One of the basic questions in the ethics of sexuality is whether sex is like any other human activity (say, walking, or eating), governed by the usual moral rules (don’t coerce, force, lie, cause harm, etc.) or whether there is also some kind of inherent moral value which sexual activity should realize. The first view focuses on sex as a pleasurable physical act, and sees anything else as an “extra”. The second view asserts that there is some intrinsic purpose to sex, other than pleasure, be it procreation, the expression of love, or communication, which morally good sex must fulfill. In my view, one of the less emphasized differences between non-Romance (some forms of erotica, for example) and anything that we can call “Romance” is not just the HEA, or the amount, type, and explicitness of the sex in the text, but the moral significance of the sexual activity itself. Romance tends to reject the first view in favor of a modified version of the second.
The progressive liberal in me likes the first view. If someone wants to invest sexual activity with extra meaning, over and above the pleasure given and received, great for them, but let’s not say what they are doing has any greater ethical significance than a mile high quickie. I also tend disagree with the best known versions of the second view, for example, the Vatican’s.
But on the other hand, I am hesitant to give up the idea that the sex act is connected in some basic way to the mysteries of human existence, to the heights that our capacity for self-consciousness, interpersonal awareness, and intelligence allow us to occasionally scale.
Romance often offers a kind of middle ground between these two positions. Sex between the hero and heroine is just not like other sex they may have had. There is a difference between the sex that rake Sebastian had on his wedding night with Evie in Kleypas’ The Devil in Winter, for example, and his prior encounters, that cannot be captured in terms of physical pleasure. It’s one of the fantasies of the genre that sex between two people who are or will soon be in love is more physically pleasurable than any other kind, but I think this functions in part as a metaphor for the notion that sex with love is more significant in some objective ethical sense, than sex without.
Some of the use of lyrical language in sex scenes in romance seems designed to convey the idea that there is such a thing as morally better sex, and it’s why I tolerate the occasional lavender passage. Without condemning casual sex, as, say, the Vatican does, romances often recognize that hitching sexual desire, which is by nature unfocused and fleeting, to a long term monogamous relationship, is a uniquely valuable human capability, an expression of moral character, and one way of achieving the best kind of human life.
No related posts.
What an interesting concept! I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it that way, as sex within a loving relationship having a higher moral significance.
But I’m uneasy with the idea for a couple of reasons… one being that assigning morality or ethics to sexual relations inevitably implies that there is an immoral kind of sex (beyond the exceptions noted within your entry, that of force, coercion, lies, etc) in some absolute sense.
However, I don’t think that the sex act having a higher significance when done within the construct of a love relationship really implies any moral difference between that and lovemaking without the love. As a romance author I am fully invested in the idea that lovemaking between two people in love has a much deeper significance, but not a higher morality.
The monogamy aspect is simply, to me, another part of that moral imperative not to hurt another person.
Fascinating blog post! I look forward to the discussion.
Very nice post. You’ve hit the nail on the head. The sex is always different for the hero in historicals and both hero and heroine in contemporaries when they have found “the one” and made a special emotional connection that wasn’t there before.
My view is pretty simple. Romance is about love, with or without sex. If it’s just sex, then it isn’t a Romance novel no matter how wonderful. I prefer love with all the trimmings.
One of the basic questions in the ethics of sexuality is whether sex is like any other human activity (say, walking, or eating), governed by the usual moral rules (don’t coerce, force, lie, cause harm, etc.) or whether there is also some kind of inherent moral value which sexual activity should realize. The first view focuses on sex as a pleasurable physical act, and sees anything else as an “extraâ€.
I wonder if, when you say “like any other human activity” you actually mean “like any other human physical activity” because talking is a “human activity” which can be pleasurable, but it also tends to involve communication, and you list communication as something separate from physical pleasure.
It seems to me that solo sexual activity doesn’t have to involve communication (so can be solely focused on pleasure) but as soon as you have two people involved, there should be some degree of communication involved, because otherwise there’s no way to be sure that the activity is being carried out in accordance with “the usual moral rules (don’t coerce, force, lie, cause harm, etc.)”
As soon as you do something with other people (e.g. taking a stroll in the park with someone, as opposed to walking there by yourself) you tend to end up communicating, or otherwise thinking about the relationship between you. You might wonder if you should walk while maintaining a companionable silence (which could be misinterpreted as boredom or the result of a boring personality), or whether you should discuss something, and if so what?
