1. Goldman.  Sexual desire is a desire for physical contact and its pleasure.  Sex is an activity that tends to fulfill this desire.

·        So, same-sex hugging by heterosexuals is sex?  Goldman thinks we can separate the pleasure of physical contact in hugging from its social meaning.  This is dubious.  Besides, what if one’s sexual desire is a desire for the social meaning of sex rather than for the physical pleasure?

·        What if I just enjoy the feel of a cat’s fur?  Does this mean that I am committing bestiality with it?

·        What if a man or a woman just does not receive any pleasure from intercourse.  Does that mean that intercourse is not sexual activity then?

· Maybe it still is, because intercourse tends to produce pleasure in most people.  If so, then “sexual activity” is defined by what most people find their sexual desires satisfied by.  But that would be unfortunate.  It would mean that if, due to some wide-spread disease, most people started finding intercourse not pleasant, then it would no longer be sex.  And why should whether Bob and Jane find x pleasant have anything to do with the question of whether it is sex when engaged in by Fred and Mark (or Fred and Sally)?

·        Perversion is entirely a statistical concept.  There are no special sexual ethics rules.  For instance, pedophilia is wrong because it produces psychological damage.

• Does it follow that bestiality is OK?

2. Singer.  According to Singer, sexual acts that are non-reproductive used to be all lumped together, but now all are accepted—except for bestiality.

·        What is wrong with bestiality?  Singer insists that nothing.  For a utilitarian, if it contributes to the happiness of somebody, say the human or maybe the animal, and if no act more contributory to happiness could be done at that time, then it is right—indeed, even a duty.

·        Is it the lack of an interpersonal relationship that makes it wrong?  But then bestiality would be less wrong the higher up we went on the evolutionary ladder.  Sex with an iguana would be more wrong than sex with an ape.  This is not obvious

·        Or is it that one is treating something that is not human as a human being, and thus one is devaluing a human being by equating human beings with mere animals?  Or maybe the problem with bestiality is that it is treating something in a way that is false to reality: it is a self-deception, because by having sex with something one is treating it as if it were an equal partner, but it is not (cf. Kant on morganatic marriage, and Punzo et al. on premarital sex).  Note that these argument, if correct, would have wide implications.  For instance, it would imply sex with a life-size anatomically correct doll is wrong because it equates human beings with dolls or treats dolls as if they were human.  Sex with no one at all—i.e., masturbation—is wrong because it equates human beings with nothing.  Masturbation involving pornography would equate human beings with pictures that one cannot interact with.

3. Carl Elliott.  Apotemnophilia.  What (if anything) is wrong with this?  One hypothesis: Parts of the body have certain purposes, and to render them incapable of fulfilling these purposes is wrong.

4. Non-sexual examples of perversion.  (Regurgitation of food.  Eating sand for fun.)

5. Nagel.  According to Nagel, some appetites at least can be perverted.  One’s hunger could be perverted if instead of eating food, one ate pictures of food.  Of course, the pictures of food might not satisfy one’s hunger.  But imagine that the hunger goes away—e.g., because one’s stomach fills up.  Still, there would be perversion there.  Nagel thinks gastronomical perversion comes when our hungry relation to the world is “displaced”.

· What is essential to sexual desire, according to Nagel (and Scruton, too) is that it is directed towards an individual.

· “double reciprocal incarnation”.  “Sexual desire involves a kind of perception”.  Mutual arousal, growing step by step.  “a desire that one’s partner be aroused by the recognition of one’s desire that he or she be aroused.” 

· Note that this implies that sexual activity, e.g., reproductive activity, that does not involve mutual arousal is perverse.  What is a couple supposed to do if they are having sex just to have a child?  Is that perverted?  (On the other hand, it is said that infertile couples do experience sexual problems from the whole process of having sex solely for reproductive purposes.)

· Perversions, then, involve less mutuality.  Sex with animals is a paradigmatic example, because one is not seen sexually by the animal.  (What if one is, as in the example of the great ape that Singer talks about?  Then, still, the ape is not aroused by one’s desire that it be aroused.)

· Homosexual activity, however, need not be perverted on Nagel’s view.

· That something is perverted does not mean it is wrong, Nagel thinks.  It could be better than no sex at all.  (Really?  Take the case of necrophilia or bestiality…)