Examining the ethics and consequences of our obsession with sex in North America
Last fall, student leaders at Saint Mary’s University posted a video of a chant admonishing non-consensual sex with underage women. Similarly, this fall, the Gazette, the student paper of Western University, published several articles promoting sexual harassment, drug use, and excessive drinking. Most of us were bewildered by this behaviour, perhaps none more so than the faculty of these universities.
Action should be, and has been, taken to correct the behaviour of these student groups, but I would like to delve a little deeper into the ethical considerations of sex and responsibility in these circumstances. On a more abstract level, I question whether these students can be held directly responsible for their actions, and I certainly do not think we should be surprised at their actions, given our obsession with sex in North America.
Research has shown that frequent exposure to sexually explicit material can have adverse effects. In “The effects of media exposure on acceptance of violence against women: a field experiment,” a 1981 article by Malmuth et al., the thought that depictions of women being sexually coerced tend to increase viewers’ acceptance of the rape myth – the idea that women elicit and enjoy rape – is discussed. In “Effects of prolonged consumption of pornography,” circa 1989 by Dolf Zilmann, investigates the idea that these depictions of sexual coercion have also increased male viewers’ willingness to harm women. R.J. Harris, in his 1994 “The impact of sexually explicit media,” furthered this research, noting that heavy exposure to X-rated films, even non-violent films, resulted in subjects finding sexual aggression to be less troubling. A study conducted by Antonia Abbey in 1987 found that men also tend to frequently misinterpret a warm response from women as sexual in nature, a finding which most likely exacerbates sexual issues.
Our culture of sex can act as a social script. If children and teens are exposed to highly sexualized content and forms of behaviour, these ideals and attitudes towards sex and the opposite gender become their social guidelines for how to interact with each other when placed in these situations. Given these findings, I find it a strange contradiction that North American society is so heavily saturated with sexual content and individualism, yet we recoil in shock when the youth of this generation, such as frosh leaders at our universities, act in accordance with these norms. Their behaviour is an obvious and inevitable outcome of the society in which they were raised.
In our culture, sex is reduced practically to a recreational activity. We like to have sexual freedom. After all, who would enjoy others telling them how, when, or with whom to have sex? But this idea seems to be inherently at odds with our desire for legal boundaries on sex, such as legislation deeming rape or sexual harassment as punishable offences. So, on one hand, our society has done away with sexual boundaries, be it in the media or our personal lives, but on the other, we still want these boundaries when sex is taken too far, like in cases of rape, which may be caused by our lack of boundaries in the first place.
Now, it is unclear whether there is a causal link between exposure to sexual content and rape. Since 1990, the reported rape rate has declined in the U.S. while pornography consumption has increased. However, until recently the definition of rape in the U.S. was quite narrow, excluding male victims and limited only to vaginal penetration. Regardless, we know that adverse psychological effects and sexual behaviour can result from frequent exposure to sexual material, and I would argue that our liberal views on sex are caused, or at least correlated in some way to our constant exposure to it. This is apparent in studies, such as “Impact of the media on adolescent sexual attitudes and behaviours,” conducted by Escobar-Chaves et al. in 2005, that show increased exposure to sexual content among adolescents results in the perception that their peers are sexually active, the development of sexually permissive attitudes, and early intercourse.
So, we recognize that rape is wrong, and unwanted sexual advances and harassment perverse. We want legislation in place to deter sexual harassment and we demand justice for those who have been sexually assaulted – and rightly so. This is not exclusive to North America. Thousands of Indians protest against the prevalence of rape and murder of women and gender inequality in their country. Yet, despite these principled ideals of justice and fairness, we in North America refuse to admit that sex is a moral issue. Here, the cultural and ethical waters of sex and value become murky, for if sex is harmless recreation with few, if any consequences as our culture displays it, why do so many in and outside our culture subject it to such ethical scrutiny? Why does the research suggest otherwise?
I do not intend to explicitly condemn or condone any particular view on sex with this article, but merely expose a societal contradiction. It seems to me that if we are to hold individuals responsible for their actions in a sexual context then perhaps we should examine a higher level of analysis. Rather than analyzing one’s actions and blaming the individual, we ought to examine the norms and values of our culture and re-examine our assumptions about sex.
If not, then we should at least forgo the alarmed reaction to such behaviour. It is analogous to one who would be shocked at an American defending his/her right to bear arms. Given the culture, why would you expect them to act otherwise? Similarly, were we expecting the youth of our predominantly secular, hyper-sexualized nation to be devoutly waiting for marriage, all the while safeguarding an ideology which holds sex and a person’s emotional worth in the highest regard?