|
njlauren -> RE: The Ethics of Extreme Porn (5/21/2013 10:14:41 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: evesgrden
I don't think the issue is about porn or sex or bdsm.
The issue is when, if ever, can we not consent to something. I'm thinking the The Running Man, or The Long Walk. Legally consenting to slavery. Can someone legally consent to being prey in a shoot-to-kill hunting expedition?
It's about extreme behavior. What rights do I, or should I have with my own body? What rights, do I or may have over someone else's body provided that they are competent to provide informed consent.
Some might argue that you are not competent if you volunteer yourself to be prey in a hunt. Others say the same thing when it comes to bdsm play.. by definition it's sick ergo you can't be competent if you consent to such things.
At what point if any, should society step in to say "No, you may not consent to that/no you may not act on someone's consent to that". Abortion comes to mind. The Hemlock Society comes to mind. Sex and s/m .... merely context. It's about society's responsibility to look out for the welfare of its members, versus the individual right to self determination.
As another poster said, the problem with morality is it is relative, it is based in beliefs or perceptions or biases that may or may not have any basis with reality. The Catholic church claims birth control is immoral, yet that is based on medieval thinking that sex is only about making babies, that the sex act that can make a baby is the only thing God wants, etc (which most Christians, including most Catholics, laugh at).
The answer to the question of when the state can step in is a hard one, and the only model that can break consent to me is harm. Assuming someone can consent, then for example, someone setting themselves up as the object of a hunt to kill themselves would be a classic example of stepping in, because someone can't consent to murder, because the harm is evident, their life would be ended.
On the other hand, then what about the right to suicide? After all, the person would end up dead? And yes, it is a tough one, because here, unlike the hunt, there may be legitimate reasons to allow it. Someone is terminally ill with ALS or MS or with Alzheimers and doesn't want to be a burden, a vegetable, can argue that they have the right to die with dignity, not as a blob costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to keep alive, that the 'cure' i.e suicide, has more benefits than the harm, allowing someone to kill themselves.
To me harm is a much better vehicle than morality or ethics, because there you can try to define it rationally. The anti porn feminists tried that tactic, saying porn cause rape, it degraded women, led them to being tortured and killed, they tried the whole gamut, only problem was, they couldn't produce facts to back it up (trying to claim Richard Speck or Ted Bundy killed because of porn is next to impossible, since serial killers kill without porn).
There can be questionable areas of consent, of course. How about BD/SM people with extreme D/s, where they have an omnibus consent i.e the M can do anything, up to and including killing the s because it turns them on, or hurting them.....do you step in there? Personally, I think so, I don't think someone should be able to consent to 'real, proven harm', but many have argued you do have the right.
There is no perfect answer, if you say someone has the right to consent to something, anything, then harm can happen, if you say 'whoa' the state, as in prosecuting BD/SM as abuse, can say you can't consent to being played with like that, taking away freedom. The only answer I can come up with is you should be able to consent to anything unless there is a clearly seen and proven harm to what you wish to consent to. In reality, if applied right, it wouldn't be all that hard to do this in reality, very few fringe cases at the edge would be problematic I suspect.
|
|
|
|