Once people start communicating, they tend to build up relationships of some sort, particularly if the communication lasts some time. If you need to discuss contraception, protection from sexually transmitted diseases, whether either or both of you are single, where one/both of you would feel safe having the encounter, how one/both of you would feel about unwanted pregnancy etc, then you’re going to start to get to know someone.
Admittedly it’s not absolutely necessary to discuss all these things first, and you could just establish mutual consent, but it would seem more risky. It seems to me that the degree of risk involved in the activity might affect the level of communication that’s prudent before engaging in the activity. Would you go mountain-climbing with a new partner without establishing whether or not they knew how to keep you safe?
I’ve also recently seen the following, which suggests that communication can make the pleasurable physical activity more pleasurable:
A study of more than 2,000 female twins showed that those with greater emotional intelligence had larger numbers of orgasms.
These women were better able to monitor their own and others’ feelings and emotions, which is key, say the King’s College London investigators. [...]
Lead author Andrea Burri said: “Emotional intelligence seems to have a direct impact on women’s sexual functioning by influencing her ability to communicate her sexual expectations and desires to her partner.” (from the BBC)
To return to the mountain-climbing example, I’d imagine that someone would be more likely to enjoy the view once they reach the summit of a mountain if they’re not worried that their climbing partner’s lost the crampons etc. and there’s a strong possibility of unpleasant consequences during the descent.
It seems to me that solo sexual activity doesn’t have to involve communication (so can be solely focused on pleasure) but as soon as you have two people involved, there should be some degree of communication involved, because otherwise there’s no way to be sure that the activity is being carried out in accordance with “the usual moral rules (don’t coerce, force, lie, cause harm, etc.)â€
I’m not sure but I think this goes along with what I was thinking about, too. I’ve noticed lately how so many times we’ve gotten away from describing romances as “creation myths”. I’m not sure why that is because they are. To me that’s fundamental and it has nothing to do with religious beliefs. It has to do with the simple joining of two separate individuals into a complete whole relationship – which is a totally mythogically concept but one which only ends happily in romances. And for that to happen in a believable fashion, there has to be open communication as Laura is talking about.
Sexual intimacy is only one form of that communication.
One part of building that healthy relationship that can endure.
The interesting thing isn’t that sex is an accepted part of the story nowadays but that is wasn’t in the past. In the past it was essentially cut out of the stories. Ruthlessly. Are we going overboard because of that? Possibly. At times.
But I’m not sure we’re any more obssessed with having sex in the stories than earlier generations were with keeping it out. And at least, we want it to have some real meaning when it’s there.
Most of the time.
“Sex between the hero and heroine is just not like other sex they may have had.”
————
True, but then everything between the hero and the heroine should be different, in my opinion. The stars should shine brighter. The sunset should be more beautiful. Breakfast should taste better. I don’t know that sex needs to be singled out. It can be a bit of a co-out, really.
I find that some authors focus too much on the sex and not enough on the other aspects of the relationship. Using great sex as shorthand for a great relationship gives the impression that if the sex is good the relationship is, too. In real life there are people who are great in bed but are otherwise complete jackasses. I need something more than a double orgasm to convince me of a HEA.
“But on the other hand, I am hesitant to give up the idea that the sex act is connected in some basic way to the mysteries of human existence, to the heights that our capacity for self-consciousness, interpersonal awareness, and intelligence allow us to occasionally scale.”
Either view one or two, both are something physical yet trancendant and writing both circumstances is hard at best. You’re writing the space between two people and where the threads of those connections lie. People get married over one night stands. There is something slipstream there that words can only ever be a muddy approximation for. To write ‘just sex’ without aknowledging the humanity/spirituality of the person in the act is a disservice to the reader.
Uncommon Jen: True, but then everything between the hero and the heroine should be different, in my opinion. The stars should shine brighter. The sunset should be more beautiful. Breakfast should taste better. I don’t know that sex needs to be singled out. It can be a bit of a co[p]-out, really.
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Amen! To me, there’s not a hoot of difference between “sexual ethics” and ethics in general (i.e., do no harm, do unto others). Applying a separate set of standards only invites hypocrisy. The only reason sex is often singled out as a touchstone for integrity is because we have been conditioned to believe that it holds the keys to heaven (in one way or another, depending on perspective).
Within the romance genre, as quoted above, EVERYTHING between the hero & heroine (or hero & hero… or heroine & heroine… or any permutation of consenting adults) should be different/special/more/better/shinier.
