Sexual Activity

Alan Soble
University of New Orleans
Drexel University

Soble, Alan. 2006. ‘Sexual Activity’. In Sex from Plato to Paglia: A Philosophical Encyclopedia, 15–25.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

The sexual activities in which people engage can be examined and understood in many ways:
biologically, psychologically, sociologically, anthropologically, economically, philosophically, and
theologically. Certain biological and psychological features of human actions are likely that which
make some of them sexual actions, although what people believe is a sexual activity is influenced by
social attitudes and norms. Sexologists–biomedical and social scientists–provide information about
the types of sexual acts people do; when, how often, with whom, why, and where they do them; and
what happens in or to the body and mind before, during, and after. Both theologians and
philosophers deliberate and make pronouncements about sexual ethics. Philosophers, in addition,
make a concerted effort to define (analyze) ‘sexual act.’ Of course, everyone is free to define a word,
but for philosophers it is often their life's work.

‘Sexual activity’ is a puzzling concept (Christina agonizes over it). It is difficult to state the conditions
that are sufficient and necessary for an act to be sexual, that is, to state (1) what it is that makes an
act a sexual act (or in virtue of which it is sexual) rather than some other type of act, and to state (2)
what, if absent, would leave us without a sexual act (or is required for an act to be sexual). Defining
’sexual act’ is important, at least because applying other concepts depends on our being able to
identify sexual acts: rape is a forced sexual act or one to which a person does not consent; a married
person who engages in a sexual act with someone not his or her spouse commits adultery; and in
prostitution sexual activities are bought and sold. In this way, concepts of doing are parasitic on the
concept of sexual activity. But the same holds for concepts of not doing: abstinence, chastity, and
celibacy are in various ways forswearings of sexual activity. If I do not know what a sexual act is, I will
not know what to avoid if I plan to be abstinent or remain virginal, and I might without being aware
of it engage in forbidden or unwanted sexual acts. Mull over the provocative title of a research
report: ‘Oral Sex among Adolescents: Is It Sex or Is It Abstinence?’ (Remez).

It may be, as Alan Goldman urges, that “we all know what sex is, at least in obvious cases, and do not
need philosophers to tell us” (270). But the ‘not obvious’ cases are the interesting ones, and about
these philosophers might have something illuminating to say. Besides, it is not always obvious how
to distinguish obvious cases from those that are not obvious. Philosophers can work on that as well.
Simon Blackburn is very confident about a sexual scenario that for other people may be unclear: “in
James Joyce's Ulysses, Leopold Bloom and Gertie McDowell, eying each other across the beach, use
each other's perceived excitement to work themselves to their climaxes… I should have said that
Bloom and Gertie had sex together’ (Lust, 91; see Thomas Nagel for more about this scenario). But it
is not (obvious that it is) obvious that X and Y can be said to have ‘had sex’ while never touching
each other. If Blackburn countenances flirting-across-the-beach experiences (i.e., dual masturbation)
as a case in which two people ‘had sex,’ he should be willing to say that two people who chat
sexually, using the telephone or while online, in order to attain sexual pleasure or orgasm through
masturbation, are also ‘having sex.’ Maybe he is right, but ordinary language does not support him.

A well-known 1999 study conducted on students at Indiana University found that 60% do not think
that engaging in oral sex (fellatio, cunnilingus) is ‘having sex’ (Sanders and Reinisch). Later studies
confirmed this finding. Indeed, the figure was about 78% for a Canadian student population (Randall

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and Byers, 91, table 1). If these students do not think that oral sex is ‘having sex,’ they wouldn't think
that flirting-across-the-beach is ‘having sex.’ In fact, they don't: 96- 97% of the Canadian students
denied that “masturbating to orgasm in each other's presence,” telephone chatting, and cyber-
orgasms are ‘having sex.’ That such a large percent refuse to countenance oral sex as ‘having sex’ is
at first surprising, even shocking (as is the idea that engaging in oral sex is consistent with
abstinence). But postpone judgment. Philosophers and other scholars have no trouble thinking of
fellatio and cunnilingus as types of ‘sexual activity.’ In their hands that becomes a technical term.
‘having sex,’ by contrast, is an ordinary language expression. Students (as studies have found)
reserve it for (voluntary) penis-vagina intercourse and anal intercourse. (They could answer only
about male-female anal intercourse, not about male-male.) Blackburn, employing his own
nonordinary language notion of ‘having sex,’ claims that “President Clinton['s] standards for having
sex with someone were . . . remarkably high” (Lust, 91). Not at all. When Monica Lewinsky confided
to Linda Tripp that she did not ‘have sex’ with President William Clinton, and he denied having
‘sexual relations with that woman,’ they were not lying, pulling a disingenuous fast one, or self-
deceived. They were merely using the ordinary language notion of ‘having sex’ (and they surely had
a right to do so). American and Canadian students agree with those beleaguered lovers, and Aussies,
too (Richters and Song).

