2021

Human Sexuality and

Environmental Ethics
BSN-1C, GROUP 7
ACEBEDO, ANDREA THERESE
ALINDAJAO, GJ LOVE
ALVAREZ, MARIENNE KAYE
BENDEBEL, JOHANNA
BORCE, KAILA KAYE
CAIRO, JHENEIVY FAITH
CAMPANER, FRANZEIN
 THE MORALITY OF HUMAN SEXUALITY

The significant and vital role that sex plays in an individual’s desire to be fully human has,
to some extent, remained undisclosed, dubious, and even sinful, due primarily to culturally-
patterned negative attitude of the Filipinos towards human sexuality. Many will still find an
intellectually open and sane discussion of a sex a thing verboten (bawal) or a mortal sin.
Traditional Filipino sex attitudes, in other words, are conservative and strict. Sex is something
unmentionable, not to be discussed in public and seldom between children and their parents,
between the young and their elders (Gorospe 1974:364). Premarital and extramarital sex is
taboo, although clandestinely practiced.

Whatever our sex attitude may be, the irrefutable fact is that every individual is born out
of human sexuality, either by choice or by chance, by design or by accident. We have been
“thrown” into this world through sex, without our knowledge. Tila baga tayo’y tumilapon sa
daigdig sa pamamagitan ng seksuwalidad (Tumbreza 1986: 1-36).

If we carefully discern the signs of the times, we cannot ignore the fact that
contemporary Filipinos’ fascination with sex movies calls for conscientious rethinking and
reevaluation of the people’s negative attitude. These signs demand an existentially human,
creative, and positive approach: What is the relevance and significance of sex to ourselves? To
our living-with-others in the world? To what extent, if at all, does sex play a considerable tole in
an individual’s desire to become authentically human? Is human sexuality meaningful or
meaningless? Does it affirm or negate freedom and responsibility?

In this last chapter, the author wishes to share with the reader pertinent perceptions
regarding the foregoing queries given by persons whose insights may serve as the basis for
further reflection to all who are interested in, and committed to, the moral fiber of our society,
which is presently undergoing what is now commonly known as sexual revolution. We shall
reflect upon sexual meaning as it is given in the original experience. This approach is an
attempt to be as faithful as possible to the original experience of human sexuality in its
“uncontaminated givenness” (Natanson 1962: 3-25).

Towards the end we shall present several types of sexual deviations, anomalies, and
ailments.

Meaning of Sex to the Individual

We are bodily present in our unasked-for situation in the world. Through our physical
bodies, we are accessible to one another, for our presence to other people is as much a bodily
presence as theirs is to us. Our bodies thus make other people available and accessible to us
as we are to them. And we at once grasp in and through our bodily presence the sexual
meaning of one to the other. Sexual meaning permeates our bodily presence to one another
and makes us more aware of our individual existence. We become conscious of ourselves and
discover ourselves through this sexual meaning.
 In other words, “a person’s whole being is revealed in the life of sex” (Van Kaam 1967).
We are brought before ourselves in an integral perspective where all may be seen and
disclosed. We unearth and experience the truth: “Ako ay tao lamang” (i.e., an acceptance and
realization of sexual urges and drives, but not an excuse or escape from one’s responsibility to
others and to oneself).

Put differently, we become conscious of our life-situations, imperfections, and limitations.

Through sexual meaning we realize that we are alone and separate, powerless and ignorant,
helpless and weak, empty and homeless, inadequate and incomplete. Alone, for instance, we
are empty and shallow, but the bodily presence of the other appears as a promise that together
we shall be made full, accompanied, accommodated, and not wanting. Weak, we are helpless
and powerless, yet the presence of the other gives us strength, power, and inspiration.

Ignorant, we feel inexperienced and uninitiated, but the other’s bodily presence assures
us full knowledge and revelation. Homeless, we feel insecure, uncertain, and different, yet the
physical nearness of the other makes us feel at home, certain and secure. Incomplete, we feel
ourselves inadequate, unfinished, and lacking in something accessible to us; nevertheless, the
closeness and availability of the other appears to guarantee a certain degree of sufficiency and
contentment.

Sexual meaning, therefore, makes us realize the need for some measure of fulfillment
that only the other can give. In other words, we come to know more of our real selves. We
become aware of ourselves as ourselves. Namamalayan natin ang ating kakulangan sa
pamamagitan ng kabuluhang seksuwal, kung kaya’t kinakailangan natin ang ating kapwa upang
mapagpunan ang nararamdamang kakulangan. Hence, sexual meaning in this context means a
call, a meaningful invitation to be with the other (Luijpen 1960: 214-231). The other’s sex appeal
is the message towards a loving encounter.

According to the author of Genesis, after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, the truth
was disclosed as their eyes were opened and they became aware of themselves: male and
female. They came to know what is right and wrong and they became wise. They discovered
their nakedness. This can be taken to mean that through human sexuality, we become aware of
our emptiness, incompleteness, and bareness. We come to know that we need each other to be
full, complete, and protected.

Mutual Experience of Each Other’s Worth

Moreover, sexual meaning reveals each one’s value to the other. It unfolds either one’s
worth or lack of it to another person. As a woman realizes the value of the man she loves, the
man who loves her also recognizes her value to him. Thus, they become aware of their value to
each other. In this mutual experience exists the humanizing value to each other. In such a
situation, a man and a woman rise above the object level of existence and realize their value
together as persons. Neither one nor the other becomes an object to be used; rather, in the sex-
love duality both mutually realize themselves as persons, as “I’s” with dignity and freedom.

Accordingly, sexual meaning makes us aware of our meaningfulness to others. We feel

that we are related to them insofar as they are of value to us. They offer the fulfillment of our
being with-them in the love world. In them we see the true meaning of life. Sexual meaning says:
I need you in order for me to realize myself as you also need me so that you can realize yourself.
I need your need for me as you need my need for yours. Kailangan mo ang pangangailangan ko
sa iyo tulad din ng pangangailangan ko sa pangangailangan mo sa akin.

Through sexual meaning we are thus valuable and reachable to one another. I need you
in order to be me, as you need me in order to be you. Kailangan mo ako upang ikaw ay maging
ganap na ikaw, tulad din ng pangangailangan ko sa iyo upang ako ay maging ganap na ako.
We therefore realize that the meaning of our lives is related to the presence of others.

An Appeal for Mutual Care

In a different vein, sexual meaning invites us to go beyond ourselves in order to bring

fulfillment unto ourselves and others. “If I am to understand myself, I must get away from what I
am and divide myself from myself” (Fromm 1966:35-41). Put otherwise, from the standpoint of
sexual love we can understand ourselves and life much better if we are free from our egoism
and self-centeredness. Here, however, a person who is freed from his self-centeredness and
opens himself up to the other is exposed to danger. He feels that love is a risk because “to open
myself to another, to give myself to another, is to become defenseless” (Gorospe 1967). This is
the riddle of love, the gamble of falling in love with the other.

The trust which true love shows, however-the defenselessness it displays-is itself an
appeal for mutual care and protection for each other. True love says: I give myself to you
because I trust you and this personal trust makes you answerable to me. If you deceive me, you
likewise deceive yourself, for you have pretended to appear as something you are not. You
have contradicted yourself and your hypocrisy will strike back at you. For then you will lose my
trust forever. In other words, in the love world, “I can be myself only in your presence. But if I
need you in order to be myself, you likewise need me. Each of us holds our ‘personhood’ as a
gift from the other, so that to betray the other is also to betray oneself” (Johann 1968:82-84).

Sharing Each Other’s Being

In human sexuality, we find a mutual sharing of selves, mutual self-realization. We

discover that we cannot be ourselves without others. Life becomes more meaningful if and
when we share it someone we love. We explore the secrets of life and sex. We unravel the facts
of human nature. We fathom the inferiority of the human being. We witness the beauty and
wonder of human love. In this way, human sexuality becomes the language of love and it is
considered as one of the deepest forms of human communications.

As the medium of mutual self-fulfillment and mutual self-revelation, human sexuality

means “a giving, a giving of the best, a giving of self. It is a life of giving and giving of life. It
means and give until there is nothing more to give” (Gotospe 1967). In like manner, as I give
myself to the other, the other also gives herself/himself to me; so, as I give, I also receive. I give
and receive; I receive and give through sexual love.

