Ethical Math And Sex With Random Strangers

When I was a frosh in college in the 80s, a guy friend tried to talk me into having sex with him by pointing out that the benefit to him would be much greater than the cost to me. That is, he argued that even if I wasn’t attracted to him — which I wasn’t — I should agree to have sex with him just on principle, the way you’d do any other thing to be nice, kind, or generous to a friend.

I declined to have sex with him. It’s not that a disagreed with his premises. He was a young guy, and didn’t know many people socially; I wouldn’t be surprised that he’d want to have sex, that having sex would not only be pleasurable but would also add a lot to his medium-term, overall happiness with his life. While I wasn’t attracted to him, I’ve always been a bit of a free spirit sex-wise and he was, after all, a friend, a nice person etc. etc.

I didn’t have the philosophical sophistication to explain what was wrong with his point of view; I think I just said “that’s not how that works” — which I still think is basically the right answer. While I believe there can be good reasons to decide to have sex even if you’re not exactly feeling it in the moment, and that even altruism is not always misplaced as a sexual motive, there’s no obligation to have sex with someone just because the happiness numbers add up higher on the one side than they do on the other.

Years later, in philosophy graduate school, I encountered the theory of ethical utilitarianism, which says that you should do that act that will bring about the most happiness or well-being overall. It’s the greatest good for the greatest number, which means you have to do the ethical math -- which action will bring about the most well-being or pleasure overall, where everyone counts the same amount? -- and do the one on top of your spreadsheet. And I started to wonder: if ethical utilitarianism were true, would I be ethically obligated to have sex with my friend — and, really, any other random stranger who would really enjoy it?

If so, that strikes me like a bizarre conclusion. I am not a utilitarian, so I am not worried about the implications for my life. But I am curious about whether other people share my sense that if the theory entails these obligations, the theory must be wrong in some way.

My understanding of the general relationship of utilitarianism and sexual ethics is that an important component is sexual liberty — or open-minded free choice. In the late 19th century, the British utilitarian Jeremy Bentham advocated for gay rights at a time when gay sex was illegal in Britain. In contemporary theory, utilitarians may argue that generally speaking, the most pleasure and happiness are produced when each person chooses what sexual activity they want and prefer, which aligns with many modern western views about sexual ethics. It’s your choice, so do what you want.

As a general principle, that does seem to follow from the utilitarian calculations. But if you think the right action in specific circumstances is the specific one that brings about the most happiness, that seems to imply that there can be occasions when one person is obligated to have sex with another even when they don’t really want to — at least, assuming the suffering or pain of doing so is less than the happiness or pleasure on the other side. That wouldn’t be a violation of the consent framework, it would be saying “here is a situation when you should (are obligated to) consent.”

Again, this conclusion doesn’t fit with my sense of sexual ethics. You could choose to have sex to be nice, but the pleasure calculations shouldn’t entail that you’re required to.

A utilitarian might want to deny that the numbers could ever shake out like this. Maybe they would say that choosing to have sex when you don’t want to, out of a sense of duty, would be psychologically bad for a person, so that the benefits of doing so could never outweigh the relevant costs. Like, in the case of my friend, they may say maybe I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal to me to say yes despite not wanting to, but I was wrong: saying yes would lead to damage of my sexual identity or well-being.

But that’s not how I experience my psychology. I can have sex with people even if I am not really attracted to them, and it doesn’t feel like that big of a deal. Like I said at the start, I think my friend’s premises were sound — it’s the reasoning that doesn’t work.

In any case, I know these kinds of objections to utilitarianism are a dime-a-dozen: the theory says X, but people believe not-X. Many of those Xs have to do with values like justice, fairness, and equity. But the sex context seems to me to be differently interesting, because sexual ethics is usually understood in such a personalized way — and the utilitarian calculations are obviously anything but personal.

When it comes to why the utilitarianism answer is the wrong answer to the sexual consent question, I still think “that’s not how that works” is roughly correct — even if people don’t agree, and even if they can’t explain, why it is correct.