Yes, absolutely would. The only thing i think i would loose in doing so is showing that there is much more to our distaste of pedophiles than the obvious harms they cause.
Wait I misunderstood what you were asking, sorry. No, I specifically argue that sex involving a non-consenting partner is always going to be traumatic for that member of the ordeal.
sex involving a non-consenting partner is always going to be traumatic for that member of the ordeal.
Why? Do you also believe that being touched non-consensually should always be traumatic? (Yes there exist cultures were being touched by a random member of the opposite sex or a member of an untouchable caste is considered traumatic). What’s so special about touching with sexual overtones, and aren’t the sexual overtones themselves cultural?
It is to the game-theoretic advantage of someone who does not want (a particular instance of) sex to be traumatizeable by non-consensual sex. People who don’t care if they traumatize others will not likely be deterred either way, but people who do care about such a thing will avoid doing the thing that can cause the trauma. Sex in particular is a commonly enough not-wanted thing—a by default not-wanted thing—that we can have a societal framework designed around prohibiting people from forcing it on others, and this has (comparatively recently) generalized to cases where sexual partnership is the societally recognized default, i.e. within a marriage.
Meanwhile, uncommon strong preferences about how one is touched—for instance, my extreme desire not to be tickled, which I do think ought to have moral force for people who know about it but cannot hope to give legal force—do not have enough general currency to be supported in this way. Common strong desires which require the public identification of a non-default, like the desire not to be close to a smelly person, are ignored because as a culture we consider enforcing those desires to be rude (by default, we are presumed to be not smelly, while by default we are presumed to be non-sex-partners with arbitrary persons). The closest we come is guidelines about generically personal space which evaporate under some circumstances.
Would you generalize your analysis of pedophilia to non-consensual sex? If not, why not?
Yes, absolutely would. The only thing i think i would loose in doing so is showing that there is much more to our distaste of pedophiles than the obvious harms they cause.
Wait I misunderstood what you were asking, sorry. No, I specifically argue that sex involving a non-consenting partner is always going to be traumatic for that member of the ordeal.
Why? Do you also believe that being touched non-consensually should always be traumatic? (Yes there exist cultures were being touched by a random member of the opposite sex or a member of an untouchable caste is considered traumatic). What’s so special about touching with sexual overtones, and aren’t the sexual overtones themselves cultural?
It is to the game-theoretic advantage of someone who does not want (a particular instance of) sex to be traumatizeable by non-consensual sex. People who don’t care if they traumatize others will not likely be deterred either way, but people who do care about such a thing will avoid doing the thing that can cause the trauma. Sex in particular is a commonly enough not-wanted thing—a by default not-wanted thing—that we can have a societal framework designed around prohibiting people from forcing it on others, and this has (comparatively recently) generalized to cases where sexual partnership is the societally recognized default, i.e. within a marriage.
Meanwhile, uncommon strong preferences about how one is touched—for instance, my extreme desire not to be tickled, which I do think ought to have moral force for people who know about it but cannot hope to give legal force—do not have enough general currency to be supported in this way. Common strong desires which require the public identification of a non-default, like the desire not to be close to a smelly person, are ignored because as a culture we consider enforcing those desires to be rude (by default, we are presumed to be not smelly, while by default we are presumed to be non-sex-partners with arbitrary persons). The closest we come is guidelines about generically personal space which evaporate under some circumstances.
edit button :)