1. SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE • What are the underlying issues? • Are sexual relations a matter of a contract OR • A matter of historical existentially grounded human beings? • The central issue for me is the vulnerability that occurs during intimacy. Reminder: This is a PHILOSOPHICAL discussion [religious precepts may base a prohibition of pre-marital sex on the bible, or other religious teachings.]

2. BELLIOTI: Sexual Intercourse between Consenting Adults is always Permissible He argues that Sexual Relations are contractual in nature • This means the act is morally wrong only if it involves • deception • promise-breaking • exploitation

3. Bellioti argues from a KANTIAN position 1. It is never right to treat another human being as a “mere means.” • To treat a person as a “mere means” is to make them into an object. • People are to be “equal subjects of experience.” 2. Sexual relations are CONTRACTUAL in nature. • This involves the notion of reciprocity = that none of us is self-sufficient • “voluntary agreement of both parties to satisfy the expectations of the other.”

4. Bellioti continued…. 3. Voluntary contracts incur a moral obligation to provide/fulfill that which they have agreed to. 4. And that promise-breaking and deception are immoral actions. • One argument against the contractual view is that the feelings of intimacy involved make the contract a bad model. • Belliotti replies that all this shows is that it “may well be” the most important contract that people make.

5. Bellioti continued…. • He says we need to be careful in assuming what the other has offered. • His conclusion: Sex is immoral if and only if it involves deception, promise-breaking and/or treating the other party as a “mere means” to one’s own ends.

6. Examples: • Rape is intrinsically immoral because the participation of one party is involuntary. • He argues that rape is possible within marriage. Because of lack of consent. • Bestiality raises the question of whether an animal is an object, or whether it has interests that are not advanced by the act. • Necrophilia is immoral because of involuntary participation • Some argue a dead person is an object • But we do honor requests beyond the grave – and also this “object” once was a person- so “it” is not a “mere object”.

7. Bellioti: Final comments • The role of religion: Belliotti is not providing a religious argument, but he notes that religious convictions have become part of society’s moral code. • Note: Remember that Kant has shifted the “command” of the moral law from God to human reason. On Belliotti’s analysis “teasing” without the intention to fulfill is immoral on his contractual view of sexual relations.

8. PUNZO:Sexual Intercourse Should Always Be Confined to Marriage • Punzo argues that sex is different from other human activities because it involves EXISTENTIAL INTEGRITY: • What does he mean by “existential integrity”? • He asks whether having sexual relations is no different from any other event-choice that we make – like choosing a dinner from a menu or which movie to attend?

9. Punzo argues that … 1. There is a distinctive nature to sexual relations that makes them different from other activities or relationships we engage in. It is a matter of CONTEXT • In sexual relations you give your bodies over – it is not a contractual relation

10. Punzo argues that ... 2. The reason we can say all human activities are alike is the acquisitive character of our society. • The contract model “works”, if this is the way we view human sexual relations – as a form of acquisition.

11. Punzo continued…. He believes that we need to face the nature of sexual relations “squarely” and directly. • The human self is historical as well as physical – the role of the past and the future. • This is an existential understanding of the human self.

12. If we agree that the human self is historical then • It is not possible to amputate our bodily existence from the most intimate expression of our selfhood. • To do this is a form of “depersonalization.” • Sexual relations are not simply a PHYSICAL merging, but a merging of the non-physical dimensions of the partners. • Without a commitment to marriage there is an amputation of their physical being from their historical being. • The union is “depersonalized” • Sexual union is not simply a matter of being honest [the contract model]

13. Marriage as a total human commitment Punzo makes a distinction between “pre-ceremonial” intercourse and “pre-marital” intercourse. • People can be “morally married” without a ceremony BUT • The ceremony is part of the “historicity” of the relationship – this acknowledges that they do not exist in a vacuum. • The marriage ceremony “roots” them in the world in which they live. [Hence the gay/lesbian desire for marriage.]