reduction to object-hood. Pornography would then traffi c in the objectifi cation and degradation of women. The problem, however, is that it is not clear how we can know which scenes in pornography fall under the description in Hill’s (a) condition. 10 Consider the example of Rita again. She is on all fours being fucked by one guy as she fellates the other, all the while moaning with pleasure, and every now and then saying things like, “Yeah. Right there. Fuck me right there,” in that whinylike sounding voice so typical of professional straight pornography. Are the men selfi shly using her for their own pleasure? It is not obvious how they are when she is depicted as fully enjoying the sexual act. Indeed, almost all pornography depicts women enjoying the sexual acts, including having orgasms (whether real or fake is often hard to know), and in many cases the depictions are real: many women salivate heavily as they are fellating a man, a good sign of sexually enjoying the act. Even with the cum shot—with the man or men ejaculating on the woman’s face—it is hard to tell. This is not because women feel sexual pleasure in having semen spurted on their faces (though they surely might, if gay men’s pleasure is any indicator, given that many gay men derive sexual pleasure from another man coming on their faces), but because they might enjoy the act in other ways: they were able to make the men come, the sexual act is fi nally over, they take pleasure in the men’s pleasure, and so on. Moreover, even if they do not enjoy the act in any way, this does not mean much, as long as the women are depicted enjoying other parts of the sexual activity. Because not every part of a sexual activity is always enjoyed by all the parties to the act, not enjoying one part by one person need not indicate selfi shness on the part of the other parties to the act. So it is diffi cult to know whether the men are being selfi sh in pornography. Certainly they are depicted as sexually enjoying the women, but the women, too, are depicted as sexually enjoying the men. Moreover, a long time ago the straight pornography industry did not care much for how the men (the actors) looked; many of them were physically undesirable. In such cases, it was hard to see how the depictions of women enjoying the acts were convincing. Today, however, most of the male actors in pornography are good-looking: well-built, clean-cut, and generally refl ecting what the dominant societal standard of good

Sexual Objectifi cation 265 looks is. So depicting women as enjoying the sexual activity is even more convincing these days than before. This is not to say that there are no pornographic depictions demeaning to women. Sometimes a movie shows the male actor talking to the cameraman about how sexy the woman he is about to have sex with is. The two talk to each other over the woman; she is voiceless and present only for the men. The male actor often fl ips her around, opens up her anus or vagina with his fi ngers to exhibit it to the camera, and squeezes her breasts for the same purpose. Such depictions show the woman as nothing but an object for the man’s or men’s pleasure. They are thus degrading: they degrade the woman by removing her agency entirely. It is different if the woman herself does this for the camera: If she is to be a fuck object, the least one could do is have her make this decision— let her look at the camera and say, “I am a fucking machine. I want these men, weak with desire, to taste my pussy and feel what it is like to fuck it.” At least in this way, she will be a sexual subject . 11 Thus, it is hard to accept Hill’s view as it stands, for the simple reason that what she describes as “victim pornography” mostly does not exist. While some pornographic depictions show women as lacking in agency and as mere sex objects for men, most show women taking pleasure in the sexual activity and as enjoying it in some way or another. If “degradation” means “the depiction of using women as mere sexual tools,” as Hill means by it, then pornography is mostly free of the degradation of women. Sure enough, it depicts everyone using everyone else as a mere tool for their pleasure, but this is our old friend Kantian degradation, and applies to both women and men. Let us turn then to another view of pornography and the degradation of women, that of Helen Longino. Longino’s view is similar to Hill’s yet different in one crucial respect. She defi nes “pornography” as “verbal or pictorial explicit representations of sexual behavior that, in the words of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, have as a distinguishing characteristic ‘the degrading and demeaning portrayal of the role and status of the human female . . . as a mere sexual object to be exploited and manipulated sexually’” ( 1991 , 85). In pornography women are represented as slavish to men; they have no sexual desires of their own, except for those catering to the men’s. If women’s sexual pleasure is represented, it is represented only as a means to the pleasure of men, not as its own end ( 1991 , 85–86). Moreover, according to Longino, sexually explicit material could depict what pornography depicts without being morally problematic, because such material could explore the consequences of such degrading treatment to its victim (e.g., documentaries). Pornography, however, endorses or recommends such degrading treatment of women, not just represents it ( 1991 , 86–87). Degrading treatment, according to Longino, “includes physical harm or abuse, and physical or psychological coercion. In addition, behavior which ignores or devalues the real interests, desires and experiences of one or more participants in any way is degrading. Finally, that a person has chosen or consented to be harmed, abused, or subjected to coercion does not alter the degrading character of such behavior” ( 1991 , 87).

266 Sex There are two claims that distinguish Longino’s view from Hill’s. The fi rst is the claim that if women’s pleasure is depicted, it is depicted not for its own sake or end, but as a means for the pleasure of the men. The second claim is the endorsement view, that pornography endorses or accepts the depiction of the degrading treatment of women. 12 Before getting to these two claims, it is important to understand what Longino means by “degradation.” Unfortunately, what Longino says (quoted above) is unhelpful. On a normal, surface reading of pornographic depictions, one does not encounter “physical harm or abuse,” and one does not encounter “physical and psychological coercion.” Indeed, it is not clear how we could fi nd these things simply by watching pornography. Consider a dorm-room sex scene of a guy and a gal (his girlfriend?) during which we hear nothing except for their occasional grunts and moaning: the scene depicts him fucking her in different positions, with him deciding on the position and when to change from one position to another. Is this an example of physical or psychological coercion? Is the woman depicted as being psychologically coerced into assuming positions she does not want? How would we know? By taking her silence as surrender to coercion? But we have no reason to; the silence might mean that the woman is enjoying the surrender to the guy; the silence is her way of having sex. Certainly, the scene gives us no contrary clues. Other similar scenes contain explicit demands by the woman (“I want to sit on your cock,” e.g.), which are clues that the woman is not being coerced. Furthermore, Longino’s claim that degrading behavior is “behavior which ignores or devalues the real interests, desires and experiences of one or more participants in any way” is unclear. What are these “real” interests? As I have already argued, the sexual depictions usually show all parties to the sexual activity enjoying it. All their sexual interests seem to be depicted. If Longino has in mind nonsexual interests, then it is not clear what they are or whether they have a place in pornography. Should the characters discuss a passage from Heidegger, public education in the United States, or the latest numbers of the fi nancial market before having sex? (During the sex is a non-starter.) Let us turn to the two claims that distinguish Longino’s view from Hill’s. The fi rst is that the depiction of the woman’s pleasure, when present, is for the sake of the man and not of the woman. Yet, again, this is hard to establish. With men, in addition to continued partaking in the sexual act, their pleasure is depicted with the orgasm. The same with women, except that women are often depicted as more vocal and their orgasm depicted multiple times in the same scene (again, whether fake or real is hard to tell). But other than this it is diffi cult to see how to depict the pleasure as being for its own sake as opposed to for the sake of someone else. If a woman screams “I’m coming, I’m coming” yet the man does not stop fucking her, does this depict the man selfi shly using the woman’s pleasure to keep going or does it depict the woman’s desire to have more and more sex? We now come to the second, more crucial claim that pornography endorses the degradation of women. (It is hard to assess this claim without having a