On this dimension of self-giving in the sex-love experience, Thomas Merton writes so

meaningful: “The gift of love is the gift of the power and the capacity to love, and, therefore, to
give love with full effect is also to receive. So, love can only be kept by being given away, and it
can only be given perfectly when it is also received” (Merton 1967:20).

In the experience of sexual love, the paradox happens that two persons become one
and yet remain two at the same time. There is an experience of communion, of sharing each
other’s being, which enhances the full unfolding of one’s inner self. It is an experience of I-am-
you-and-you-are-me. “I am because you are, and you are because I am.” Here we understand
that we are intrinsically related to each other. I find the other in myself precisely because
everything constituting my own being has a corresponding fulfillment in herself; and everything
that constitutes her own being likewise has corresponding fulfillment in myself.

Naapuhap ko ang aking minamahal sa aking sarili sapagkat sa bawat bahagi ng aking
pagkalalaki ay may katapat na kasiyahan sa kaniyang pagkababae, at gayundin siya sa akin. In
this mutual sharing of self-fulfillment, “we are active participants in a common wealth of
experience” (Kwant 1965:250). Through love we create ourselves and the world and the latter
become a world-for-us through love. Ang daigdig ay daigdig-para-sa-atin sa pamamagitan ng
pag-ibig.

Self-discovery as Persons

Sexual meaning makes us aware that we are persons, human beings, and not objects or
things. Whenever I respond to an invitation or sex appeal emanating from the other, I am
conscious of the other as a you, as an I, a person. The other to whose appeal I respond is a she,
not an it. An object or thing does not and cannot recognize me. A thing cannot wink, smile,
glance, touch, or look at me. An object cannot see or judge. It cannot give answers to my
questions. In short, a thing is unable to take me into account.

Only a person – a man or a woman – is able to respond to me. She can take me into
account, precisely in my uniqueness and freedom. And since she is a human person that
responds to my appeal, she is one with whom I experience mutual self-giving and self-revelation.
Thus, I also become better aware of myself as a person responding to her appeal (Johann
1963). In this regard, as an appeal of love radiating from another person enables me to discover
a new me, who I really am. I see myself better in the other. The other is a mirror of the real me.

In this light, sexual love enhances my self-perception and gives me an insight into my
meaning for the other and my desire for her. As Fr. V. Gorospe puts it, “I love that girl because
she brings out the best in me. When I am with her, I become a better person” (Gorospe 1967).
This humanizing and personalizing element of sexual meaning cannot be computerized or
measured by any mechanical device. It can only be lived and experienced.

Making Each be Truly Himself/Herself

In the light of the foregoing, through a genuine reciprocity in sexual love, we are able to
understand ourselves as persons and not as playthings, ready for mechanical or physical
manipulations at any time or place. Responsible sexual love wills the other’s self-realization,
destiny, and happiness. It is only in loving the other that I come to really love myself.

“A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone,” explains Thomas Merton, “can never
be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us
happy. There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always deadens our
spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is
shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and therefore, the potential happiness of such
love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God’s inner life. God has made the sharing of
ourselves that law of our being, so that it is in being others that we best love ourselves.”
(Merton:19). This is so precisely because as I create a new meaning for the other, the other also
creates a new meaning for me.

Reciprocal love demands that I make the other be, she likewise makes me be. We
mutually create a common dimension of meaning and in the process, we are at the same time
actualize ourselves as persons whose dignity is deepened and heightened by the personalizing
element of the sexual experience. True love states: I will help you realize (not ruin) your
personality and vocation in life. I want you to realize your happiness freely, not as I want it to be.
Let us help each other and work for our destiny together. “There can never be happiness in
compulsion. It is not enough for love to be shared: it must be shared freely. That is to say, it
must be given, not merely taken” (Merton: 19). Ang pag-ibig ay hindi tunay kung hindi mo
ibibigay.

Pain of Unrequited Love

It is interesting to note that because of the nature of mutual self-giving and reciprocal
concern for each other in love, human loneliness cannot be solved by sexual selfishness.
Loving another simply in order to satisfy one's sexual desires always ends with the pain of
unrequited love. This is why mere genital satisfaction or self-stimulation (regardless of how often
and how many times) shrill leaves a person unhappily alone, helplessly shallow and personally
barren, depleted, and empty. He/she remains a prisoner unto himself/herself, a slave to his/her
selfishness. As one Filipino song succinctly puts it, “bitin na bitin.”

In such a case, not only is the individual unhappy and unfulfilled, he/she cannot make
the other happy as well. For “the man who loves himself too much,” writes T. Merton, “is
incapable of loving anyone effectively, including himself” (Merton:24). Erich Fromm has
expressed the same observation: “It is true that selfish persons are incapable of loving others,
but they are not capable of loving themselves either” (Fromm 1976:55).

Paradoxically, what will make the other happy is my happiness, not my egotism; her self-
fulfillment is my self-fulfillment. We feel happy if and when we can give meaning and fulfillment
to the lives of others. Authentic sexual love shares fulfillment with another not by dividing it with
her, but by identifying itself with her so that her fulfillment becomes my own. Sexual love seeks
its whole fulfillment in the beloved, and to divide that fulfillment would be to diminish love.
Mutual self-fulfillment is free. It cannot be forced, bought or bribed. In a manner of speaking, it
does not consist in abduction, rape, seduction, kidnapping, commercialization, or a lie-down-or-
be-laid-off modus operandi.

Affirmation of Situated Freedom

Human sex is itself is a possibility that offers freedom of action. That is, affirms my
situated freedom: I can only act within a concrete situation (Fransen 1966:68-89). I am not free
to do whatever I wish whenever I wish to do it. For individual freedom is situated in physical and
social surroundings and is conditioned by them in its exercise. In other words, every individual
has his/her own right to sex - this is an extension of one’s freedom of happiness (of which
sexual love, to some people, is the climactic dramatization).

But as one’s freedom of happiness is not absolute (insofar as it is conditioned by other

individuals’ freedom of happiness), so sexual freedom is also limited. One’s freedom of sexuality
is likewise limited and conditioned by other people’s freedom of sexuality. For example, I cannot
just engage in sex with whomever I want at any time, in any manner and at any place.

Furthermore, my right to sex involves a corresponding duty in others to respect it, in

proportion to my duty to respect their own right to sex. I ought to respect the others right as
he/she ought to respect mine. My right is mine, it belongs to me; but it is conditioned by my duty
to respect the right of others. This correlativity between right and duty, however, is often violated;
that is why the state has its own excuse for being. The state has the right to limit the human
right to sex for the sake of the common good. It has the duty to suppress obscenity, public
scandal, vice, immorality, and other sexual abuses, in order to protect its citizens from these evil
and their disastrous and devastating consequences.
 Moral Discipline

One’s freedom of sexuality should enable him to see that sex implies moral discipline.
As long as we live together, discipline is necessary and there can be no discipline without
restraint (Leclerca 1954:51-75). This restraint is necessary to safeguard and guarantee one’s
freedom of sex. Constraint here demanded for the sake of freedom itself. Without discipline or
constraint, the inevitable result will be that the mahihina, maliliit or walang kaya are exploited by
the malalakas, makapangyarihan, and the masalpi (might is right). Thus, constraint or rational
authority is the guarantee of true freedom. It is meant to eliminate license or false freedom, i.e.,
the freedom to do whatever I want, anytime I want, anywhere I want, and with whoever I want
(Fransen: 68-89). It is directive, not restrictive, of human liberty.

In view of this, for more humane and harmonious living, society provides us with written
and unwritten norms as to when, where, and with whom should persons exercise sexuality,
although these social conventions are modifiable in proportion to the development of man’s
moral awareness. Hence, freedom to engage in sex does not mean the Freudian complete
sexual freedom - i.e., an unlimited access to any woman or man whom one might find sexually
desirable (Fromm 1966: 72). Nor should responsible sexual love mean fornicating in the
backseat of a car, in dark corners in public places, school campuses, or corridors.

In the name of decency and respectability, we should at least learn a lesson from John
Stuart Mill’s statement: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better
to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied (Titus 1957: 143), The point here is that a
human being has a sense of property which a pig does not have. A enjoys being foolish and
asinine while a Socrates exalts a decent life that is worth living. The big difference makes a
person rational and moral.