I’m not sure it’s a question of a higher moral significance. I am firmly in the first camp, that sex doesn’t have to be a part of a deep, ever-after relationship to be good and fun and a positive act.
However, I think what romance says is that the combination of physical attraction, emotional connection, and intellectual and other compatibilities leads to more satisfying connections on each of those levels. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Not that it is *morally* better, just that it is INHERENTLY better– more pleasurable, more enjoyable, more satisfying.
Does that make sense?
I don’t mind the idea that Romance promotes an experience of sex between the hero and heroine that represents a pinnacle of experience and intimacy for both of them. Because the intensity of romantic love is so often communicated between the couple (and in the case of Romance novels, to readers) through sexual expression.
Where I get squeamish is in the idea that sex between the hero and heroine makes them *better people* somehow, that it ennobles them and that the sex is not just better experientially but that it’s more *proper* somehow, that it serves a higher social, moral, political purpose. I think Romance can still be more about the higher social purpose than about just better for the couple (no surprise, given the history of literatures directed at women). But IMO it’s the same for love in Romance — that it must be earned, that, especially for the woman, one must be good enough (whatever that means) to deserve it, etc.
I think there are myriad ways to express the specialness that is the love and sex in Romance without making them moral goods. But I’m not sure the genre is ever going to completely give up the moral good for the personal good.
I’m not sure you can have the first type of sex in historicals, bar infertility.
The sex act itself might have no moral significance, but where it automatically entails the possibility of pregnancy, musn’t it have inherent moral value?
Does annoy me when historicals behave as though the heroine can choose to have sex without making the concomitant decision to chance becoming pregnant.
Where I get squeamish is in the idea that sex between the hero and heroine makes them *better people* somehow, that it ennobles them and that the sex is not just better experientially but that it’s more *proper* somehow, that it serves a higher social, moral, political purpose. I think Romance can still be more about the higher social purpose than about just better for the couple (no surprise, given the history of literatures directed at women). But IMO it’s the same for love in Romance — that it must be earned, that, especially for the woman, one must be good enough (whatever that means) to deserve it, etc.
I suppose, in a way, this is why I’ve always been philosophically, for lack of a better term, opposed to the traditional form of romances that had the sex scene as the “climax” of the story. If they were even shown then. I don’t simply hate that type of story. Hate doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about the formula – and that’s after I allow for the fact that some of my favorite romances were of that tradition. And still are. I can love the storytelling individually and still hate the thought process behind formula, you know.
It’s just that the concept that the number or variety of sex scenes in romance should be restricted only to the consummation of the relationship just irritates me to no end because of the emphasis it puts on sex as the be all and end all of everything we’re talking about. And that’s just so not true.
As long as sex is allowed to become to the goal, then the books are about sex – even if there isn’t any sex in them – and that’s not what I read them for. So, yeah, it irritates me and always has.
Uh, what were we talking about?
No, seriously, how ethical is it to make sex the goal instead of a healthy relationship overall?
Isn’t that really what we’re talking about, when we boil it down?
“Does annoy me when historicals behave as though the heroine can choose to have sex without making the concomitant decision to chance becoming pregnant.”
Since pregnancy is still one of the most dangerous medical conditions for women, you’d think that we’d be much more circumspect as a society about having women get pregnant. But we’re not all the time. Nor about sexually transmitted diseases. The irony in those studies done on some of the teens who take those chastity pledges but who contract sexually transmitted diseases from non-vaginal forms of unprotected sex is is noteworthy, too.
IMO, when people live with certain dangers, they are not always as alert to them and protective against them as those who are on the outside observing. Which is part of why, for example, 30% or so of American Puritan women were pregnant at any given time upon marriage during that time. As long as they were wed before the fourth month (the quickening), they were not fined, and it was important to know whether your intended was fertile. It’s one of the reasons why prostitution was widespread in Victorian England, despite the fact that superficially society celebrated chastity.
So I don’t think that it’s unrealistic for women in Romance — even middle and upper class women — to be having sex outside of marriage, although I agree with you completely that the cultural mores of the time must be considered. It’s just that IMO it’s a challenge to do that the same way someone *during that time* would, since it’s not always discernable based on, for example, the health dangers inherent in such activity.
“Mistress!” deamnded Scarlett. “What would I get out of that but a passel of brats?”