Sexual Objectifi cation 267 good grip on how the women are exactly being degraded, but let us understand it along Hillian lines as women being used merely for the sake of the sexual pleasure of men.) What does it mean for pornography to endorse this degradation? The best way to understand it is by using art as a case and distinguishing between representation or depiction, on the one hand, and endorsement or adopting a perspective towards the depiction, on the other. For example, Leni Riefenstahl’s notorious fi lm Triumph of the Will not only shows or describes Hitler’s words and actions during the 1934 Nuremberg rally for the Nazi party but also seems to view it with favor, as if saying, “What I show you is a good thing.” The fi lm endorses what it represents. John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost depicts Satan as powerful and seductive. However, the poem does not endorse this view but that Satan is especially evil, and we should always be on our guard because he is very seductive. In short, works of art often adopt points of view that either approve or disapprove of their content, of what they represent. Moreover, to fi gure out what a work of art is endorsing (if it is endorsing something), it needs to be interpreted ( Gaut 1998 ). One can even argue that one of the crucial aims of art interpretation is understanding an artwork’s point of view or perspective on its subject matter. Longino’s claim about pornography can be understood along the above lines. If a movie does not depict women’s pleasure, it is endorsing the view that such pleasure does not matter. If a movie does depict women’s pleasure, then it is endorsing the view that it matters only for the sake of the men’s pleasure. Longino’s point is that both forms of depiction take the women as purely instrumental to men’s pleasure, and that the movie accepts this claim— it cheers it on. So even a work of pornography that depicts women’s pleasures still endorses the view that this pleasure is ultimately for the sake of the men, its importance existing only as a bridge to that of men’s pleasure. Note that being fantasy does not preclude pornography from having a point of view regarding its content. Fairy tales, science fi ction, and romance novels are all fantasy, but they can still endorse, reject, or have a point of view about their content. The question, however, is what it means for pornography to have a point of view regarding its content. Another philosopher, Anne W. Eaton, claims that “pornography endorses by representing women enjoying, benefi ting from, and deserving acts that are objectifying, degrading, or even physically injurious and rendering these things libidinally appealing on a visceral level” ( 2007 , 682). The issue is not just depicting men and women enjoying degrading and submissive sexual activity but also that pornography eroticizes this behavior, making it sexually arousing to the audience ( Eaton 2007 , 682). Eaton claims this of inegalitarian pornography, pornography that eroticizes gender inequity ( 2007 , 676). 13 In short, the way pornography endorses women’s degradation is by (1) representing degrading sexual acts as pleasurable to the characters; (2) suggesting that such treatment is “acceptable and even merited”; and (3) eroticizing this behavior ( 2007 , 682). Pornography certainly represents sexual acts as pleasurable and acceptable to the characters (I’m not sure what “merited” means). It also eroticizes them

268 Sex in order to arouse the viewer (this is its point, after all). The issue is whether it represents degradation and , in doing all three, it endorses anything. Eaton does not defend or elaborate the view that certain types of pornography are degrading. But she needs to, because, as we have seen, the bulk of heterosexual pornography depicts men and women involved in all sorts of sexual acts that do not seem to be especially degrading. Despite the above efforts by Longino and Eaton, it does not seem true that pornography endorses the degradation of women, and for two reasons. First, for pornography to endorse its content, it must have content. Longino has in mind degradation. But if, as I have been arguing, generally speaking pornography has no degradation (nothing over and above the Kantian variety), there is no degradation for it to endorse. This means that if pornography endorses anything, it is the unsurprising idea that “sex is pleasurable and we want the viewer to fi nd it pleasurable, too.” The typical heterosexual pornography fi lm seems to endorse the following bland view (if it endorses any view at all): “The men and women depicted in this fi lm enjoy having sex; sex is good, and we want you, the viewer, to enjoy it, too.” This is a bland message, one that is almost universal in content, covering most heterosexual pornography (of course, some individual fi lms, magazines, or Internet sites might adopt more specifi c points of view toward their content). Second, and unlike works of art, pornography is a mass or popular medium whose function is to sexually arouse the viewer. Because individual works of art have some insight to offer (in theory, that is, because most artworks are boring and banal), some message to convey, some point of view to share, it is important for critics to consider what each says, what worldview it has. Indeed, one reason why works of art are valuable is that we understand them to offer new or interesting insights. We thus take seriously not only an artwork’s representation—what it depicts—but also the point of view it adopts toward its content—what view, if any, it endorses. Without the latter, art loses almost all its interest. Our interest, for example, in Rawi Hage’s novel De Niro’s Game is not simply its depiction of the Lebanese civil war, but also what the novel itself has to say about it. If we did not take an interest in the latter, we would not understand that many of the protagonist’s actions, though brutal, are also sad, tragic, and the vehicle through which the novel indicts the war. Not so with pornography. Its individual works have no special insights about their characters or actions, because providing insight is not the purpose of pornography and that is not why it is viewed. Pornography is just sex. This is why pornography’s message or point of view, if it has one at all, is bland. Pornography’s not endorsing any deep message is not surprising because were pornography to have a point of view toward its content, it would shoot itself in the foot, because one of the main ways in which pornography works is by presenting its viewers with images and scenes in a way that leaves room for the audience’s imagination to roam. Any obvious meanings or points of view about its content would direct the viewer in how to see the images and understand them, limiting his imagination and thus making it sexually less

Sexual Objectifi cation 269 enjoyable. As Soble says, “[T]he variety of [pornographic] images provides raw material from which individual consumers select their own point of focus or construct their own story” ( 1996 , 233). For works of art that have a perspective on the world to succeed, the artist has to structure her work in a way to guide the viewer or reader to discern this point of view, a phenomenon not usually found in pornography. Guiding the viewer, even in subtle ways, to whatever point of view a work of pornography has undermines the viewer’s ability to construct his own stories and fantasies. That is why camera work in pornography does not usually try to frame the scenes in particular ways, giving the viewer instead as many shots and angles as possible so that he can pick and choose the scenes that arouse him the most. For these reasons, pornography does not endorse any meanings about women (or anything else for that matter). It does not offer the perspective that it is good that women are degraded or that women’s pleasure should be for the sake of men’s. It just tells us that their characters like to have sex and that sex is good. Let us turn to the views of Ann Garry. Like Hill but unlike Longino, Garry does not think that all pornography is degrading; only that “some pornographic fi lms convey the message that all women really want to be raped, that their resisting struggle is not to be believed. By portraying women in this manner, the content of the movie degrades women” ( 1984 , 314). It is not clear in this account what the degradation is (despite Garry’s claim that “to degrade someone . . . is to lower her/his rank or status in humanity”; note 5, p. 323) or how widespread it is in pornography. It is also unclear whether Garry believes degradation is confi ned to such rape scenes or whether it includes other scenes. If it is confi ned to such scenes, then there’s not much degradation in pornography, given the rarity of such scenes. Let us set the above point aside for a moment and turn to what is distinctive about Garry’s view, which has to do with who is being degraded. Garry’s concern is not only with the women on screen, but with all women. She claims that all women are degraded by pornography. Her argument takes three steps. First, degrading pornography sends a message about all women: “If one sees these women as symbolic representatives of all women, then all women fall from grace with these women” ( 1984 , 316). Why should all women fall from grace? The answer is the second step in the argument. If we assume, along with traditional, sexist views about women and sex, that sex is dirty and that only bad women have sex and lots of it, then we will associate the women in pornography with bad women. If we see them as symbolic of all women, then we will associate all women with badness. But why should we accept traditional assumptions about sex and women? The answer is the third step in the argument. It is because “in our culture we connect sex with harm that men do to women, and because we think of the female role in sex as that of a harmed object, we can see that to treat a woman as a sex object is automatically to treat her as less than fully human” ( 1984 , 318). To put the argument concisely: some works of pornography send the message that women want to be raped, humiliated, and exist just to sexually please men. Because sex is connected with “harm,” pornography fosters a climate of