One’s Inhumanity to Another

Undoubtedly, there are forms of sex which stifle and wreck freedom. Sex, in other words,
can become an obstacle in an individual’s desire to become fully human. For instance, if and
when sex becomes a degradation of one’s dignity, then it no longer plays the humanizing role
that it should play in a person’s life. And whenever sexuality is no longer sustained by a deep
concern for human dignity and moral integrity, then it will become “one’s inhumanity to another”.
In such a situation, a person is dehumanized and depersonalized. He/she is reduced to a mere
object or plaything, manipulable and usable at anytime and anywhere. A grim and reckless
human exploitation, “the use of man by man”.

In this manner, we have what we can call “sexual alienation” – i.e., sex alienates us from
our desire to become authentically human. An individual becomes a slave to sex which, in turn,
becomes an individual’s master. He/she becomes the instrument of passion, ceases to be a
person whose actions should center on himself/herself, becomes a thing which is constantly
acted upon by erotic escapades. It is no longer he/she who feels his/her sexual passion; rather,
he/she is owned and possessed by it, is at the mercy of his/her eroticism. The individual is
helpless and tries to regain his/her strength by submitting completely to lust.

Commitment and Responsibility

In human sexuality, freedom is seen in one’s openness to another. One realizes that one
is free for someone, for a person, for a beloved. This commitment consists of care, concern
and responsibility. For a person who truly loves truly cares; and for one to truly care, one is
actively involved in and concerned about the beloved’s growth and happiness. One is not
passive but responsible. This responsibility is not an external imposition but an essential
ingredient of true caring for the other. It is one’s responsiveness to and concern for the
fulfillment and happiness of the other. Hence, my commitment to my beloved binds me to a
sense of duty to be responsible for her.

Safeguarding to Other’s Value

I respond to my beloved’s needs, to her security, to her well-being. I am obligated to

protect her from any harm that may break down her self-growth and happiness. Hence, my
responsibility consists likewise of recognizing and safeguarding her value, for this value binds
us together. It blends us into one—mine is hers and hers is mine. Ang akin ay iyo at ang iyo
naman ay akin. Expressed otherwise, insofar as I can attain self-fulfillment only through my
beloved, I responsibly have to look after her personal dignity and self-esteem, without which I
cannot really speak of my own. To a great extent, responsibility in love is mutual. As I am
responsible for my beloved’s self-growth, she is also responsible for my self- respect. We are
both committed to each other’s personal integrity and reputation. Ang karangalan mo ay
karangalan ko rin.

Responsibility to and for One Another

Responsibility in sexual love means that the individuals concerned are eager and
pleased every time they “hear a newborn baby cry.” Our reaction to a new life should be joy and
delight. “And even the child who has not been planned for, was born by accident, must be
welcomed heartily.” In other words, responsible sexuality does not mean abortion, infanticide, or
“wrapping a newborn baby with newspapers and dumping it inside a trash can.” Nor should
responsibility in sex mean desertion or abandonment, which is utter cowardice on the part of a
man.

Sexual responsibility does not say: “Bye, my love, bye happiness.” Rather, it says: “I am
determined to face the challenges and consequences of sexual life, because with your love I
can make the darkness bright.” The meaning of responsibility, therefore, in relation to human
sexuality always points to personhood (pagkatao), to helping the other realize her selfhood, to
really becoming herself. In this sense, I am committed to her insofar as I am involved in her
personhood: I am an essential part of it. For inasmuch as we are committed to each other in
love, responsibility in this context also means responsibility to and for one another. “As
persons,” explains R. O. Johann, “we are, each of us, responsible to and for the other; only in
the mutual fulfillment of this responsibility do we secure ourselves a place in the real”.

Sexual responsibility likewise implies justice. For “there can be no love without justice,
and no justice without love.” One cannot say one loves the other if one is unjust to the other. To
love someone is to be just to her/him, for love is recognition and respect for the other. Without
this sense of recognition, this sense of respect for the other, there can be no authentic love.
Respect here does not mean fear and awe, nor is it domination or positiveness. It does not
mean threat or intimidation either. Instead, it refers to the ability to see a person as he/she is, to
be aware of his/her unique individuality. Respect means the concern that the other person
should grow up and fold as he/she is.”

Respect also implies the absence of exploitation (sexploitation) and subjugation. I want
my beloved to grow and unfold for her own sake, and in her own ways, and not for the purpose
of serving me. If I love the person, I feel one with her, but with her as she is, not as I need her to
be an object of abuse, misuse, or for my own use. “Respect exists only on the basis of
freedom.”

Sexual responsibility with respect, then, denotes humane concern for the uniqueness of
my beloved as a person, a human being. It implies a sense of duty to protect her selfhood, for I
cannot say I respect her if I spoil her personhood. This respect in sex is thus so essential that its
absence would destroy love itself.

Humanizing and Dehumanizing

From the foregoing we can gather that human sexuality may be either humanizing or
dehumanizing. It is humanizing if it enables me to realize myself as much as it brings the other to
fulfillment. Both of us attain mutual self-realization and unitive self-fulfillment. “We feel that we are
one with the universe. We no longer stand outside ourselves, reviewing our actions. We have a sense of
unity.” We both realize that a meaningful life means being together and joy means sharing each other,
so that she needs me as much to be herself as I need her so much to be myself. She conditions my
existence as I give sense to her being. And neither of us can be of any authentic value without one or
the other. Besides, sexual love is humanizing if it is taken as a form of personal commitment and
responsibility, a challenge to one’s fidelity to love.

“The awareness of no longer being alone is perhaps the most eloquent witness to love’s
creativity. Love creates a we, a togetherness which is experienced as wholly different from the we of
any other encounter whatsoever. The we of love can be expressed only—if it can be expressed at all—in
terms of fullness, fulfillment, and happiness. The other’s love makes me be authentically human, makes
me be happy.”

Authentic mutual, unitive self-realization is thus made possible in and through responsible
sexuality. In the total engagement of two personalities, we reach the “totality of transcendence.” Even
if only for a moment, the other and I experience a sense of eternity.

On the other hand, human sex is dehumanizing if and when it destroys a person’s honor and
becomes a degradation of the other. Dehumanizing in sexuality consists of using the other as a means
for my own end. Ginagamit o pinagpaparausan ko lamang siya para sa sarili kong kasiyahan. For instance,
one is interested only in certain parts of the other’s being (or body); one like the other only because of
some self-serving motive. In such a case, the other is reified or objectified. The other loses personhood,
becomes an it and ceases to be an I, insofar as one can just dispose of that person whenever he/she is no
longer sexually desirable and useful.

Types of Sexual Deviation

Sexual deviation is different to define. Sexologists equate it with perversion, anomaly,

abnormality, aberration by way of sex. Generally, however, “it refers to any form of sexual
activity which a given social group regards as unnatural and abnormal.” But sexual activities that
are classified as deviations or perversions by one society may be considered normal in another.
They depend largely on social norms or culturally approved standards; and these norms and
standards differ enormously from one community to another. Nevertheless, sex deviation as a
type of abnormal condition or behavior is largely caused by environmental or psychological
factors in the early and later life of an individual. Invariably, though there is a predisposition
towards a particular sexual deviation which experiences or events bring to the surface in the
process of a person’s growth.

Homosexuality. This refers to sexual relations between individuals of the same sex.
Men may engage in sexual activities with other men, and women with other women. This sexual
anomaly is also known as homoerotism. Homosexuality among women is called lesbianism,
after lesbos, an island of Greece whose inhabitants are alleged to be homosexuals.
Homosexuality among men is often called pederasty, which denotes homosexual and
intercourse.

Older authorities claim that “homosexuality is constitutionally rooted, that homosexuals

are born and not conditioned, and that hormonal and/or genic imbalances cause sexual
deviation (Ellis 1969:210). In other words, this school of thought holds that is is “nature” that
determines homosexuality; a person becomes homosexual by birth due to some hormonal
imbalance. On the other hand, the other school of though, advocated by the vast majority of
modern psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, and other professional workers, maintains that
“homosexuality and other sex deviations are not caused by hormonal, constitutional, or genetic
factor but they are the result of psychological or environmental influences” (Ellis:211).

Homosexuality, in other words, is not an inborn or innate pattern of sexual behaviors; it

is a pyscho-socially acquired, conditioned, and learned. A modified version of this view
contends that homosexuality, to a very great extent, is acquired, although here is a
predisposition at the outset. Such a tendency is conditioned by the experiences of life which are
often beyond an individual’s control (Chesser 1947:157).