Contraception was legal, but could not be sent through the mail or sold. The idea was not to ban it, but to stop its distribution. The majority of Comstock laws were overturned in the 30s, with Connecticut holding out until the 60s and the Pill.
There are historical ways to handle birth control. Although they weren’t always effective and were often unwieldy many women used home-made pessaries. In my two Victorian era pieces, I let my women use these. One carries her own and the other is introduced by a more experienced lover. Bedhopping in historicals bothers me.
Pregnancy is still dead serious. A woman’s man is more likely to abuse or murder her during a pregnancy than any other time. And modern women still die in childbirth, even in the US.
An interesting concept. What exactly is sex vs. love? Sex can be like dinner alone, with the pleasure of the food all tactile pleasure. Or you can share the tactile pleasure with another for whom you feel no attachment and the pleasure MIGHT be enhanced or diminished by sharing, but it remains largely a tactile event. Or you can share the same moment with a family member or friend with whom you have emotional ties to and the experience moves beyond tactile alone and becomes a more complex experience within our minds, engaging some level of emotion. Now share that meal with someone that you have a deep emotional and sexual attraction to and the event is imbued with something beyond tactile, engaging a piece of the ’self’ that’s reserved for those rare individuals that trigger emotional and physical wants and needs that friends and family do not. Things feel different because for that person at that time they ARE different.
That we perceive events differently when we are emotionally engaged is beyond doubt. To me, ethics would only come into play if one of the people is unavailable by virtue of prior commitments that preclude any relationship being developed or consummated – marriage being the most common. Yes, it would be dependent to some extent on the social and religious mores of those involved, but those are not the same ethical barrier.
The idea that sex is for the purpose of procreation is fundamentally flawed on so many levels, the least of which is it flies in the face of human nature to enjoy life and engage in activities that give pleasure. That sex is something that should only be pleasurable with ‘the one’ is equally unrealistic. Just as we get pleasure from food, we get pleasure from sex – depending on quality of the chef
. Unless we chose a life of self-denial and go into some kind of physical or emotional retreat, we all engage in the pursuit of pleasure to some degree. Ethics would enter in where our pleasure harms another. Then it is not the act itself, but the consequences of the act on others that raise ethical issues of varying degrees. Romeo and Juliet and The Thorn Birds are a perfect examples of ethics at play and both were tragedies. And let’s face it, that’s a whole discussion that would take days.
But romance is not about sex, it’s about love. Each story has it’s own nuance on the decisions made to be together – some very ethically/morally significant, others not. But romance novels are not where we go to engage is deep philosophical debate about impossible ethical conundrums, they are the books we escape in where we know problems can be solved and love will triumph – there WILL be a HEA.
Can I ask for clarification on this?
To some extent, I think that one of the hallmarks of a good relationship is that the two people make each other bigger people. (I don’t want to say, more moral, more social, more proper–just bigger.) That is, love is not where the significant other doesn’t see your faults, but that they see those faults and say, “You can do better,” and you do.
And it’s not that I think love must be earned, but that I think the love won’t be believable if I don’t see the two pushing each other to grow. I want them to be each other’s safe haven, but I also want them to gently prod each other and say, “Okay, you can do it.”
That should come off in all aspects of the relationship–the sex, the conflict, the conversations. There is nothing that renders a romance flat for me faster than characters who are too enraptured with the initial flush of attraction to see what’s wrong and wounded about each other. Those are the ones where I get to the end of the book and I say, “I give it two months.”
I don’t think you’re disagree with that. But the difference between “earning love” and “growing into love in a believable fashion,” as set forth on the page, is sometimes a very, very fine line. Someone’s “love must be earned” is someone else’s “I want to see that they can grow as a couple.”
As for the question of “more” being attached to sex…. From my perspective, that fatal “more” gets attached to every scene I write, not just the sex scenes. I write scenes to connect the reader with an emotion, as played over the bones of the plot. There is no such thing as a scene without emotion, and if I’m writing one, I need to revisit it and redo it and rewrite it and rewrite it until I have captured the right emotion.
I believe you can have sex that is just about physical pleasure. I believe that you can have no-strings-attached sex, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t believe I can write a scene like that and put it in a book. A no-strings-attached sex scene moves the story forward as much as a no-strings-attached brushing of teeth. It’s the attached strings that make it part of the story.
So I want to caution against extrapolating from scenes in stories about sex to inferences about moral belief or sexual ethics.