270 Sex disrespecting women by thinking of them as bad women. We will think of, and continue to think of, women as fallen because we associate them with dirtiness, sex, and badness. This outlook is degrading to women. Thus, pornography degrades all women. 14 We must ask a crucial question: Other than scenes in which women are depicted as being raped, beaten, mutilated, and so on, which we can agree are degrading to women but which are rare in pornography (I’m not sure that they even exist), it is implausible that pornographic images are as such degrading to women. This is because, as we have been discussing, there is nothing as such degrading about a depiction of an orgy, or a woman having sex with three or four men. If one were to believe that such scenes are degrading, it is likely that one is bringing one’s own values and beliefs to the scene. Consider three people, Pam, Peg, and Pat. Pam is a socially conservative woman who is easily shocked and enraged by explicit sexual scenery. Peg is not socially liberal but she is an anti-porn feminist. Pat is socially liberal and a feminist but has no problems with pornography. They view the pornography scene of Rita having sex with the two guys. Pam screams, “This is disgusting. What a whore she is!” Peg says, “This is awful. That woman is being degraded, if not also tortured. Who puts two penises in their mouth???” Pat says, “All I see is sex—wild sex, yes, and sex that I am not particularly into, but they look like they’re enjoying it!” Crucially, there is nothing in the scene itself to which we can appeal to settle who is right. The point is that whether we see a sexual scene as degrading or not might depend entirely on the viewer. While one sees the sexual degradation of women, another sees women just having sex. This point is relevant to Garry’s argument because for pornography to send the message that women are degraded, the viewer must believe that the sexual depictions are degrading to the women. If the viewer has no such beliefs, then there will be no such message. In other words, pornography does not send messages because it has none. What one sees in pornography might refl ect nothing more than what one wants to see. 15 Again, this is not to say that there is no pornography that is degrading to women, but that it is a mistake to describe the entire fi eld of pornography in such ways. In addition, and connected to the above point, there is no reason to believe, as Garry seems to, that the women in pornography symbolize all women. It is not plausible to attribute such an intention to the makers of pornography, and the depictions themselves do not carry this meaning. To believe this is to again bring one’s own values and beliefs to the genre. One can imagine an antiporn activist watching pornography and thinking, “This is slander. It makes all women look bad.” But one can as easily imagine another viewer confi ning himself to the woman on screen: “She is so hot. That guy she’s screwing is damn lucky!” Garry then must rely on the idea that all or most viewers think the same way about the relationship between women in pornography and all the other women. But this is implausible. For one thing, it is a big assumption to make. For another, who, other than seriously troubled male viewers would make such an association? Men might be stupid, but they are not that stupid,

Sexual Objectifi cation 271 and they interact with women all the time outside the context of seeing them in pornography. So to attribute to them the belief that women in pornography are symbolic of all women is a tall order. At this point, we should address two objections that aim to support the above feminist views. First, given that we live in sexist societies, individuals’ thoughts and desires are at least partly constructed by sexist views of women. Such views may play a crucial role in how viewers, especially men, look at and “understand” pornography; they help shape what meanings viewers attribute to pornographic imagery. Moreover, it is surely plausible that the cultural meanings that circulate in society have some infl uence on how a viewer looks at pornography. That women in almost all cultures are pervasively portrayed as primarily objects of physical beauty might encourage some viewers to see women in pornography as basically fi t only for sexual pleasure (their own or for the pleasure of the depicted men). To the extent that we still live with the social meaning of sexually active women as harmed objects, as Garry states, some male viewers might see the women in pornography in this way. This does sound plausible. But the issue is the extent to which this happens. And that is an empirical claim. Short of extensive studies of individual societies, the answer to the above question is not forthcoming. Moreover, there is the issue of how mindless this objection renders men: are most of them so uncritical that they easily accept social sexist views about women? Although this also is an empirical question, it is diffi cult to accept the idea, as I have mentioned, that men’s views of women are shaped by only certain aspects of culture. The messages that cultures send about women are not narrow, and individual men need not accept them as narrow even if they were narrow. The second objection is that because the heterosexual pornography industry mostly caters to heterosexual men, it is plausible that it would depict its female characters in degrading ways in order to make pornography arousing to these men, so anti-porn feminist objections are quite reasonable. However, this reasoning assumes what it sets out to show. While it is true that the pornography industry caters to men, we need to assume that men (or most of them) are indeed sexually aroused only or mostly by depictions of women as degraded to be convinced that the imagery of pornography intentionally depicts women in a sexist light—the very conclusion that the objection aims to reach. Moreover, the makers and producers of pornography need not make such an assumption about male arousal. They need only assume that men are aroused by scenes depicting sexual activity, and make as varied images and fi lms as possible in as diverse ways as possible to cater to men’s sexual imaginations, leaving it up to the men to read the images in ways that arouse them. So the objection does not succeed. Before fi nishing with the feminist anti-pornography views, it is important to note a troubling aspect about some of them. When Ann Garry, for example, complains that pornography degrades all women, she bypasses what goes on in pornography and relies on the fact that society connects sex with harm. What matters to her is how viewers of pornography see women: “I may not think that

