Manipulation and Personal Gain
Sex can be used as a means of direct economic exchange such as in various forms of sex work and pornography where sex is exchanged directly for currency in various marketplaces. The ethics of such markets existing have been questioned particularly by feminists such as Gloria Steinem, Germaine Greer, and Naomi Wolf. Radical feminists argue that the sex industry exploits women, contributes to sexism, and is a way of maintaining patriarchy; that prostitution is a form of male domination and oppression of women, and, as a result of such views on prostitution, Sweden, Norway and Iceland have enacted laws which outlaw the buying, but not the selling of sexual services (the client commits a crime, but not the prostitute). Other sex positive feminists such as Wendy McElroy support the commercialization of sex as a means of empowering women. It is also the case that several religions within South Asia and the Middle East have their own viewpoints on pornography, even the type of pornography which would be viewed with triviality within most Western Nations.
Read more about this topic: Sexual Ethics
Famous quotes containing the words manipulation, personal and/or gain:
“Denotation by means of sounds and markings is a remarkable abstraction. Three letters designate God for me; several lines a million things. How easy becomes the manipulation of the universe here, how evident the concentration of the intellectual world! Language is the dynamics of the spiritual realm. One word of command moves armies; the word liberty entire nations.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)
“... religion can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Throughout the 1980’s, we did hear too much about individual gain and the ethos of selfishness and greed. We did not hear enough about how to be a good member of a community, to define the common good and to repair the social contract. And we also found that while prosperity does not trickle down from the most powerful to the rest of us, all too often indifference and even intolerance do.”
—Hillary Rodham Clinton (b. 1947)