Courtney,
the only way I can explain the difference in a way that approximates my sense of it is this way: Urging each other to grow and become more of who you are is primarily something within the relationship, even if it has other, externally-oriented, benefits. That is, one gains the confidence to follow a dream or kick a substance abuse habit or become a better parent, etc. The reader can experience this vicariously, and can feel uplifted, but it’s not necessarily a lesson delivered to the reader about the moral and social virtues of love and marriage.
However, creating a context in which a committed relationship is socially or morally superior because it a) provides a context for “legitimate” children, b) legitimates the couple’s love somehow, c) makes it okay for the heroine (particularly) to be sexually expressive and fulfilled seems to me to be between the reader and the book in a more explicit way — that is, the couple is being set up as a moral exemplar, with their growth part of a larger morality play. A moral judgment is being made, in other words, that I, as the reader, am implicitly expected to share.
That doesn’t mean, as you say, that it’s always, all one OR the other. After all, there are very strong historical reasons for the elevation of the nuclear family as a micro-model of a stable, functioning society. And in Romance, especially, the emotional aspect of sex, especially as the emotional intimacy between characters deepens, definitely creates a greater sense of importance, both in the sex and the relationship.
But when I perceive, for example, that the heroine can only be sexually fulfilled within the confines of marriage, I feel it’s a moral lesson. But when I perceive that the heroine gains the confidence and sense of acceptance to heal a sexual wound, I eel that it’s about the people and the relationship, even if such a thing has secondary social benefits (i.e. happier, healthier people = happier, healthier society).
Ah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that’s a hugely useful distinction, and I agree with you entirely. I disapprove of overt moral lessons in fiction entirely.
Excellent post.
I think all sex featuring more than one person involves both communication and connection. Even if it’s a “no-strings” encounter, there is a connection of some kind between the participants, whether emotional or just the sort of physical reassurance/establishment of contact we primates need at a very basic level.
I don’t think the “moral component” can be shaken off, as one’s ideas on morality are generally ingrained and result in emotional reaction before anything else. Any underlying morality of a sex scene might thus be presented unconsciously by the writer, or interpreted unconsciously by the reader.
I will have a better response later tonight (I am “on call” for my second job and I was called today. Sorry!)
But I did want to just ask, what is wrong with “moral” value?
I suppose it all depends upon whether one is talking about a character’s moral code or some overall morality of the storytelling itself. On the surface, there’s not anything wrong with either one of them but a deeper look can lead to a completely different interpretation, believe me.
I tend to associate morality with absolutist notions of right and wrong, especially in association with religious dogma (i.e. sin and salvation). Therefore, “moral value” for me has connotations of “moral judgment,” which in turn IMO tends to favor men over women, privileges chastity as a symbol of virtue, and the like.
Ethical value, on the other hand, is more contextualized for me within codes of social conduct. That is, what does it mean to live a “good life” within a particular social context. I tend to be much more comfortable talking about ethical value, especially in reference to sex and love.
I guess I also need to clarify that I tend to see most notions of right and wrong that are advertised as absolutist as contextually-defined. That is, saying something is just plain right or wrong doesn’t make it so, except within the context in which the judgment is deemed valid (i.e. religious doctrine that deems homosexuality to be a moral wrong).
What a fabulous post! and then the question, what is wrong with moral value – that is a whole new dimension. I think there’s nothing wrong with moral value if the person having the sex is the one who gets to define moral. I think that’s where people get hung up: morality has the baggage of coming in from the outside but it doesn’t have to. For me, different acts even of eating can have different moral value, as I see it.
But what’s interesting is that, on my blog, I only get the first few sentences of posts, and this got cut off at ..”whether sex is like any other human activity (say, walking, or eating), governed by the usual mora” And it came to me that, no, sex plays by different moral rules, and peoples personalities often go upside down.
That’s not what you’re talking about at all. But then again, sex with love, like in your Sebastian example, allows this to happen. He goes to a new side of himself. A caring side.
Anyway, I really like your thesis of a third way.
Oh, duh, I just read the above comments. Okay. Slightly redudant tonight, I am.
Donna Lee Simpson: “As a romance author I am fully invested in the idea that lovemaking between two people in love has a much deeper significance, but not a higher morality.”
Donna, your view is shared by many others, as you can see in this thread!
Laura Vivanco: Yes, I agree that some form of communication is required for sex, and any human activity that involves two peopel doing something together, if only to ensure consent, but it can be so minimal as to barely register. The folks who hold the communication theory I mention have a higher standard for what counts as true “communication” in this context.