272 Sex sex is dirty and that I would be a harmed object, I may not know what your view is, but what bothers me is that this is the view embodied in our language and culture” ( 1984 , 318). If this view is indeed embodied in our language and culture to the extent that Garry thinks it is, she is right to think it is bothersome. It is not a good thing that society connects sex with fi lth. But this does not mean we should indict pornography. Being a janitor is viewed by society as lowly—a bothersome issue—but it is a mistake to infer that being a janitor is itself degrading. In other words, philosophers like Garry infer from the fact that (some) people view sex as degrading that sex is degrading because it keeps that belief strong and alive. This is a troubling inference. No wonder, then, that Soble levels the following accusation at anti-porn feminists: “Feminist critics of pornography, in purporting to fi nd degradation in its images, buy into— uncritically accept—traditional social standards of what is sexually degrading to the human person. How they read pornography is determined by dominant social meanings, which they in effect endorse (as do the conservative critics of pornography) instead of condemning or transcending” ( Soble 2002 , 195). This point is worth emphasizing. If feminists and others who claim to not be against sex itself fi nd the image of a woman simultaneously fellating two or three men degrading, why do they fi nd it so? If women, like men, are sexual beings, why are they, but not the men, described as degraded when they enjoy, or are depicted as enjoying, sex with abandon? It is because we subscribe to social views about women to the effect that good, proper women do not and should not have this kind of sex. This view denies women their sexual agency and sexual equality with men. We are more justifi ed in criticizing archaic or unfounded social meanings instead of pornography (and prostitution). Sex work in general may be one of the few bastions of resistance to hegemonic, traditional, conservative views. And what pornography depicts may be one of the few areas in which men and women are shown as equal sexual beings. Feminists and their allies should fi ght traditional views of sex, along with the social inequality of men and women, instead of what pornography depicts. Objectifi cation in Pornography I started the previous section with two cases involving Rodrigo and Rita. We could not fi nd genuine sexual degradation in them additional to the Kantian type of degradation. This interestingly supports our conclusion that the feminist claim that pornography degrades women does not succeed, because if there is no degradation in the sexual act off -screen, why should there all of a sudden be degradation on -screen? If the sex between Rita and the two guys is not degrading, I see no reason that it becomes so if it is on-screen. 16 Degradation and non-degradation in private should not change if the act is made public, though being made to feel ashamed of it does (is this why Hill insists on perception as a necessary condition for something to be degrading?). Moreover, if there is no non-Kantian degradation in such actions, on- or off-screen, there is also no non-Kantian objectifi cation. Thus, and to connect

Sexual Objectifi cation 273 our conclusion to the issue of Kantian objectifi cation and sexual desire raised earlier in the chapter: (1) If one believes in Kantian or human dignity, and one accepts the Kantian view of sexual desire, one should then believe that pornography involves sexual objectifi cation because it involves bypassing our dignity in favor of our mere animality. But one should not believe that pornography objectifi es women (or men) in additional ways, unless one buys into the idea that sex is shameful, unless particular scenes are objectifying, or unless the objectifi cation comes from nonsexual sources (e.g., crawling to get to a room with horny men). (2) If one does not believe in Kantian or human dignity but does accept the Kantian view of sexual desire, then one has reason not to believe that pornography generally sexually objectifi es people. Finally, (3) if one does believe in Kantian or human dignity but does not accept the Kantian view of sexual desire (this is the position that most feminist writers on pornography occupy), then one also has reason not to believe that pornography generally objectifi es its participants (we have seen that the reason given by feminist writers fail to convince). Because I occupy position (1), I should say briefl y how objectifi cation occurs in pornography—specifi cally, who objectifi es whom. Insofar as the actors or participants desire each other, they objectify each other and allow themselves to be objectifi ed by others, specifi cally, by their co-participants in the scene and by the viewers. Interestingly, whether male participants allow themselves to be objectifi ed by straight viewers depends on how the viewer’s sexual desires and imagination work to derive sexual pleasure from consuming pornography, a complicated subject into which I will not enter. But we can claim that insofar as the viewer desires the actors or participants, the viewer objectifi es them also. He clearly does not allow himself to be objectifi ed by them because this is impossible. So pornography is rife with objectifi cation. Given this conclusion, is there any truth about pornography and the degradation of women? Yes: Women participants in pornography are sexually objectifi ed by the straight male viewer (probably) much more than male participants are sexually objectifi ed by straight women viewers, and they are rarely sexually objectifi ed by gay female viewers than male participants are sexually objectifi ed by gay male viewers. In short, the way the world is set up—due to culture, biology, or both—men exhibit much more sexual interest in viewing pornography than women do. This might be the cause of the feminist worry that women are especially sexually objectifi ed in pornography—a true claim but for reasons different from the ones offered by the above writers. The above discussion was specifi cally about degradation in pornographic depictions of sexual activity. It was not about how pornography actors or the people in the sex scenes treat each other, are treated by others, and how they get to work in the pornography industry. Nothing in the above discussion precludes the claim that many women are coerced into the industry or that they are treated badly while on the set. And nothing in the above discussion says anything about whether women are coerced into making “home-made” pornography. In short, nothing is about how pornography is made. I have reason to

274 Sex suspect that such claims are exaggerated and that they run together the two different claims of consenting to be in pornography and desiring the enacted sexual acts. 17 That is, women performers might not desire a particular activity but this does not mean that they did not consent to it. After all, many jobs are hard to do and, like pornography, physically demanding—being a maid, a miner, a construction worker, an athlete, a painter’s model, and even a painter—yet the people who work them generally consent to them. Of course, sex work is stigmatized, whereas being a miner is not (maybe not even being a maid or a janitor), but that is the fault of society, not the sex work. 18 Summary and Conclusion I have focused in this chapter on Kantian objectifi cation, which is based in the objectifying nature of sexual desire. However, although sexually desiring someone is suffi cient for objectifying that someone, it is not necessary. Consider again the example of the catcaller. Suppose that he actually does not sexually desire the woman whom he catcalls (he might even be gay!), but he catcalls her to be part of the group, to impress his friends with his macho prowess, or for whatever reason guys do this kind of thing. Then he sexually objectifi es the woman without sexually desiring her. Or consider that when directors of pornography are directing a scene, they need not be sexually attracted to the women (or the men) in the scene; they are concerned with the sexual positions and activity that the viewer will watch. They certainly sexually objectify the actors but their objectifi cation does not stem from their sexual desires. Indeed, society in general sexually objectifi es women by leaving them few options in how to present themselves, one of which is as sexual beings, as the philosopher Timo Jütten has recently nicely argued ( 2016 ). In this case, society forces (in some sense of “forces” yet to be properly understood) some women to objectify themselves by choosing to present themselves primarily as sexual beings (perhaps they present themselves as derivatives to what they think men want). The women are not objectifying themselves out of sexual desire but out of the perception that they need to look and act “sexy” if they are to succeed. 19 Thus, sexual objectifi cation can stem from sources other than sexual desire. Such sources result in objectifi cation even though there might be not intention to objectify. Social structures that have the effect of objectifying women do not intend to do so and cannot intend to do so insofar as social institutions lack intentions. Indeed, intending to objectify someone is a rare phenomenon. When we objectify someone from sexual desire, for example, we do not usually intend to; the objectifi cation occurs given how sexual desire works. Not even the catcaller need intend to objectify his victim. He instead intends to do any number of ultimate actions (get the woman’s attention, show off in front of his friends, express his admiration of the woman), but he does not usually think, “I want to objectify her.” Thus, objectifi cation is usually the result of certain actions, attitudes, and set-ups, with multiple sources. Rarely is it a matter of intention.