Homosexuality, according to Goethe, is as old as humanity itself and can therefore be

considered natural (Ellis:220; Ford and Beach:138). Among the early Greeks, for instance,
homosexual love affairs were socially approved. The prevalent form of sexual behavior,
however, for the majority of adults in all human societies of which social researchers have any
knowledge in heterosexuality. This predominance of heterosexual intercourse over other kinds
of sexual expression is one reason why homosexuality is regarded unnatural, hence a sexual
deviation; it deviated or diverges considerably from the predominantly accepted pattern of
sexual practice or behavior.

Transvestism. Also called transvestitism, cross-dressing, or eonism, transvestism

means the obsessive-compulsive need of an individual, almost always male, to wear clothes
worn by the opposite sex. The male transvestite dresses like a woman, talks like a woman, and
adopts some aspects of the feminine role in sexual behavior with male partners. Homosexuality
is the main or primary root of transvestism which is not organically caused but is a psychological
condition that can be treated and cured (Ellis:220-221).

Transsexualism. Coined by Harry Benjamin, transsexualism is a kind of sexual

deviation in which an individual (either male or female) has an obsessive-compulsive desire to
belong to the opposite sex. A transsexual person does not only want to dress in the clothing of
the other sex but also wish to have his/her sex organ surgically changed (Ellis:220-221). As
pointed out in an earlier chapter (on genetic engineering), transsexual operations are now
performed as the only therapy available for certain persons to help them lead an adjusted life. A
very thorough screening procedure is always conducted to determine whether or not a certain
transsexual would benefit from the operation.

In the case of a male transsexual, his penis and testicles are removed and an artificial
vagina is constructed using parts of the penis. In the case of female transsexual, the uterus and
the ovaries are removed and an artificial penis is constructed and the breasts reduced in size
(Varga:169).

Exhibitionism. This sexual deviation refers to an individual’s obsessive-compulsive

inclination to obtain sexual gratification by public exposure of his/her body or sex organs. An
exhibitionist derives distinct satisfaction from exhibiting his/her nude body and genitals,
especially to individuals with whom he/she would like to have sex relations (Ellis:221).
 Sadism. This is a form of sexual abnormality in which sexual gratification depends
largely on the infliction of pain upon others (i.e., sex partners). The urge to be somewhat
sexually aggressive, especially at times when one is having difficulty becoming fully aroused or
coming to orgasm, is within the normal range of sex behavior: But when one always requires
intense sadistic or violent behavior for arousal and satisfaction, particularly with unwilling sex
partners, one is indeed acting in a neurotic or deviated fashion (Ellis:221, Chesser:157).

Sexual sadism often springs from some underlying disturbance, e.g., a need to prove
that one is a macho, a general hatred of the opposite sex, or a desire to hide certain
weaknesses, to protect oneself against imaginary onslaughts from one’s sex partner.

Masochism. Named after Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1835-95), an Austrian novelist

who described this condition, masochism is a type of sexual aberration in which sexual
gratification depends largely on undergoing physical pain or humiliation. If one is unable to
achieve arousal or orgasm without having intense physical pain or mental humiliation inflicted
on oneself, then one is a masochist. Clinical psychiatrists have noted that a masochist and a
sadist usually tend to go together, with the sadistic individual also being masochistic and vice
versa. Many sadists, however, have allegedly few or no masochistic urges at all (Ellis:222). In
extreme cases, a masochist needs to be bitten and beaten, slapped and spanked, boxed and
kicked, pinched, and clawed, so as to experience sexual pleasure.

Necrophilia. From the Greek nekros ‘corpse’ and philos ‘love’, necrophilia means “love
of corpses or cadavers.” It is an abnormal, erotic attraction to corpses. A necrophile or
necrophiliac, usually a male, is aroused by the sight of a human corpse and tries to have sex
relations with it. Unguarded embalmers who suffer from this psychosis usually take sexual
advantage of female cadavers under their custody.

Necrosadism. This is a sexual abnormality in which an individual experiences sexual

stimulation and orgasm by mutilating corpses. A necrosadist enjoys cutting up cadavers in order
to arouse himself sexually to orgasm (Ellis:223). This is even worse than necrophilia. A
necrophile enjoys having sex relations with cropses— he experiences more sexual pleasure by
cutting his sexual corpse-partner into pieces. This is an unusually rare form of sex behavior, statistically
speaking.

Sex murder. What distinguishes a sex murder from the immediately preceding two type of
sexual neurosis is that the former kills his partner solely in order to enhance his own arousal and sexual
satisfaction. Rapists or sex offenders who kill their victims for fear of detection should not be confused
with real sex murderers. The latter murder their sexual partners not because they want to keep or hide
their heinous crimes but in order to attain sexual pleasure. This is another state of extreme amentia or
psychosis.

Fetishism. This is another form of sexual aberration in which an individual becomes sexually
aroused by the mere sight of a woman’s underwear (bra or panty), hair, a shoe, a stocking, a blouse,
girdle, etc. His sexual impulses can be aroused and often gratified by, or in connection with, the
particular object or fetish in question. In this context, a fetish is any object, like a shoe or woman’s
breast, that is sexually stimulating to certain persons (fetishists).

Frequently, though, non-deviated individuals are also excited by their partners’ )or anyone’s)
breasts, legs, thighs, feet, underwear, etc. But one who is obsessively-compulsively attracted to non-
erotic objects in order to become sexually aroused is definitely deviated.

Pedophilia. This is an abnormal condition in which an adult is obsessively-compulsively

attracted to prepubescent youth. A pedophile (pedophiliac) has sexual interest to young children.
It has been originally called pederasty in view of the anal-genital relations resorted to by the
pedophile with his boy partners. In the Philippines, foreign pedophiles usually prey on boy
prostitutes who are used as the female in the sex act (Maningas 1988:134-145).

Sexual attachment to children. Broader than pedophilia, sexual obsession with children
includes both lesbian and heterosexual fixations as well as interest of men in boys. Some males
are obsessively attracted to young girls, even to infants; and some females too are sexually
obsessed with small boys. Local tabloids often carry news items about grandfathers having sex
relations with their young grandchildren, and uncles having sexual escapades with young nieces
4 to 5 years of age. Unusual sexual obsessions with infants or children are deviated behavior.

Gerontophilia. From Greek gerontos ‘old folks’ and philos ‘love,’ gerontophilia means
love of older persons. As some individuals are extremely attracted to young children, others are
obsessed with older people. Young girls, particularly, may become compulsively infatuated with
aged men rather than with young boys or men (Ellis:225). Such obsessive-compulsive
inclinations constitute a sex-love deviation.

Mixoscopia or voyeurism. All normal individuals derive some sexual excitement from
viewing members of the other sex, especially when these others are in the nude. Anyone,
however, who obsessively-exclusively derives sexual satisfaction from peeping adventures is a
mixoscopes or ‘peeping toms’ are sexually inhibited or weak; they need more than ordinary
stimulation to provide any sexual arousal; many may never achieve anything beyond
masturbation, owing to deep-seated fears of normal intercourse, and find “visual aids” useful in
reinforcing their imagination (Chesser:161).

Voyeurism is not exclusively a man’s vice, so to speak. Many women also delight in
witnessing sexual scenes or in watching naked men. Local “macho” clubs in Metro Manila
where male dancers entertain a great number of females, including middle-aged matrons, give
credence to this perception.

Pygmalionism. In greek mythology, a sculptor named Pygmalion fell in love with his
statue, Galatea, which Aphrodite later brought to life. This, pygmalionism is a rare sexual
deviation in which individuals are obsessively and exclusively attracted to and aroused sexually
by statues, especially statues of nude women. A pygmalionist may even masturbate before or
defile such statues to give vent to his sexual excitement.

Bestiality. From the Latin bestialis ‘beast,’ bstiality refers to sexual intercourse between
a human being and an animal of a different species. Oftentimes bestiality also implies sodomy
(from the late Latin sodoma ‘sodom,’ to whose people this practice was imputed) which is
unnatural sexual relations between male persons or between a human being and an animal. An
individual of either sex may become sexually aroused or gratified through any kind of contact
with an animal. Sexual arousal may end in actual coitus or anal-genital relations between a man
or a woman with a beast (e.g., with a pet dog or with a female horse, cow, or with a mother hen
or goose). In other instances, this sex inclination arises when males or females take sexual
interest and pleasure in sexually stimulating animals.

