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:
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)
“The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)