The Philosophy of Sex

by Alan Soble (Editor), Raja Halwani (Editor), Nicholas Power (Editor)

Featuring twenty-nine essays, thirteen of which are new to this edition, this best-selling volume examines the nature, morality, and social meanings of contemporary sexual phenomena. Topics include sexual desire, masturbation, sex on the Internet, homosexuality, transgender and transsexual issues, marriage, consent, exploitation, objectification, rape, pornography, promiscuity, and prostitution.

Genres: Philosophy, Sexuality, Nonfiction, Theory, Essays

630 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

210719 later thoughts: one thought now several days later, possibly only for me, is sudden, heightened fear for all girls and women against their vulnerability to sexual assaults... i have known victims, i have some sense of exactly how arbitrary and cruel and always unprovoked are such, wherever and whenever. i must confront how sex, which is positive, can be so viciously twisted to negative- and wonder, appalled, who are these men who assault, who are these men who blame women, refusing to convict... these are the essays hardest to read in this collection, especially the first person recall. i fear, i hate, i want to destroy such men. i have no trouble imagining how radicals feminists are wanting to castrate offenders...

160719: extensive collection of philosophical essays on sex. some v good some less. best to read as resource, probably not all at once. choice of kind of philosophy, dialogue between essays, ideologically dispersed from radical, liberal, feminists, conservatives. stimulating thoughts...

thoughts: years (decades...) past sex is something that tells the world i am mature, i am no kid, i am man now... and buying hardcopy porn is like trying to get into bars underage, rite of passage, but i never actually shared porn, talked porn, thought porn, with the guys. there is an era i do consume much porn but this is in fact when i am already active so i do not know how much it taught me/misled me about women than anything else in our culture...

thoughts: years (decades...) past i realize that i am adopting the term ‘porn’ for derision of all the primarily-imagistic hardcopy magazines i buy of, for example, art and architecture, film and music... as this is literary prejudice against values of anything without words. then i meet riley and start to look at graphics, comics, art books...

thoughts: years (decades...) past there is newsstand few stores from coffeehouse, both gone now, but in days of slick magazines and no online for customers, there is clear sex segregation on entering store: men right, women left. staff agree, everyone is looking for fantasy, men for ‘things’, women for ‘relations’... the ‘things’ are cars, trucks, computers, fantasies of sports heroes, business heroes, and inevitably... naked bodies, female or male, bodies they have little likelihood of meeting. the ‘relations’ are houses, gardens, food, fashion, fantasies of emotional excitement and inevitably... gossip about known famous actors, musicians, people they have little likelihood of meeting...

i mention this parallel to my then-current girlfriend, who vehemently rejects any similarities, primarily, i guess, because one is sex and sex is obviously fantasy but house and garden and family and friends, however famous, are the real thing...

more
Blind Date: Sex and Philosophy
Philosophizing About Sex
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
Sex Without Love

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection.

[Ashley Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Textbook in college that introduced me to some writers I still read today.

[Bellina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent combination of philosophical essays. Pick your poison!

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Some of the articles made me mad as hell, but I learned a lot.