Men and women who become obsessively-compulsively and consistently or exclusively

excited sexually by animals may be called sex deviants. A mild degree of bestiality when no
other sex outlets are available, sexologists tell us, is not necessarily abnormal or perverted
(Ellis:226).

In Medical Context

It is often not the kind of sex act that makes a person a deviate but the manner in which
and the attitude with which he/she performs it. Thus, such an attitude may be treated so that
one may overcome one’s aberration. Sexual neurotics can be helped if they are willing to
undergo why they originally became deviated, how they are irrationally maintaining their
deviated behavior, and what they can do to become non-deviated (Ellis:227).

An increasing number of psychotherapists have been publishing reports of successful

treatments of homosexuals with case presentations to support their claims. A cure does not
consist of inducing a deviant individual to forego and forget all strange sex interests; it rather
consists of getting the patient to eliminate the exclusiveness, the obsession, the fear, the
fetishistic fixation which accompany these interests. Much can be done psychotherapeutically to
treat deviants who wish to overcome their sexual disturbances (Ellis:229).

Preventive Measures of Sex Deviation

Some of the prophylactic measures that can be taken to prevent a boy or a girl from
becoming a sex deviate are as follows:

1. A child should be raised with a healthy, thoroughly non-guilty attitude toward human
sexuality. From an early age, one should be taught that sex is good, beautiful, and
beneficial.
 2. A child should be taught that some laws are necessary for the governing of sex, love,
and marital relationships, and that these laws are protective of one’s right to sex and
happiness; hence, they must be followed for one’s own good and the good of others.
3. Children should be given extensive and intensive sex education, in an objective and
impersonal manner, and should be particularly instructed about sex deviation. They
should be shown that deviant sex behavior is childish and disturbed, and hence, to
be combatted and get rid of.
4. Children should be strongly encouraged to have heterosexual experiences and to be
thoroughly unguilty about their participation (Ellis: 238). Guilty feelings about one’s
sexual experiences is one of the causes of sex indifference or bitterness which may
possibly develop into a certain form of deviation.
5. Children should be raised and nurtured and brought up in such a way that they like
themselves and are willing to take risks of sex-love challenges. They should be
made to realize that life is a blending of success and failure, love and hate,
happiness, and sorrow, misery and bliss. In the midst of these ever-changing
situations, one should brace oneself and expect not only the best but also the worst
things to happen.

Pornography and Prostitution

From the Greek pornographos ‘writing of prostitutes’ (porne ‘prostitute’ and graphien ‘to
write’), pornography means obscene and prurient literature or art. Presently, it has come to
mean the deliberate employment or use of sexually arousing pictorials or reading matter
(Ellis:226). Local tabloids print pictures of women in very revealing and daring positions and
dresses, either on the front page, or in the centerfold. Most of all, x-rated tapes of foreign as well
as local “fighting fish” exhibiting all the unimaginable positions of sexual intercourse (including
vibrators) now abound in all video tape stores in Metro Manila. One may label them as
“pornography for rent”.

An individual’s becoming sexually arouse by reading pornographic sex materials,

watching “porno” films, viewing x-rated or “bomba” vodetapes, or feasting one’s eyes on erotic
stripteasers in the nude is certainly normal, non-deviated, and natural. It’s but human nature to
be sexually elicited by sex stimuli. The Author of human nature has intended it that way,
otherwise procreation would be weird and unnatural. If and when a man or woman, however,
becomes so addicted to pornography that he or she cannot get sexually aroused without
viewing pornographic representations or lascivious sex scenes (bed scenes), such a person’s
compulsive obsession with prurient obscenity is deviated. There is something wrong,
psychologically, with that individual.

Prostitution, on the other hand, involves the selling of sexual services for a price, either
in cash or in kind. Originally, only a woman offered her body for hire for purposes of sexual
intercourse, e.g., a harlot or whore. Now, however, not only are there female and male prostitute
but child prostitutes as well. Female prostitutes in the Philippines, locally known as “hospitality
girls” or mga kalapating mababa ang lipad, include “hostesses” in cocktail lounges and
nightclubs, waitresses, ago-go dancers, sauna bath attendants, masseuses, pick-up girls,
stripteasers, and those in casa (red houses where girls are numbered and displayed for
customers to choose form) (Maningas: 130). High-class call girls are composed of college
students, movie starlets, models, stewardesses, promo girls, and those in the entertainment and
hotel businesses.

Male prostitutes or “call boys” constitute university students, stewards, tour guides, and
models. Low-class male prostitutes are waiters, sauna boys, ago-go dancers, male hosts, and
stand-bys (Maningas: 131).
Child prostitutes (young boys and girls), aged seven to fifteen likewise abound in Metro
Manila. They roam the streets of Manila from late at night until morning; they walk the rounds of
Cubao (i.e., Ali Mall, Araneta Coliseum) looking for sex customers. Young children of their age
are forced into prostitution due to impoverishment. They have to supplement family income and
help send a younger brother or sister to school (Maningas: 131).

In Moral Context

Sex is beautiful. It is one of the greatest inspirations with which the Lord of creation has
gifted both man and woman. Without sex, life would be boring, less meaningful, less fulfilled,
and people could not be God’s partners in creation. Sex is therefore God-given, the individual’s
source of strength as God’s steward on earth. Likewise, the human anatomy – i.e., the naked
male and female – is the greatest masterpiece, obra maestra, of the Creator, the greatest
wonder, the wonder of all wonders in the world. Thus, an individual in the nude should reflect
the marvelous ingenuity of divine engineering and architecture which dwarfs all types of hi-tech
inventions in the fields of science and biotechnology.

Pornography, as such, commercializes sex insofar as the latter becomes a profitable

item in the process. Accordingly, it debases sex as a divine gift even as human beings become
mere animals devoid of propriety and sensibility. Pornography is “sexploitation” in which both
man and woman are robbed of their dignity. Equally worse is prostitution in which an individual
sells herself or himself for sexual pleasure. A person becomes a marketable commodity whose
value lies in his/her sexual marketability rather than in his/her human dignity. One is reduced to
a commercial good whose bargain price depends upon one’s sexual appeal and desirability.

Like any other commercial commodity, an individual (in both pornography and
prostitution) may be used and abused, misused and overused as long as “the price is right.” In
such a situation, one is no longer treated as an end but merely as means for another individual’s
satisfaction. One ceases to be human and to be a person; one becomes an “it”, an object or a
thing which is usable and disposable at anytime, anyhow, and anywhere.

Sexual Anomalies and Ailments

 Sexual abnormalities and infirmities may be devoid of any moral bearing; hence, they
are more pathological than ethical in nature. As such, they may not be moral issues at all. In
several instances, however, a number of these abnormal conditions may be voluntary in cause
insofar as they are the after-effects of deliberate and willed acts (e.g. sexually-transmitted
diseases). Only in this sense will they be regarded as having moral significance.

Dyspareunia. Painful intercourse, known medically as dyspareunia, if prolonged for

more than a few weeks, is an unusual condition. Various physical causes of this abnormality in
the female include: 1) small vaginal entrance, 2) inflammation of the sex organs, 3) a thick or
inelastic hymen, 4) an infected ovary or tube, 5) shrinkage of the vagina (in older females), 6)
sagging of the pelvis structure, 7) lack of lubrication or poor sexual technique (Ellis:240).

Occasionally, dyspareunia exists in the male which may be due to: 1) an inflamed
urinary opening, 2) a too tight or irritated foreskin (especially in the uncircumcised male), and 3)
other sensitivities of the penis. There may be physiological causes or origins of dyspareunia in
both male and female, e.g., fear of intercourse, fear of pregnancy, hostility toward the spouse,
and bodily tensions. In such cases, consulting a medical specialist (i.e., a gynecologist or
urologist) becomes the concerned individual’s moral responsibility. The longer the condition
continues, the more difficult it usually becomes to cure it.

Vaginismus. This pathological condition occurs when strong spasmodic contractions

the muscles at the entrance of the vagina result in the blocking of penile-vaginal intromission. In
most instances, vaginismus is caused by extreme fears of sexual intercourse and/or poor
personal relations between sex mates. Medical and psychological examination should be
sought before any self-cure is attempted (Ellis:241).