The finding that 60-80% do not consider engaging in oral sex to be ‘having sex’ will be shocking if we
infer that students thereby deny that fellatio and cunnilingus are sexual acts. But the students are
not saying that. Even though 78% of the Canadian students deny that oral sex is ‘having sex,’ about
65% still think that if X and Y engage in oral sex, X and Y are ‘sexual partners,’ and 98% think that X
and Y are being ‘unfaithful’ if they are involved in a significant relationship with someone else. (See
Randall and Byers, 91, table 2; 92, table 3. For the first two questions, the student subject is X [or Y],
while for the last question X [or Y] is the subject's boyfriend or girlfriend; 89.) It is plausible to think
that the students wouldn't issue either judgment if they thought that oral sex wasn't any kind of
sexual activity, event, or experience. Thus Blackburn would be better off saying that flirting-across-
the-beach (as well as talking over the telephone and sending sexually arousing instant or e-mail
messages; see Ben-Ze'ev, 4-6) can be a sexual activity, even if it is not ‘having sex.’

Now that we have made a distinction between ‘having sex’ and ‘sexual activity,’ where the second is
the larger category and includes the first, let us re-examine Goldman's “we all know what sex is.”
The word ‘sex’ is ambiguous (see Randall and Byers, 87). Does Goldman mean that we all know what
‘sexual activity’ is? (That claim is probably false.) Does he mean that we all know what ‘having sex’
is? (That's probably true.) Or is it something else–sexual desire, sexual arousal, sexual pleasure–that
we all know? (Maybe we do, maybe not.) Using ‘sex’ ambiguously is common. “If the placement of
the clitoris in the female body reflects the divine will, then God wills that sex is not just oriented to
procreation, but is at least as, if not more, oriented to pleasure,” writes Christine Gudorf (65; see
Roth, 434). This claim makes much more sense if ‘sex’ here means ‘sexual activity,’ which includes
cunnilingus, and not the narrower ‘having sex,’ which is not as clitoris-attentive. The feminist legal
scholar Catharine MacKinnon claims that in our male-dominant society, ‘whatever sexually arouses a
man is sex’ (Toward, 211). Here ‘sex’ seems not to mean either ‘having sex’ or ‘sexual activity.’ So,
what does it mean? When MacKinnon continues, ‘inequality is sex … humiliation is sex …
debasement is sex … intrusion is sex,’ we might infer that ‘is sex’ for MacKinnon means ‘is sexually
arousing [for men].’ But, if so, the first statement becomes ‘whatever sexually arouses a man is
sexually arousing [for men].’ MacKinnon hardly reduces the ambiguity of her use of ‘sex’ when she
writes things like, ‘Pornography is masturbation material. It is used as sex. It therefore is sex’ (Only
Words, 17). In the terms ‘sex education’ and ‘the philosophy of sex,’ the wide-ranging ambiguity of
‘sex’ is not a problem but, instead, a virtue, because ‘sex’ allows us to speak about teaching or
studying, all at once, the many facets of human sexuality. This is not how MacKinnon uses ‘sex.’

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In her marvelous essay ‘Are We Having Sex Now or What?’ Greta Christina wonders about the
ontological status of many different acts, including dual masturbation, sadomasochistic encounters,
activities between two women, activities among a group of women, and groping, grabbing, rubbing,
and roaming while fully clothed. She begins by asking specifically what ‘having sex’ is, but while
laying out and discussing these examples, which befuddle her and prevent her from finding a
satisfactory answer to the question, the phrase she uses most frequently, by far, is ‘is sex.’ That is,
she asks, instead, whether these various things are ‘sex’ and, in effect, moves back and forth, with
this one word, between asking whether an activity is ‘having sex’ and asking (unbeknownst to her)
whether it is a ‘sexual activity’ (and who knows what else). This mistake, using the ambiguous ‘sex,’
explains why she eventually has to throw up her hands, exasperated. (She ends her essay, after
describing a magnificent orgasms-all- around dual masturbation episode, with ‘I still don't have an
answer.’) All Christina had to do, to avoid the conclusion that she is trying hard to avoid but sees no
way of avoiding–that if something (sadomasochistic events, dual masturbation, and so forth) is not
intercourse, then it is not ‘sex’ at all–was to say that whatever else they are, these noncoital
activities are at least cases of ‘sexual activity’ (which expression she does use once–but only once–in
five and a half pages). Then we can negotiate whether to add, which is not prohibited, some of these
activities to the ‘having sex’ category. Perhaps at some time we would come to think of solitary
masturbation not merely as the sexual act it is now but as a case of X's ‘having sex’ with X (although
it is doubtful that all sexual activities would be ‘having sex’).