Sexual Objectifi cation 275 We have seen that on a Kantian view of sexual desire, sexual objectifi cation is a pervasive phenomenon of our lives. However, depending on the specifi c sexual activity, other factors might make tolerable the wrong of sexual objectifi cation. Furthermore, we have seen that other than the objectifi cation owing to the working of sexual desire, there is no additional form of sexual objectifi cation operating in pornography. Whether the sexual objectifi cation in pornography is tolerable depends on a number of factors, however, including the effects of pornography, an issue I have not addressed in this chapter. Study Questions 1. Should a defi nition of “sexual objectifi cation” include both treatment and regard or only one of the two? Why? Provide one or two plausible examples of someone sexually objectifying someone else through regard and only regard. Are such examples easy to formulate? Does this tell us anything one way or the other about whether a defi nition of “sexual objectifi cation” should include regard? 2. Give numerous examples of objectifi cation involving various situations such as casual sex, pornography, prostitution, fantasy, and others. Take each of these examples and run it through Nussbaum’s list of the seven types of objectifi cation to see which examples fi t which forms. See whether this tells you anything interesting or new about objectifi cation. 3. Think through as carefully as possible Nussbaum’s account of objectifi cation. Can you argue convincingly in support of the idea that a respectful relationship can make objectifi cation permissible without implying that all sex outside respectful relationships is objectifying? Perhaps you can think about such relationships as suffi cient, but not necessary, for permissible objectifi cation (though you still need to explain how). 4. Do we have a metaphysical property such as dignity, autonomy, and rationality, in virtue of which we should be treated with respect? And would such treatment rule out sexual activity? 5. Is Kant correct that sexual desire is by nature objectifying in targeting the body and body parts of another human being? Why or why not? Can you offer a view of sexual desire that makes it benign? 6. Is Kant’s view of sexual desire as targeting the body and body parts of another gendered? That is, is it more accurate of men’s sexual desires than of women’s? If yes, why? And what would this tell us about the truth of Kant’s view? 7. Can you improve on the views of Singer and Goldman (and of Shrage and Stewart, in note 3) to fi nd a plausible benign view of sexual desire? Might Wood’s claim that in healthy human beings sexual desire is mixed with other emotions be of help? 8. Is Soble correct that human beings are not dignifi ed? 9. If sexual desire (and the activity stemming from it) is always objectifying, can someone ever be temperate? Is temperance possible given this view of sexual desire?

276 Sex 10. In my view, sexual objectifi cation is a moral wrong, but one overcome by other factors. Explain these factors and then explain what it means to claim that they make objectifi cation “tolerable.” Is this the same as making it permissible? If yes, why? If no, what is the difference? Is it the same as making objectifi cation a good thing? 11. Can someone be sexually degraded but not sexually objectifi ed? What about the opposite—can someone be sexually objectifi ed but not sexually degraded? Would it make a difference to your answer if the question were worded as follows: Can someone be degraded in a sexual encounter but not sexually objectifi ed? What about the opposite—can someone be sexually objectifi ed but not degraded in a sexual encounter? 12. Is there a way (or ways) that (straight) pornography objectifi es women that we have not uncovered in this chapter? What ways are these? Make sure that the characterizations you offer are general (apply to much pornography) and don’t rely on socially conservative views about sex. 13. How many forms of objectifi cation have we uncovered in this chapter? Try to make a list of them (e.g., the type stemming from sexual desire, the type stemming from intention, and the type stemming from effect). 14. Consider a couple who have been together for a number of years such that they have lost sexual desire for each other but continue to engage in (infrequent) sexual activity with each other. Are they sexually objectifying each other, not out of sexual desire but out of some other source? Or are they not sexually objectifying each other at all? 15. Near the end of the chapter, I argued that pornography is “rife with objectifi cation.” Given that objectifi cation (on my view at least) is a wrong but a wrong that can be tolerated, is the objectifi cation in pornography a tolerable wrong? Why or why not? 16. I have claimed at the close of the chapter that sexual objectifi cation has sources other than sexual desire. Try to fully understand the sources I have listed in my discussion of this point. Are there additional sources for sexual objectifi cation? Further Reading On Kant’s ethics, see also Kant (1996a ); Baron (1995 ); Korsgaard (1996 ); Louden (2000 ); and Wood (1999 , 2008 ). On objectifi cation, see also Eames (1976 ); Haslanger (1993 ); Marino (2008 ); Moscovici (1996 ); Papadaki (2007 , 2010 , 2017 ); Quinn (2006a ); and Wertheimer (1996 ). On Kant and sex, see Belliotti (1993 , ch. 4); Brake (2005 , 2006 ); Cooke (1991 ); Herman (1993 ); Morgan (2003b ); and O’Neill (1989 ). On women and pornography, see Assiter and Avedon (1993 ); Coleman and Held (2016 ); Copp and Wendell (1983 ); Cornell (2000 ); Dworkin (1974 , pt. II, 1987 , 1989 ); Eaton (2016 ); Gruen (2006 ); Kershnar (2007 ); Kimmel (1990 ); Langton (2009 ); Lederer (1980 ); LeMoncheck (1985 , 1997 , ch. 4); MacKinnon (1987 , pt. III); McElroy (1995 ); Rubin (1993 ); Russell (1993 ); Segal and McIntosh (1993 ); Soble (1991 ); and

Sexual Objectifi cation 277 Strossen (1995 ). For more on MacKinnon’s views, see her ( 1993 , 1997 ) and MacKinnon and Dworkin (1997 ). For an elaborate defense of the views of MacKinnon and Dworkin, see Mason-Grant (2004 ). On ethicism, see Carroll (1996 ) and Gaut (1998 ). On endorsement in pornography and in art, see Brown (2002 ). Notes 1. Bartky also claims that the “female breeder” would be sexually objectifi ed because in this case a woman’s sexual functions (breeding) are “separated out” from the rest of her personality by using the woman merely for breeding purposes. 2. This is a departure from the previous edition where I accepted and used a defi nition of “sexual objectifi cation” that included only treatment. 3. Thus, what some philosophers have written by way of understanding Kant is either plain wrong or uncharitable. When Nussbaum, explaining Kant, writes, “In that condition of mind, one cannot manage to see the other person as anything but a tool of one’s own interests, a set of bodily parts that are useful tools for one’s own pleasure, and the powerful urge to secure one’s own sexual satisfaction will ensure that instrumentalization (and therefore denial of autonomy and of subjectivity ) continues until the sexual act has reached its conclusion” ( 1999 , 224, my emphases), she offers a simplistic account of what goes on in the mind of the person with sexual desire, an account that no Kantian need accept. Consider also what Laurie Shrage and Robert Scott Stewart write about Kant’s view in their book Philosophizing about Sex : “[S]exual acts involve inherently reducing another, even if only momentarily, to a non-conscious , dehumanized thing, because I must use this person’s sexual body parts—and unavoidably the person who inhabits them —as an object to satisfy my desire” ( 2015 , 6, my emphases). A charitable or correct reading of Kant would not reduce his claim to the idea that in sex we desire a non-conscious being and we have sex with the person-in-the-body only because we cannot avoid it, as if we would drop the person in a heartbeat and settle for the detached (and limp?) penis if we could. 4. It might happen in other types of cases, too, such as solitary masturbation, and it is worthwhile to think about what those might be. 5. Kant’s solution to the problem of objectifi cation is that sex is permissible only within the bounds of legal, monogamous marriage. This solution is riddled with problems that I do not discuss. See Denis (1999 , 2001 ) and Soble (2003 , 2013b , 320–325). 6. Kant did lose his senses in other sexual passages in which he discusses masturbation, same-sex sexual actions, and others, where he seems to simply assert bigoted views about these sexual behaviors ( 1963 , 169–171). But about sexual desire in general he seems to be right. 7. It is unclear which she accepts, whether the objectifi cation is permissible or whether it is wonderful (on this point, see Soble 2013b , 315–319). Other philosophers agree with Nussbaum that objectifi cation is not always oppressive: “If sexual relations involve some sexual objectifi cation, then it becomes necessary to distinguish situations in which sexual objectifi cation is oppressive from the sorts of situations in which it is not. The identifi cation of a person with her sexuality becomes oppressive, one might venture, when such an identifi cation becomes habitually extended into every area of her experience” ( Bartky 1990 , 26). For a full treatment of Nussbaum’s view, see Soble (2013b ) and Halwani (2010 , ch. 7).