Priapism. From Priapos in Greek mythology, the god of male procreative power, son of
Dionysus and Aphrodite, priaprism is a prolonged and persistent erection of penis or clitoris,
usually without sexual desire, which cannot be relieved by orgasm. A rare sex anomaly, it
usually results from certain injuries and diseases of the spinal cord. It is sometimes caused by
neurological disease or genito-urinary irritation and may accompany such afflictions as leukemia,
tularemia, sickle-cell anemia, syphilis, and multiple sclerosis. In serious cases, medical attention
is required.
Nymphomania. An extreme and ungovernable sexual desire in women, a
nymphomaniac has intense sexual craving which may not be relieved by intercourse or orgasm
and which may drive her to near madness (Ellis: 242). Halos maluluka na siya dahil sa labis-
labis na pagnanasa. Laging sabik at uhaw sa kasiyahang sekswal.

In its true form, nymphomania is exceptionally rare and seems to be caused by unusual
conditions of neuromuscular disease. True nymphomaniacs are seldom found outside the
disturbed wards of mental hospitals (Ellis: 242; Chesser: 161). Highly sex-starved females who
are promiscous and whose behavior would hardly be noticed if they were males do exist. Many
such females are cured of their compulsive promiscuity through psychotherapy.
 Satyriasis. This refers to an excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire in men.
Sukdulang pananabik o pagkalibog ng isang lalaki. This intense and insatiable desire on the
part of a male generally results from severe neuropsychiatric disease or disorder. An individual
who is suffering from this condition keeps relentlessly seeking the heterosexual acceptance and
love in order to relieve his own feelings of inadequacy, lack of masculinity, or general feelings of
emotional disturbances.

Hermaphroditism. From Hermaphroditus in Greek mythology, the son of Hermes and

Aphrodite, who became united with the nymph Salmacis in a single body, hermaphroditism is a
very rare condition in which an individual has both male and female sexual organs. Individuals
who have the major characteristics of both sexes are called hermaphrodites. During the first six
weeks of fetal development, hermaphroditism is formed in utero. A fetus that should have
developed into a pure male or female actually takes on characteristics of both sexes. Thus, it
may grow into an adult who, internally, has ovaries and a uterus, but externally, has a penis; or
it may become a person who has a penis-like organ as well as a vagina.

People in the know claim that if there is disagreement or internal inconsistency among
the chromosomes, gonadal structures, sex structures, and hormonal functions in the embryonic
growth of an individual, he becomes a hermaphrodite. The latter can often be surgically and
medically treated to adopt one sex or the other. An individual, for example, who has both a
penis and vagina could have the former removed and be given female hormones to aid in her
feminine development, if he would rather be female than male. On the other, he could have his
vagina sewn up and could be given male hormones.

Cryptorchidism. From Greek kryptos ‘hidden’, cryptorchidism (or cryptorchism) is a sex

anomaly in which a male has one or two “hidden” or undescended testicles (literally, walang
bayag or bungaw). If both testicles are concealed, stop growing (atrophy), and lose their sperm-
producing and hormone-generating functions, the concerned male may fail to develop major
masculine physical characteristics. If only one testicle is undescended, the male may still be
quite potent and fertile. Hormonal or surgical treatment is often required in serious cases if both
testicles fail to go down to their proper places.

Penis captivus. Found in sexological literature were a few authentic cases of penis
captivus or the capture of the penis by the vagina in such a way that the male cannot release
himself (Ellis: 249-250). Theoretically, a woman’s vaginal spasm will seize and squeeze her
partner’s penis at its base end, thus constricting it, and preventing the male from losing his
erection; this is particularly true for a priapist whose penile erection is persistent and prolonged
even long after orgasm or ejaculation has occurred. Normally, though, every male so caught by
vaginal seizure in the sexual encounter would lose erection (detumescence) out of fear or
discomfort and would easily be able to disentangle himself from the vaginal squeeze or
constriction. This strange sexual phenomenon, however, is very rare.
 Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Commonly known as venereal disease (VD), sexually transmitted diseases (STD)

include syphilis, gonorrhea, and AIDS. Almost always spread by direct sexual contact are
syphilis and gonorrhea; the organisms that cause these diseases are quickly killed when
exposed to air and water. Syphilis is transmitted by non-genital contact, such as lips-to-lips
kissing or touching an individual who has the disease. Likewise, gonorrhea may be nonsexually
transmitted to young females, whose vaginal mucous membrane is thin (Ellis: 251).

The first signs of gonorrhea are usually felt about two to five days after transmission of
infection. The male feels pain upon urinating and his urinal discharge is sometimes blood-tinted.
The female may have painful, frequent urination, itching and burning of the vulva (vaginal lips),
and discharge from the vagina and urethral opening. These “warning signals'' mandate the
infected individual to see his/her physician.

To avoid becoming infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, one should avoid sexual
contact with individuals who are likely to have these diseases. VD is more common among
promiscuous persons from lower class backgrounds, especially among prostitutes or men who
frequently engage in sex with them. VD is rare among non-promiscuous individuals from middle
class and professional backgrounds (Ellis: 251).

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). A fatal disease that destroys the
body’s immune defense mechanism, its ability to fight off some infections and cancers, AIDS is,
presently, incurable (“Facts About AIDS and Drug Abuse”). No known AIDS patient has ever
recovered. Its milder form is called AIDS Related Complex (ARC). Caused by a virus (called
HIV) that is passed from one to person to another in blood or semen, AIDS is usually
transmitted through sex with an individual or by sharing contaminated drug needles. An infected
pregnant woman can pass the virus to her newborn child. Homosexual or bisexual men and
people who shoot drugs (i.e., intravenous drug abusers) are the two groups at greatest risk for
AIDS. Intravenous (IV) drug abusers get the virus by sharing their needles with other users who
already have the AIDS virus in their blood.

People also get AIDS by having sex with people who have the virus. For example, AIDS
can spread between men and women (heterosexuals). Male or female prostitutes can carry the
AIDS virus, which they may get from their sex customers, or if they themselves are often IV drug
users. They can also spread the disease to prospective sex adventurers.

An individual infected with the disease may not get sick and he/she may not know
he/she has been infected. Yet he/she can spread the disease to other people either by having
sex with them or by sharing one’s drugs with them. To play safe, one should see a doctor or go
to a clinic to find out whether one may already have been infected with the AIDS virus. One may
ask for an AIDS antibody test and an examination, especially if one suspects that he/she might
have been infected, following a sexual contact with someone who is suspected to be a carrier of
the AIDS virus.
 AIDS researchers give us the assurance that we cannot get the disease from kissing,
touching, eating, sneezing, clothing, or bedding. Kisses on the skin are safe. The AIDS virus
can be in saliva (spit), but so far there is no record of any people who have gotten AIDS from
mouth-to-mouth or lips-to-lips kissing. We cannot get AIDS by touching or being near someone
with AIDS. Neither do we get AIDS by eating with a person who has the disease.

The commandments of safer sex. Since one cannot tell if someone has the AIDS virus by
how he/she looks, the chances of infection can be reduced by following the dos and don’ts of
safer sex relations, be they vaginal, anal, or oral:

1. Always use a condom; or use a condom and a spermicide. Spermicides kill the
AIDS virus as well as the sperm.
2. Limit your sex partners to one. The more people you have sex with, the greater
the chance of getting AIDS.
3. Stop using and shooting drugs; do not share needles, syringes, works, or
cookers, even with someone you know.
4. Do not have sex with people who have AIDS or who might have the AIDS virus.
5. Don’t let semen from an infected person enter your mouth (e.g., oral sex). Fluid
from the vagina of an infected woman can carry the virus. Blood in menstrual
fluid can carry the virus. Oral sex with an infected woman during her
menstruation is most dangerous.
6. Do not rent works or buy works that have been used by someone else. Check
the package you buy to be sure it has not been resealed (e.g., needles and
syringes).
7. Don’t leave your works around where others can pick them up and stick these on
themselves. You could transmit AIDS to other people this way (Facts About AIDS
and Drug Abuse).

Application of Ethical Theories

Natural law ethics perceives human sexuality as sacred insofar as it is God-given: “God
created man in His own image – male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). In other
words, God created man and woman as sexual partners in order to “be fruitful, multiply, and
replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28). This biblical injunction seems to indicate that human
sexuality is not only good and beautiful since it is God-inspired, but a divine obligation as well
inasmuch as it is God’s mandate. What is morally evil, hence immoral, is the misuse and abuse
of sex.