By the way, one of my standard jokes is that if sex involves communication, masturbation must involve talking to oneself!
BevBB: “I’ve noticed lately how so many times we’ve gotten away from describing romances as “creation mythsâ€. I’m not sure why that is because they are. To me that’s fundamental and it has nothing to do with religious beliefs. It has to do with the simple joining of two separate individuals into a complete whole relationship – which is a totally mythogically concept but one which only ends happily in romances.”
Bev, that’s really interesting. I struggle to find way to describe this magical alchemy which do not imply any connection to reproduction (because I don’t believe that same sex couples, or infertile hetero couples are having less significant sex!). And this is a nice way of doing that.
UncommonJen:”Using great sex as shorthand for a great relationship gives the impression that if the sex is good the relationship is, too. In real life there are people who are great in bed but are otherwise complete jackasses. I need something more than a double orgasm to convince me of a HEA.”
Amen, sister.
Robin: “Since pregnancy is still one of the most dangerous medical conditions for women, you’d think that we’d be much more circumspect as a society about having women get pregnant.”
No, we have faux diseases like “post abortion syndrome.” Don’t get me started.
Angelia Sparrow: “Pregnancy is still dead serious. A woman’s man is more likely to abuse or murder her during a pregnancy than any other time. And modern women still die in childbirth, even in the US.”
In the US newborn infants have the lowest survival rates among industrialized nations, driven largely by racial and income disparities. and your point about domestic abuse is well taken. Thanks for the reminder.
Reacherfan: “But romance novels are not where we go to engage is deep philosophical debate about impossible ethical conundrums, they are the books we escape in where we know problems can be solved and love will triumph – there WILL be a HEA.”
I also read romance to escape and have fun, but sometimes, as in this post, I like to think about some of the deeper issues romances tackle, implicitly or otherwise. I’m one of those people who thinks that only allowing talk about romances in one mode — escape mode — contributes to the denigration of the books, the writers and the readers. Besides that, it’s in my nature to ask the deep questions. To me, it is fun. I can’t help it!
Courtney: “So I want to caution against extrapolating from scenes in stories about sex to inferences about moral belief or sexual ethics.”
Thank you for sharing a bit about your process. I sure hope I did not leave the impression that I believe I can magically detect an author’s viewpoint on moral issues by reading her book, because I don’t.
Robin: “But when I perceive, for example, that the heroine can only be sexually fulfilled within the confines of marriage, I feel it’s a moral lesson.”
Based on this comment and the next, “moral” means restrictive patriarchal sexual morality.
That’s not what I mean by the term. I mena something ideal, first of all, not factual and descriptive (a culture’s actual set of moral norms, for example) and also I mean something closer to what you refer to in your next comment about ethics — a kind of way of being, more than a set of rules for right and wrong — that instantiates a unique kind of value. to me it is an objective (though not absolutist) value, not a personal value, not an economic or aesthetic value. A moral or ethical value.
Courtney writes: “I disapprove of overt moral lessons in fiction entirely.”
They never work, do they, either as art or morality.
But I think there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on in literature that has moral (or ethical, if you prefer) relevance. It doesn’t take the place of literary merit or other kinds of merit, but it’s there.
Victoria Janssen: “I don’t think the “moral component†can be shaken off, as one’s ideas on morality are generally ingrained and result in emotional reaction before anything else. Any underlying morality of a sex scene might thus be presented unconsciously by the writer, or interpreted unconsciously by the reader.”
Have you been reading the latest in neuroethics? Sounds like it!
I also see morality/ethics this way. It’s everywhere all the time. I can isolate it and reflect on it in theory, in the cool hour, so to speak, but that’s not the way it works in literature or life.
Carolyn: “think there’s nothing wrong with moral value if the person having the sex is the one who gets to define moral. I think that’s where people get hung up: morality has the baggage of coming in from the outside but it doesn’t have to. For me, different acts even of eating can have different moral value, as I see it.”
I think you have the freedom to decide which moral codes to accept as your own. This is a necessary part of human development. But I don’t agree that what makes some moral codes acceptable is merely your assenting to them for personal reasons. I think there are some objective standards. But I am not going to try to fight that battle here!
Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments, especially about your experiences as readers and writers, which adds tremendously to my thinking abotu this issue.
Oh, right, objective standards for morality. I’d go with that!