278 Sex 8. Nussbaum believes that the third condition holds when it comes to Lady Chatterley, an English aristocratic woman, and Mellors, the gamekeeper at her estate, in Lawrence’s novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover . Chatterley’s low status as a woman is offset by her aristocratic high status, while Mellors’s low status as a gamekeeper is offset by his high status as a man, thus making them roughly equals ( 1999 , n39). But, as Soble has convincingly argued, this “is glaringly insensitive to the psychological dynamics between two particular persons, which cannot be read straight off from their socioeconomic status and gender” ( 2002 , 118). 9. According to Hill’s defi nition, no homosexual victim pornography can exist, even though some homosexual pornography might satisfy both conditions; perhaps Hill should have called the pornography she’s interested in “Heterosexual Victim Pornography.” 10. The following discussion concerns only the depictions of the actions and the characters on screen, so to speak, not the actors and what they might be feeling and thinking. This is proper given that Hill’s criticism of pornography is confi ned to such depictions. 11. Another degrading type of scene is when the woman has to crawl through a house, up the stairs to a bedroom, where one or more men are waiting to have sex with her. The degradation of such scenes, however, might derive from their nonsexual nature, as discussed above. 12. The endorsement claim is very similar to Hill’s claim that pornography provides no suggestion that women should not be treated as less than equals. This lack of suggestion might be what it means for a work of sexually explicit degradation to endorse or shun its representative content (Longino states something similar; 1991 , 86). 13. Eaton is unclear on how gender inequity is represented in pornography. She also doesn’t elaborate the idea of endorsement. In fairness, her essay is really about how to make sense of the idea that pornography causes harm to the viewers and to other parties. 14. Hill says something similar to both Garry and Longino: “The pornography industry regularly publishes material which, speaking conservatively, tends to contribute to the perpetuation of derogatory beliefs about womankind . . . we might say that it offers a perspective on the actual nature of womankind. The perspective offered by Victim Pornography is that, in general, women are narcissistic, masochistic, and not fully persons in the moral sense” ( Hill 1991 , 69). 15. This is what Soble calls the “Polyscemicity Thesis,” the thesis that pornographic images do not have intrinsic meanings. See Soble 2002 , esp. 19–20, 28, 98. 16. Compare to Soble: “It is permissible to make an image of a sexual act if and only if it is permissible to do that act, or it is wrong to make an image of a sexual act if and only if it is wrong to do that act” ( 2002 , 174). 17. The website kink.com is interesting in this respect: it contains videos of nonmainstream pornography often associated with degradation (e.g., sex in public, sex involving bondage and submission), and interviews with the women actors to allay worries about coercion, forced sex, and other concerns. 18. See the interview with Nina Hartley in Hartley and Held (2016 ). 19. Recently, the philosopher Ann Cahill has argued that we should replace “objectifi cation” with that of “derivatization” on the grounds that the former concept relies on a mistaken view of what human beings are, which is that we are autonomous and non-bodily, whereas the latter concept does not. According to Cahill, “To derivatize something is to portray, render, understand, or approach a being solely or primarily

Sexual Objectifi cation 279 as the refl ection, projection, or expression of another being’s identity, desires, fears, and so on. The derivatized subject becomes reducible in all relevant ways to the derivatizing subject’s existence” ( 2011 , 32; see also 2013 ). Cahill believes that this concept more accurately explains what is wrong with the situations we thought were wrong due to objectifi cation, especially since “derivatization” is based on a relational view of human beings. So, for example, the problem with pornography is not so much the objectifi cation of women as it is the depiction of women’s sexuality as the refl ection of men’s desires for what women’s sexuality is. This view, interesting as it is, saddles the concept of “objectifi cation” with a view of persons or human beings (that they are non-bodily and autonomous) that it should not, and need not, be saddled with. Once we see that “objectifi cation” need not rely on such a view of human beings, and that it can see them as bodily as they are, and as enmeshed in this world as they are (with varying degrees of autonomy), we also see that treating someone as an object might amount to the same thing as what Cahill means by “derivatization.” That is, my worry is that “derivatization” just means “objectifi cation, properly understood.” This remains to be fully investigated, however, and it might be that “derivatization” refers to phenomena not captured by “objectifi cation.”

Outline of the Chapter In this chapter, we discuss numerous philosophical accounts of sexual perversion. Although I argue that all fail to capture what sexual perversion is, we derive some important insights about sex and sexuality from discussing them. I then offer what I consider to be a recipe for a plausible account of sexual perversion, though I shy away from giving a full-fl edged account. Next, I turn to sexual fantasy, discuss some of it kinds, and discuss the following questions: (1) whether there is something ethically wrong about sexually fantasizing about someone else while having sex with the person you love or are in a relationship with; and (2) whether having sexual fantasies with morally troubling content refl ects badly on the moral character of the person who has them. I end the chapter with a discussion of the fantasies and desires involved in BDSM. Sexual Perversion The conceptual and evaluative issues in sexual perversion are a bit complicated. Before we start, some stage-setting is needed. The expressions “good sex,” “better sex,” “bad sex,” and “worse sex” are ambiguous. They refer to evaluative or normative aspects of sexual activity, but there are at least three types of goodness or badness at play. First, “good sex” refers to moral goodness: a good sexual act is morally permissible or morally commended, whereas a bad sexual act is morally prohibited or discouraged. A sexual act that is better than another is morally more commendable than the other, and a sexual act that is worse than another is more morally discouraged or more stringently morally prohibited. Second, “good sex” refers to pleasurable, exciting, or satisfying sex (among others). In this sense, a good sexual act is pleasurable, exciting, satisfying, rewarding, and so on. A sexual act that is better than another is more pleasurable, exciting, satisfying, or rewarding than the other. A bad sexual act is unpleasant (even painful), unexciting (even boring), unsatisfying (even frustrating), or unrewarding (even impoverishing). A sexual act that is worse than another fares worse than the other on one or more of these four criteria. 9 Sexual Perversion and Sexual Fantasy