For example, pornography and prostitution are sexual exploitations. They defile, debase,
and desacralize sex, insofar as the latter becomes a marketable item, a commercial good, a
profitable commodity. In such a situation, an individual loses his/her dignity as a human person.
One becomes a mere sexual object and, worst of all, a sex-starved beast.
 With regard to sexual deviations which are natural (congenital) aberrations rooted in the
particular kind of nervous system of an individual, they may be in themselves neither morally
good nor morally evil. Sexual abnormalities may have no moral significance inasmuch as they
are organic aberrations or even forms of neurosis.

ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Environment plays an important role in healthy living and the existence of life on planet
earth. Earth is a home for different living species and we all are dependent on the environment
for food, air, water, and other needs. The ecosystem (all the communities of living organisms
found in a specific place, their habitats and their interactions) in which we live provides natural
services for humans and all other species that are essential to our health, quality of life and
survival. Therefore, it is important for every individual to save and protect our environment and
that as a human person, we interact not only with our fellow human beings, but also with other
living and non-living elements in our environment. Humankind is a part of the world, and we
significantly affect our environment in the same way that changes in our environment affect us

Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics is a branch of ethics that studies the relation of human beings and
the environment and how ethics play a role in this. Environmental ethics believe that humans
are a part of society as well as other living creatures, which includes plants and animals. Things
like water and air pollution, the depletion of natural resources, loss of biodiversity, destruction of
ecosystems, and global climate change are all part of the environmental ethics debate. Ethical
debates impact our ability to solve environmental problems because individuals have different
viewpoints. Environmental ethics are a key feature of environmental studies, that establishes a
relationship between humans and the earth. With environmental ethics, you can ensure that you
are doing your part to keep the environment safe and protected.

Although philosophy has a long history of theorizing about the place of humans in the
natural world, environmental ethics as a subfield of philosophy didn’t really get its start until the
early 1970s. Partly as a result of the growing environmental consciousness and social
movements of the 1960s, public interest increased in questions about humans’ moral
relationship with the rest of the natural world. In the field of philosophy, a number
of theorists at that time came to believe that traditional ethical theories were unable to provide
an adequate account of this relationship. The motivation for the earliest work in environmental
ethics, then, was a desire to formulate ethical theories that did a better job of accounting for our
moral obligations to the nonhuman natural world.
 Human values are the things that are important to individuals that they then use to
evaluate actions or events. In other words, humans assign value to certain things and then use
this assigned value to make decisions about whether something is right or wrong. Human
values are unique to each individual because not everyone places the same importance on
each element of life. For example, a person living in poverty in an undeveloped country may find
it morally acceptable to cut down the forest to make room for a farm where he can grow food for
his family. However, a person in a developed country may find this action morally unacceptable
because the destruction of forests increases carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere,
which can negatively impact the environment. Jeremy Bentham, a classical utilitarian
philosopher, asked famously, "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but,
Can they suffer?" Perhaps people can use animals for their legitimate needs, but they ought to
be humane about it, caring for their domestic animals. Decent hunters track wounded deer;
humane trappers check their lines daily. The rancher who lets his horses starve is prosecuted in
court. An ox in the ditch is to be rescued, even on the sabbath. "A righteous man has regard for
the life of his beast" (Proverbs 12.10).

Many of these humane moralists have misgivings, however, about ways in which
humans regularly do use animals. Peter Singer and Tom Regan have been especially vocal. Is
it right to hunt recreationally, even if one is a humane hunter? Eating domestic food animals,
cows and chickens, might not be justified, since humans (at least those in modem societies) can
be quite adequately nourished on a vegetarian diet. Using animals for medical experiments will
have to be justified; using them for testing cosmetics is not justified at all.

Naturalistic Ethics and Humanistic Ethics

There ought to be this deeper ethic concerning the environment can be doubted only by
those who believe in no ethics at all. Humans are evidently helped or hurt by the condition of
their environment. Environmental quality is necessary, though not sufficient, for quality of human
life. Humans dramatically rebuild their environments; still their lives, filled with artifacts, are lived
in a natural ecology where resources – soil, air, water, photosynthesis, climate – are matters of
life and death. All that we have and are was grown, dug, and gathered out of nature. Culture
and nature have entwined destinies, similar to (and related to) the way minds are inseparable
from bodies. So ethics need to be applied to the environment. That requires humanistic ethics.
Many maintain that environmental ethics must be largely, if not entirely, of this kind. Holders of
this ethic are concerned about the environment because they believe it will serve human ends.

In humanistic ethics, humans can have no duties to rocks, rivers, or ecosystems, and
almost none to birds or bears; humans have serious duties only to each other, with nature often
instrumental in such duties; the environment is the wrong kind of primary target for an ethic;
nature is a means, not an end in itself; nothing there counts morally; and nature has no intrinsic
value. A naturalistic environmental ethics has been steadily challenging those claims.
 Nevertheless, others insist, environmental ethics goes further than an ethics of
prudential resource use, human benefits and costs, and their just distribution, further than
concern about risks, pollution levels, rights and torts, needs of future generations, and so on,
although these figures large within it. A naturalistic ethics is one in which humans are concerned
about appropriate respect and duty towards those who are other than human. Environmental
ethics does require that ethics be applied to the environment, analogously to business, medicine,
engineering, law, and technology. It revises traditional ideas about what is of moral concern to
include animals, plants, endangered species, ecosystems, and even Earth as a whole – at least
occasionally. For a proponent of naturalistic ethics, whales slaughtered, ancient forests cut,
Earth disrupted by global warming – these also count morally and directly.
Our responsibilities to Earth, ecosystems, species, animals, and plants might be thought
vague beside our concrete responsibilities to our children or next-door neighbors. A century, a
call for community was typically phrased as the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.
Now such a call must be more ecological, less paternalistic, a call for appropriate respect for the
non-human species which we co-inhabit this planet.

We ought to develop an environmental ethics that optimizes value in nature,

complementary to human values. In this sense, these more radical ethicists insist that being a
naturalist is more important than being a humanist. This is the biology of ultimate concern.

Humans, Animals, and Land Ethics

Many of these humane moralists have misgivings, however, about ways in which
humans regularly do use animals. Peter Singer and Tom Regan have been especially vocal. Is
it right to hunt recreationally, even if one is a humane hunter? Eating domestic food animals,
cows and chickens, might not be justified, since humans (at least those in modern societies) can
be quite adequately nourished on a vegetarian diet. Using animals for medical experiments will
have to be justified; using them for testing cosmetics is not justified at all.

On the third comer of the triangle is a "land ethic," advocated by AIdo Leopold, a
forester-ecologist and one of the prophets of environmental ethics. "A thing is right when it tends
to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community: It is wrong when it tends
otherwise." "That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology but that land is to be loved
and respected is an extension of ethics." Leopold's ethic is more than mutually recognized
obligations within the human community: Animal rights moralists want also to extend morality;
but only as far as animals. Leopold claims that ecosystems can count morally. Wild animals are
what they are only where they are, adapted creatures fitting in niches in ecosystems. They
ought to be respected for what they are in themselves, but such an ethic has also to enlarge to
consider the ecology of animal life. A wolf caged in a zoo really isn't a wolf anymore. It used to
be a wolt: but is now tom from the ecological matrix in which it could behave like a wolf In the
whole picture, in a holistic ethic, this ecosystemic level in which all organisms are embedded is
what really counts morally -in some respects more than any of the component organisms,
because the systemic processes have generated, continue to support, and integrate tens of
thousands of member organisms. The ecosystem is as wonderful as anything it contains.

We want to love "the land," as Leopold terms it, "the natural processes by which the land
and the living things upon it have achieved their characteristic form and by which they maintain
their existence," that is, evolution and ecology. The appropriate unit for moral concern,
according to a proponent of the "land ethic," is the fundamental unit of development and survival.
One might first think there will be no conflict between these two types of naturalistic ethic:
humane concern for animal welfare and ecological concern for biotic community. Doubtless this
is often so, but it is clearly not always so. Animal moralists may forbid hunting or recommend
rescuing injured wild animals; a proponent of a land ethic may recommend culling to control
populations or letting nature take its course. Land ethic advocates killed tens of thousands of
feral goats on San Clemente Island, oft' the California coast, to protect endangered species of
plants and preserve biotic communities.