One more example: “Whatever else flirting may be, it is not sex,” writes John Portmann (227). But
that depends on what he means by ‘sex.’ Portmann denies that a ‘dirty’ telephone chat is ‘having
sex’ (224, 226) and he claims, “The Internet has not given us a new way to have sex but rather an
absorbing new way to talk about sex” (223). It is clear that Portmann equates ‘sex’ and ‘having sex,’
so what he asserts about flirting is that it is not ‘having sex.’ That's trivial in the ordinary language
meaning of ‘having sex.’ On his own definition, ‘sex’ (‘having sex’) ‘entails skin-to-skin contact’ (231).
This definition grounds his assertion that flirting is not ‘sex,’ for flirting involves no skin-skin contact.
The conclusion is still trivial, for the question should be whether flirting can be a sexual activity.
Maybe Portmann, even though he uses and defines the expression ‘having sex,’ intended to define
‘sexual activity,’ instead, as ‘skin-to-skin contact.’ If so, flirting is, on his view, neither ‘having sex’ nor
a sexual activity. The implication is dubious and, what is worse, his definition is implausible–because
sexual acts do not require skin-to-skin contact. Teenagers (and Christina) who ‘dry hump’ while
wearing their jeans or shorts are surely engaging in sexual activity. Hence the notion that flirting is
not ‘sex’ (is not a sexual activity), cannot be grounded in or justified by Portmann's definition. And
because the ground of that assertion is gone, we are free to go the route of allowing flirting and
telephone/Internet chats to count as sexual acts. Further, the weakness of Portmann's definition
undermines–takes the support away from–the whole point, the central claim, of his essay, that
‘chatting is not cheating’ (223, 230-34). Hence we are free to agree with Aaron Ben-Ze'ev's
reasonable claim that ‘chatting is sometimes cheating’ (199-222; see Collins) and with the Canadian
students that masturbation in each other's presence (95%), while talking on the telephone (85%),
and during computer sessions (79%) is being ‘unfaithful’ (Randall and Byers). Of course, Ben-Ze'ev
and the students are able to arrive at a conclusion opposed to Portmann's because they understand
‘having sex’ and ‘sexual activity’ differently from him. But how should we understand these
concepts? We would be pleased to have an analysis of ‘sexual activity’ that straightens out this
territory. There are some contenders, some better than others.

Consider an analysis of ‘sexual activity,’ (A1), according to which there are no sexual activities
beyond ‘having sex,’ as currently understood. (A1) must be wrong. If an act is sexual if and only if it is
‘having sex,’ then penis-vagina and penis-anus intercourse are the only sexual activities. Even if
‘penis-anus intercourse’ is construed broadly enough to include male-male as well as male-female
buggery, female-female sexuality is eradicated. Were we to state explicitly the principle deployed

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here to evaluate the analysis, it would be that any analysis of ‘sexual activity’ entailing that whether
two people engage in sexual activity together depends on their sex/gender is false.

The analysis of ‘sexual activity’ in terms of the extension of ‘having sex’ is patently phallocentric. This
results from the fact that the students' notion of ‘having sex’ is already phallocentric (see Frye). Why
should it turn out, which seems odd, that ‘sexual activity,’ in addition to ‘having sex,’ gets defined—
'hegemonically’–by reference to the male genitalia? But note that the students' notion of ‘having
sex’ is not perfectly phallocentric. If it were, they would have included fellatio within ‘having sex.’
Both fellatio and cunnilingus were (equally) excluded from that category.

Another possible analysis runs into similar difficulties. (A2) claims that sexual activities are those that
are of the reproductive type, plus acts that are the natural biopsychological precursors or
concomitants of such acts. On this view, the central case of a sexual activity is penis-vagina
intercourse (which is one way of ‘having sex’), since that is the only act of the reproductive type. The
use of contraception (e.g., a condom or intrauterine device) does not, on this view, prevent
heterosexual intercourse from being a sexual act. (That would be a strange consequence.) The
reason is that contracepted intercourse still has the proper form of a sexual act, it is still of the right
type, even if no reproduction will actually occur. After all, many noncontracepted cases of
heterosexual intercourse also fail to result in reproduction, and that fact does not change them from
being of the reproductive type to some other type. Kissing, mutual masturbation, and oral sex, when
engaged in by a male and a female, are all sexual acts, to the extent that they are the natural
precursors or concomitants of intercourse.