Sexual Perversion and Sexual Fantasy 281 Third, “good sex” means “natural or normal sex,” whereas “bad sex” means “unnatural, abnormal, or perverted sex.” A bad sexual act is a perverted or unnatural one. A sexual act that is worse than another is more perverted or more unnatural than the other. Does goodness in this sense admit of degrees? Can we speak of a “better sexual act” to mean “more natural or more normal than another”? It is unclear what this would mean, and the answer might depend on unpacking what the “natural” and “normal” themselves mean. 1 Sexual acts can be good in one sense but not in another. Consider the following examples. First, if Joe and Jane engage in consensual, pleasurable, nonkinky sexual intercourse, their sexual act is good in all three senses. Second, suppose that licking feet is perverted. If both Joe and Jane consensually do it and fi nd it pleasurable, the act is morally good, pleasurable, but perverted. Third, suppose that Joe and Jane decide to try licking each other’s feet, but fi nd the act boring and unexciting. If this activity is perverted, their act is morally good, but not pleasurable and perverted. Fourth, suppose that Jane agrees to have sexual intercourse with Joe believing he is single, whereas he has lied to her to get her into bed. They enjoy the act. It is then pleasurable and “natural” but immoral. Fifth, suppose that Joe lies to Jane about his marital status and they have sexual intercourse that both fi nd unpleasant. Their sex act is immoral, not pleasurable, but natural. Sixth, suppose that Joe (again) lies to Jane about his marital status. They have sex by licking each other’s feet, but fi nd it boring. Their sexual act is bad in all three senses. Thus sexual acts can occupy different combinations on the goodness— badness grid. When philosophers attempt to give an account or a defi nition of sexual perversion, they could be giving one of two accounts (which they might confuse): either an account that attempts to faithfully refl ect how the expression “sexual perversion” is actually used and what it usually means (a descriptive account), or an account of how the expression should be used (a prescriptive account that tells us what sexual perversion really is, even if the account does not conform to the way people usually understand sexual perversion). Each approach has its pitfalls. The fi rst must face the might of counterexamples; if the account is to be successful, it must include sexual perversions and only sexual perversions. If, for example, it somehow entails that French kissing is perverted or that sex with animals is not perverted, something has gone wrong with it. Compounding the diffi culty for this approach is that not many people, let alone everyone, agree on a list of sexual perversions. Perhaps coprophilia, necrophilia, water sports, bestiality, erotic asphyxiation, and other bizarre sexual phenomena are readily seen as perversions, but other practices are not. For example, pedophilia and rape, while morally wrong, are not clearly perversions. Some sadomasochism and some fetishes (shoe fetishism, foot fetishism, leather and rubber fetishism) may sound weird, but some might not call them perversions. Even more controversial are homosexual sex, anal sex, even oral sex or any

282 Sex other sexual position not to the taste of some; there is certainly no widespread agreement about these being perversions. The second approach faces a different diffi culty. While it need not worry about counterexamples as much as the fi rst approach (if it diverges too much from the way we usually understand perversion, this would be a weakness), it should worry about providing convincing reasons as to why we should understand sexual perversion along the lines it prescribes. As we will see, both of these accounts and their diffi culties are found in the literature. Thomas Nagel’s essay “Sexual Perversion” ( 2013 ) is the oldest in the contemporary discussion of perversion and has been very infl uential, so we will start with it. Thomas Nagel’s Account To his credit, Nagel offers a psychological account of sexual perversion, not a biological one: “if there are perversions, they will be unnatural sexual inclinations rather than just unnatural practices adopted not from inclination but for other reasons . . . A sexual perversion must reveal itself in conduct that expresses an unnatural sexual preference” ( 2013 , 34). If Nagel is correct, sexual perversion is not a matter of biology, but of individuals’ psychological desires and preferences. To illustrate his view, Nagel gives the example of Romeo and Juliet, two strangers sitting in a bar full of mirrors. They can observe each other without, at fi rst, knowing that each is observing the other. Romeo fi rst notices Juliet and is sexually aroused by her. In Nagel’s terminology, Romeo senses Juliet. According to Nagel, “X senses Y whenever X regards Y with sexual desire” ( 2013 , 38). Then Juliet senses Romeo. At this point, neither Romeo nor Juliet is aware that each is the object of sexual arousal of the other. Here’s what happens next: Romeo then begins to notice in Juliet the subtle signs of sexual arousal: heavy-lidded stare, dilating pupils, faint fl ush, etc. This of course intensifi es her bodily presence, and he not only notices but senses this as well. His arousal is nevertheless still solitary. But now, cleverly calculating the line of her stare without actually looking her in the eyes, he realizes that it is directed at him through the mirror on the opposite wall. That is, he notices, and moreover senses, Juliet sensing him. This is defi nitely a new development, for it gives him a sense of embodiment not only through his own reactions but through the eyes and reactions of another. . . . But there is a further step. Let us suppose that Juliet . . . now senses that he senses her. This puts Romeo in a position to notice, and be aroused by, her arousal at being sensed by him. He senses that she senses that he senses her. This is still another level of arousal, for he becomes conscious of his sexuality through his awareness of its effects on her and of her awareness that this effect is due to him. Once she takes the same step and senses that he senses