Biocentrism

Biocentrism respects life with the focus on any and all living beings. The question is not,
“Can it suffer?” but “Is it alive?” Albert Schweitzer said: “A man is truly ethical only when he
obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring
anything that lives...Life as such is sacred to him. He tears no leaf from a tree, plucks no flower,
and takes care to crush no insect.” More recently, Paul Taylor argues: “The relevant
characteristic for having the status of a moral patient is not the capacity for pleasure or suffering
but the fact that the being has a good of its own which can be furthered or damaged by moral
agents.”

However, to Peter Singer, the ethical concern stops when the organism is below
sufficient neural capacity to suffer pains or enjoy pleasure, such as lower animals, insects,
microbes, and plants. Over 96% of species are invertebrates or plants, and only a tiny fraction
of individual organisms are sentient animals. An animal-based ethics can value everything else
only instrumentally. A deeper respect for life must value directly all living things.

Fishermen in Atlantic coastal bays toss beer bottles overboard, to dispose of trash.
Small crabs, attracted by the residual beer, make their way inside the bottles and become
trapped, unable to get enough foothold on the slick glass neck to work their way out. They
starve slowly. Then one dead crab becomes bait for the next victim, indefinitely resetting the
trap. Are those bottle traps of ethical concern? Biocentrists argue that crab count morally,
because they are alive and put in jeopardy by human careless, regardless of whether they can
suffer much. One crab may not count very much but it is a mistake to say that it does not count
at all.

The consideration of plants distinguishes a biocentrist from an animal rights ethic. A

plant is a spontaneous life system, self-maintaining with a controlling program. Plants do not
have enough neural capacity to have ends-in-view. Yet the plant grows, reproduces, repairs its
wounds, and resists death, maintaining a botanical identity. In botanical standards, plants are
capable of caring for themselves in the only form of caring available to them. The plant life is
defended as an intrinsic value. Though things do not matter to trees, a great deal matters for
them.

Plants are not valuers with preferences that can be satisfied or frustrated. It seems
curious to say the wildflowers have rights, or moral standing, or need our sympathy, or that we
should consider their point of view. We would not say that the needless destruction of a plant
species was cruel, but we might say it was callous. We would not be concerned about what the
plants did feel, but about what the destroyers did not feel. We would not be valuing sensitivity in
plants, but censuring insensitivities in persons. Environmental ethics is not merely an affair of
psychology, but of biology. Man is the only measurer of things but man does have to make
himself the only measure he uses. Life is a better measure.
Anthropocentrism

The inadequacy of traditional ethical theories was initially attributed to their

anthropocentrism – i.e., to their assumption that human beings and/ or their interests matter
morally in their own right while everything else matters morally only insofar as it affects human
beings and/or their interests. Any view that understands morality simply as a matter of the
obligations that humans have to one another, early theorists argued, cannot claim that humans
have direct moral obligations to the natural world; thus, such views fail to capture an essential
aspect of our relationship with the natural world.

This point was illustrated most clearly by Richard Routley’s ‘last person’ case. Routley
asks the reader to imagine that some catastrophe has killed every other human being on earth
such that there is only one person left alive. If this person were dying, and if with his or her last
dying breath it would be possible to push a button that would destroy the rest of life on earth
(plants, animals, ecosystems, etc.), would there be anything morally wrong about doing so?
Routley’s worry is that anthropocentric theories cannot explain why it would be morally wrong to
push the button under these circumstances. If moral obligations come from the interests of
humans, then once humans and their interests cease to exist, so do moral obligations.

To put the point another way, if the natural world has value only insofar as it serves
human interests, then in a case in which the natural world cannot possibly serve our interests
(because we no longer exist), it can have no value, and thus there is nothing wrong with
destroying it. In order to explain what would be wrong with pushing the button in the last person
case, early environmental ethicists argued, ethical theories need to claim that the natural world
has value that is independent of humans and/or their interests and that our moral obligations
regarding the natural world aren’t just a matter of what we owe to our fellow humans. Only by
meeting these theoretical criteria can we arrive at an ethic (as Tom Regan describes it) ‘of the
environment, rather than an ethic for the use of the environment’ (‘Nature and Possibility of an
Environmental Ethic’ 20).
 Intrinsic Value

Intrinsic value has long been considered to be at the core of ethical conduct. There are
various terms used by philosophers to describe this. The meaning or the claim that the
presence of value in which something has in itself or for its own sake or its own right is intrinsic
value. Philosophers have believed that the concept of intrinsic value is self-evident. For example,
somebody asks you if it is okay with you to support or help them in their time of need. If you
suspect it is a ruse, you automatically respond with, “of course.” If the person continues to
question why you are behaving like this, you respond that to help others in time of need is good.
When asked once again on why it is good, you might be inclined to say that it pleases people
and the question stops there. That which is intrinsically good is good in and of itself. Extrinsically
good, but not intrinsically good, is derivatively good; it is good not for its own sake (in terms of
extrinsic value), so for the sake of something great and to which it is closely connected. In the
conventional sense, "intrinsic value" refers to a certain way of being non derivatively good.

Intrinsic value is paramount because it is the value that distinguishes a product, making
the desire to use it unavoidable. Those principles are the basic convictions that guide a person's
decision-making in various circumstances. The essence of intrinsic value is a difficult concept to
grasp.

Holism and Individualism

One issue that arose in early debates about the value of the natural world was the
question of what kinds of entities are morally significant in their own right. Some theorists
argued that individual persons, animals, plants, etc. are valuable in their own right, while the
value of the larger wholes that these individuals comprise – species, ecosystems, the biosphere,
etc. – is merely derivative of the value of the individual constituents. This view came to be called
individualism; theories generally considered to be forms of individualism are biocentrism (the
view that each living thing matters morally in its own right) and animal rights (the view that some
or all animals have moral rights). Others argued that we should consider wholes to be the
primary bearers of value and the value of individuals to depend on the contribution that those
individuals make to the good of the wholes. This view came to be called holism; the most
common type of holism in environmental ethics is ecocentrism (the view that ecosystems matter
in their own right, and individuals have value in virtue of the contribution they make to
ecosystemic functioning).

Proponents of holism argue that it, unlike individualism, is able to attribute greater or
lesser value to individuals depending on their contribution to ecosystemic processes.
Individualist theories, they argue, must attribute value to all living things equally, with the result
that common animals such as sheep or pigs have as much value as members of rare or
endangered species, that domesticated animals have as much value as wild animals, that
members of destructive invasive species have as much value as the members of the native
species that they threaten, and so on. Holists argue that egalitarianism about the value of
individual organisms is ecologically wrong-headed; some individuals simply have more
ecological value than others, and an adequate environmental ethic needs to take account of this
difference.

Proponents of individualism, however, charge that holists unjustifiably disregard the

worth of individuals by considering their worth to be derivative of their ecological contributions.
Some individualists have labeled holists ‘eco-fascists’, a way of emphasizing their worries about
views that consider individuals to have value only insofar as they contribute to the greater good
of the communities to which they belong. Other individualists argue that wholes such as
ecosystems and species do not have a good of their own, and thus that their value must be
derivative of the value of individual organisms, which do have a good of their own.

Application of Ethical Theories

Environmental ethics is a critical study of the normative issues and principles relevant to
the relationship between humans and the natural world. It covers various fields, ranging from
the welfare of animals versus ecosystems to theories of the intrinsic value of nature.

Gunn (1994) suggests that it is the way in which environmental ethics is presented that needs to
be changed in order to contribute to the solution of environmental problems. Dickson (2000),
however, thinks that the failure of environmental ethics to contribute to the solution of
environmental problems is not caused by the difficulties of communication between academic
philosophers and others. Environmental ethicists may alert peasant farmers, pastoralists and
other indigenous people to understand the long range effects of environmental degradation that
are beyond the purview of local people and otherwise unavailable. Environmental ethicists with
varied backgrounds can join peasant farmers and pastoralists who have multidimensional
knowledge of the natural environment and help them develop further knowledge of it. The efforts
of many people will one day bring change in favour of the majority of the people, nonhuman
species, and the planet Earth.
 References

Baker, E., Richardson, M. (1999). Ethics and the environment. Ethics Applied (2nd ed., pp. 407-
437). New York: Simon & Schuster. Retrieved from
https://mountainscholar.org/bitstream/handle/10217/39003/Ethics_Environment.pdf;seque
nce=1

McShane, K. (2009, May 27). Environmental ethics: An overview. Retrieved April, 2021, from
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00206.x.