Sexuality And Perversion Essay

"Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct."- (Romans 1:26-28)

The general attitudes as it relates to the idea of sexuality and perversion remains to be a changing one, as when the traditional and universal ideals on the concepts of sexuality and perversion change, so too does general opinion. The Sexual Revolution in the 1960’s-1980’s, often times referred to as The Sexual Liberation, brought

Singer (1996, cited in Sexual Perversion: Thomas Nagel, Alan Goldman) believed that “Sexual activity is viewed as a sexual interest which resembles an appetite in some respects as it differs from hunger or thirst in that it is an interpersonal sensitivity” This ‘appetite’ and whether it can be perceived as a sexual act based on Robert Grays theory depends on how it is performed and if the results were good or bad, positive or negative. However, this theory does not quite cover those who participate in sexual acts but don’t achieve sexual pleasure, Philosophers John Christman and Deborah Rosen gave a similar analysis to Gray’s, believing that for an act to be sexual, ‘sexual feeling’ is required as an essential element. By replacing “sexual pleasure” with “sexual feeling” they have included those individuals who do not necessarily experience ‘pleasure’ from the

Goldman goes on further to state that concepts relating to ethics, morality and nature are not to be interrelated with one another as “sex continues to be misrepresented in philosophical writings” in the ‘means-end’ approach to the analysis of sexual activity(Goldman, 1977). This means-end approach to the concept of sexual acts is a set of false notions that are made useless with the prevalence of contraceptives –such as condoms- within society. Views regarding what is and isn’t to be considered as perverse are laden with problems and grey areas, so is it a realistic idea for a society, one culture, to create a universalistic standard for what is considered normal, sexual practices? While I do hold opinioned views in respect to acts such as bestiality and child molestation, one must realize that in previous cultures and in some societies that existed long before ours, the age for marriage between a male and a female was far lower than present day cultures permit. An