Sexual Perversion and Sexual Fantasy 283 her sensing him, it becomes diffi cult to state, let alone imagine, further iterations. . . . Physical contact and intercourse are natural extensions of this complicated visual exchange, and mutual touch can involve all the complexities of awareness present in the visual case, but with a far greater range of subtlety and acuteness. ( Nagel 2013 , 38–39) Thus, Nagel’s account of natural sexual desire involves a multi-leveled mutual awareness by two people of each other. Unlike hunger, which is localized and which leads the person to interact with food, sexual desire pervades a person’s whole body and leads to an interaction with another person. The body’s saturation with sexual desire produces “involuntary reactions and spontaneous impulses” in the people with whom the person sexually interacts. The multi-levels of awareness occur when x perceives those reactions in y , when y perceives x ’s original perception, when x perceives y ’s perception of x ’s original perception, and so on (2013, 38–39). Sexual desire is not simply x ’s perceiving y ’s sexual arousal. It also enhances x ’s desire by x ’s sensing that y is aroused by x . Nagel emphasizes that his account is general. In particular cases sexual acts “will be psychologically far more specifi c and detailed, in ways that depend not only on the employed physical techniques and anatomical details, but also on countless features of the participants’ conceptions of themselves and of each other, which become embodied in the act” ( 2013 , 39). Moreover, natural or non-perverted sex need not be bad sex in the sense that it is not pleasurable; and even if perverted sex is bad sex in some sense, “[B]ad sex is generally better than none at all” ( 2013 , 44). Although Nagel acknowledges that to label a sexual act or person “perverted” is to evaluate the act or the person in some sense, the evaluation need not be moral, since such evaluations are not always moral ones: “We make judgments about people’s beauty or health or intelligence which are evaluative without being moral. Assessments of their sexuality may be similar in that respect” ( 2013 , 43). Thus, Nagel accepts the three different meanings of “good (and bad) sex.” Some philosophers have complained that Nagel does not describe what happens between Romeo and Juliet after their interaction at the bar, thus accusing him of giving a sexless account of natural sex ( Solomon 2002 ). But this accusation is unconvincing if it is meant, on its own, to indict Nagel’s view of natural sex. The whole point of Nagel’s account is to locate perversion and naturalness in the very structure of sexual desire , and this need not occur only during sexual interaction. Presumably, if Romeo and Juliet, having reached at the bar the high levels of arousal that Nagel describes, go on to have sex without the complexity of multi-levels of awareness, they would not be perverts, because the complexity has already been refl ected in their desires prior to their sexual act. Does Nagel’s view succeed in capturing what is usually considered sexual perversions? Since this is an account of natural sex, we expect Nagel to tell us that any sexual desire that deviates from it is, to some extent, perverted. Surprisingly, he doesn’t. He hesitates: “Even if this is a correct model of the

284 Sex adult sexual capacity, it is not plausible to describe as perverted every deviation from it,” declaring that there is no simple dichotomy between perverted and non-perverted sex. He gives, as an example of a non-perverted act that deviates from his account, two people having heterosexual sexual intercourse while fantasizing about other people and not recognizing each other as the real sexual partner ( 2013 , 41). However, Nagel is silent on which deviations from his account constitute perversions and which do not. Nagel claims that his view accounts for some phenomena considered perversions: “narcissistic practices and intercourse with animals, infants, and inanimate objects seem to be stuck at some primitive version of the fi rst stage of sexual feeling” ( 2013 , 41). Inanimate objects do not allow x to be aware of the object’s embodiment of desire, because they have none. Animals and children do allow x to be aware of their embodiment, but they do not reciprocate: they do not perceive that x ’s arousal is due to their own “sexual awareness” ( 2013 , 41–42). Exhibitionists do not want sexual attention from others, and voyeurs do not require recognition by their sexual objects. In all these cases, no higher levels of mutual awareness are reached. Although he also considers sadism and masochism to be perversions (but what he writes about them is terribly unclear), Nagel exonerates homosexuality ( 2013 , 42). If common usage tells us that exhibitionism, voyeurism, narcissistic sex (whatever that is), sex with animals, infants, and inanimate objects, and S/M are perversions, Nagel’s account coincides with it, so it is on the right track. Nagel’s treatment of these types of sexual practices is correct in that many people do consider them perversions, but his account does not end up giving the right results; it classifi es many non-perverted sexual practices as perversions, and many perversions as non-perversions. The example he gives of the heterosexual couple fantasizing about other people during sex is an example of what most would consider a non-perverted sexual act but one that, on Nagel’s view, should be perverted. Consider also the following examples: sex between a prostitute and her client, solitary masturbation, routine, unexciting sexual intercourse or oral sex between a heterosexual (or homosexual) couple. None exhibits the type of multi-leveled awareness that Nagel’s view of natural sex requires, so they would be examples of perversions on Nagel’s account. But though they may be bad in some other sense (e.g., immoral or boring), they are not considered perverted. One might argue that in the case of solitary masturbation, there is some sort of multi-level awareness that occurs if the masturbator masturbates while fantasizing about a person with whom he interacts, in the fantasy, in the ways Nagel requires ( Soble 2013a , 85–87). However, Nagel insists on the perception of the actual embodiment of desire in another person; his claim that desire is “not merely the perception of a preexisting embodiment of the other, but ideally a contribution to his further embodiment which in turn enhances the original subject’s sense of himself” ( 2013 , 40) implies that the interaction has to be real, not imagined. This also, by the way, addresses the interesting example that Soble (2013a , 87) gives of a prostitute who fakes arousal just to quickly

Sexual Perversion and Sexual Fantasy 285 “get off” her client. The client may believe the prostitute’s arousal to be true and reciprocate, while she, in turn, reciprocates with more fake arousals. The man is not aroused by her desires but by his belief that she desires him. If Nagel insists on the reality of the exchange of levels of desires, then this case, too, is one of perversion. But we might be unfair to Nagel’s account in focusing on acts and asking whether they are perverted. We must remember that Nagel’s view centers on sexual desires or preferences , not on acts (despite some of his own misleading wording). The example of the heterosexual couple fantasizing about others during sex would not be perverted on Nagel’s view because in and of itself it says nothing about the structure of the couple’s desires. Presumably, not only are they capable of multi-leveled awareness, they would also enjoy it were it not for the intervention of time and the withering of their lust for each other. The solitary masturbator also prefers sex involving multi-leveled mutual awareness; it’s just that no other person is available. The same goes for the other examples. The point is that as long as the sexual preferences of the people would follow the path of multi-leveled mutual awareness under “ideal” conditions, neither the people nor their desires are perverted. And if someone can enjoy sex only by masturbating or only with prostitutes, it may be plausible to describe him as perverted. And so on. All this implies that a young, male shepherd who occasionally has sexual intercourse with his sheep out of boredom or sexual frustration is not perverted (though the acts he engages in might be), because his sexual preference is not for sheep; the sheep are a substitute, and, after all, “[B]ad sex is generally better than none at all.” Although this reply on Nagel’s behalf goes some way in responding to the counterexamples found in the philosophical literature against his account, it still fails. Consider a commonly agreed-on perverted sexual preference: coprophilia, the use of or focus on feces in a sexual act. Coprophilia takes many forms: fondling or smelling feces while masturbating, defecating on a partner’s chest, smearing feces under the nose of one’s partner, masturbating while watching or listening to one’s partner or a stranger defecate (knowingly or unknowingly on the defecator’s part), and removing one’s penis from the unclean anus of one’s partner and inserting it into her vagina or into her or his mouth. These details are crucial for the truth of accounts of perversion, because many of these sexual acts involve the knowing participation of another person, indicating that multi-leveled mutual awareness can occur, despite, even because of, the use of feces. Consider: even though Nagel claims that “the object of sexual attraction is a particular individual, who transcends the properties that make him attractive” ( 2013 , 36), during sexual acts partners often focus on particular body parts without necessarily losing sight of the whole person as being the object of their sexual desire. If Kim and Mary sexually desire each other, then, according to Nagel, each one as a whole is the object of the other’s sexual desire. Nonetheless, during their sexual act Kim and Mary are probably going to focus every now and then on each other’s particular body parts—the clitoris, the breasts and