Hooking up: sexual liberation or unethical exploitation? With the rise of dating apps, sexual gratification seems like a few taps (or swipes) away at any given moment. What implications does this have for sexual ethics around consent, fantasy, and using other people merely for pleasure? In this episode, Ellie and David dive into the history, theory, and criticisms of hookup culture. Is there a way to hook up ethically? Some argue that the power imbalances fundamental to hooking up prevent it from ever being on equal grounds, yet others claim that the shift to hooking up generates potential for queer exploration and for sexual discretion in ways that were previously unavailable. Let’s find out!

Regarding the feminist concept of sexual objectification, Bauer explains that it was coined as part of a feminist shift in how to understand the world and one’s experience in it. According to the shift in question, in a context in which women experience widespread, systematic, diachronic, and structural disadvantages, certain ways of perceiving and representing women tend to cause them material and psychological harm. Bauer argues that once someone participates in this shift, the term ‘sexual objectification’ will ‘light up’ the relevant phenomena, and the person in question will see objectification everywhere she looks in contemporary culture. This is the case even if she is not in a position to specify exactly its marks and features.

Finally, I have read my first SEP entry in full. This reading has definitely strengthened my understanding of common positions, but no real illumination was had with respect to what to do about this whole thing. Sigh.

Boobs, breasts, baps, jugs, tits…what’s the fascination? And why on earth are they SO politicised?

Really great series on Nebula I’ve been following.

Some exceptions and why they matter

Excellent stuff.

When Amia Srinivasan published The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century in 2021, it sparked widespread debate about the politics of desire, consent, and sexual justice.

In this episode of The Exchange, the Oxford academic joins Tanjil Rashid to discuss how philosophy can illuminate some of the most contentious questions in contemporary culture: from incels and pornography to whether our desires are shaped by society.

What a good series.

I’ll note, as an aside, that the general social disfavoring of “no” that conversational analysis, among other disciplines, identifies is a lot like the way safewords are treated. Many bottoms, particularly subs and particularly women feel a lot of pressure not to safeword: as if it’s a rejection, as if it’s a disappointment, as if it’s selfish.

People are being [hurt], and it’s not me and it’s not my spouse. But I care that it happens. I could shut my door and play the way I like and ignore all that, but that’s what entitled privileged douches do with their privilege when they don’t care about justice. That’s “I got mine, Jack.” That’s not the right thing to do. I try to tell my kids to do the right thing, even if it’s hard, so I need to expect that of myself or I’m not much of an example.

What a good series.

I’ll note, as an aside, that the general social disfavoring of “no” that conversational analysis, among other disciplines, identifies is a lot like the way safewords are treated. Many bottoms, particularly subs and particularly women feel a lot of pressure not to safeword: as if it’s a rejection, as if it’s a disappointment, as if it’s selfish.

People are being [hurt], and it’s not me and it’s not my spouse. But I care that it happens. I could shut my door and play the way I like and ignore all that, but that’s what entitled privileged douches do with their privilege when they don’t care about justice. That’s “I got mine, Jack.” That’s not the right thing to do. I try to tell my kids to do the right thing, even if it’s hard, so I need to expect that of myself or I’m not much of an example.

If tops know that people feel free to just say that a top violated boundaries, tops might be a bit more worried about how they conduct themselves, they might be a little more stressed, they might have to trust their partners more. But right now, bottoms have to trust their partners a ton. Checking reputations and safecalls and the community leaders don’t protect someone from having their limits violated in private, or even in public. Right now, all the weight of risk is borne by the bottoms. How the hell is that fair?

BDSM is morally acceptable because we’re not doing anything wrong, and to be morally acceptable, we have to circumscribe the boundaries of what we do at the point where it becomes wrong, not look for some metaethical cheat code like immutability.

Never underestimate the depth of human venality.

If we don’t stand for consent, then there is no difference between us and the serial killers and child molesters.

I’ve noticed a funny thing: “I don’t do drama” is, in my experience, a contrarian indicator. There is more drama around people who say they don’t do drama than those who don’t say it, IMO.

Very well written!

see: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003232032/know-effects-pornography-fifty-years-academic-research-alan-mckee-paul-byron-roger-ingham-katerina-litsou

There’s a war on within the BDSM community about whether to face up to abuse within. There are a lot of dynamics overlapping here, and it’s hard to see the whole picture even for those of us who keep up with these things.

From the person that shared this with me:

It’s fun reading people’s arguments for stuff like this, like yeah I guess it makes sense to model it in economic terms, but it feels wrong to

Why does it feel weird? I still do not know.

Also, Not-Toby quite cleah addresses the social problem shared up top in a three-step social script.

see: https://nottoby.substack.com/p/why-am-i-so-annoyed-when-dudes-complain

From the person that shared this with me:

It’s fun reading people’s arguments for stuff like this, like yeah I guess it makes sense to model it in economic terms, but it feels wrong to

Why does it feel weird? I still do not know.

Also, Not-Toby quite cleah addresses the social problem shared up top in a three-step social script.

see: https://nottoby.substack.com/p/why-am-i-so-annoyed-when-dudes-complain

As per usual, Dougherty takes a big problem, finds the right abstractions, ruthlessly argues their way to the truth, and settles their realizations succinctly in the original context. One of the best philosophers of our time, on God.

Interesting posts on sexual consent.

Dougherty is writing books on the ethics of consent and on the rational (in)significance of the fact that we act from a temporal perspective. Among other topics, they have also researched the debate over consequentialism, ethical vagueness and female under-representation in philosophy.

Another one of my favorite contemporary philosophers.

I am a moral philosopher who studies normative power. I write about the power we have to change the moral, legal, and social world through speech acts and other expressions of our will. Consider, for instance: consent, promises, promissory release, offers, and threats. I also work on exploitation…

One of my favorite contemporary philosophers.