(A2) also must be wrong. It entails that acts that occur between people who have the same sexual
anatomy (e.g., two women) are not sexual, since none are procreative. Like (A1), (A2) succumbs to
the principle that whether an act is sexual must not depend on the sex/gender of the persons
engaged in it. Further, sexual perversions–such as fondling shoes–could no longer be called sexual
perversions, because, being nonprocreative, they are not sexual in the first place. Solitary
masturbation, too, is (counterintuitively) not a sexual activity. But the main problem is that (A2)
denies that male-female anal intercourse is a sexual activity. Heterosexual buggery is neither of
reproductive form nor a natural precursor or concomitant of penis-vagina intercourse, yet it is in the
current extension of ‘having sex.’ But any analysis that entails that a case of ‘having sex’ is not
‘sexual activity’ is false. It is conceptual truth that what is included in ‘having sex’ will be either equal
to or less than what is included in ‘sexual activity’–no matter how those terms are analyzed. Might
(A2) allow that anal intercourse is a natural precursor or concomitant of penis-vagina intercourse?
That would open the floodgates. (Maybe that's where we should go.) But there is an important
question lurking here: the facts that kissing and oral sex are often precursors to heterosexual
intercourse, and anal intercourse is not–are these ‘natural’ or the result of social norms and the like?
Indeed, some have claimed that the ‘main event’ itself is socially or politically engineered (e.g.,
Atkinson, Rich).

Other possible analyses of ‘sexual activity’ are superior candidates but these, too, may be found
lacking. Consider this analysis: (A3) sexual acts are exactly those in which there is contact with a
sexual body part (not only the genitals). If so, cunnilingus, fellatio, mutual masturbation, sucking and
massaging the breasts, and kissing are sexual acts. On this view, many things that two women can do
together count as sexual acts. Further, solitary masturbation counts as a sexual activity, because (A3)
does not state that two people must be involved to secure contact with a sexual part. (A3) appears
to be better than (A1) and (A2).

Portmann's ‘skin-to-skin contact’ definition, if taken as stating a necessary condition for sexual
activity–no skin-skin contact, no sexual act (as in flirting and telephone chatting, on his view)–is a

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variant of (A3). Portmann's definition does not state, and was not meant to state, a sufficient
condition. After all, merely shaking hands is not a sexual act. Similarly, and for the same reason, (A3)
had better not be stating a sufficient condition; a gynecologist who examines the genitals of a
woman does not automatically perform a sexual act (half of a mutual masturbation), and a man
who, in order to urinate, uses his hand to remove his penis from his pants is not automatically
engaged in a sexual act (solitary masturbation).

On the other hand, although dry humping is a counterexample to Portmann's definition, showing
that it does not state a necessary condition, dry humping is not a counterexample to (A3), for (A3)
does not entail that the contact must be skin-skin. In this sense, Portmann's definition is narrower
than (A3), which allows more acts to be sexual–in particular, acts in which contact occurs through,
for example, clothing. Thus solitary masturbation through one's pants or pantyhose counts as a
sexual act for (A3) but not for Portmann. (A3) didn't stumble into this fortuitous situation. ‘Contact’
in that definition must be deliberately articulated in such a way that clothing over a sexual part, or
between the toucher and the touched, does not entail that there is no contact–since solitary
masturbation through one's clothing and dry humping are sexual acts. Moreover, were we to deny
that they are sexual activities, we would be in danger of being forced to conclude that cunnilingus
with a dental dam and heterosexual intercourse with a condom are not sexual activities. (Both these
cases also show that skin-skin contact cannot be necessary.) Of course, were a sexual body part
altogether insulated (beyond ‘jostlability’) by an impervious material–a glass or steel bodysuit–there
could be no contact and no sexual act.

Nevertheless, (A3) does not state a necessary condition; it cannot dodge counterexamples that were
damaging to Portmann's definition: flirting and sexy telephone/Internet chats. Even though the
analysis admits mutual and solitary masturbation into the class of sexual acts, it does not admit dual
masturbation–since that type occurs (as does flirting on the beach) at a distance. True, (A3) already
has a bloated notion of contact, in allowing contact to happen through things that insulate and
isolate sexual body parts and are an obstacle to ‘direct’ or ‘immediate’ contact. But (A3) does not
have carte blanche to imagine that there is contact between two people when they talk in an
Internet chatroom. The best thing to say (and which avoids an aura of desperation) is that such acts
are sexual despite the fact that there is no contact, rather than they are sexual because there is
contact.

‘Sexual act,’ according to (A3), depends logically on ‘sexual body part.’ To identify sexual acts we
must first catalogue sexual body parts; and our understanding of sexual activities could not be any
better than our understanding of sexual parts. But can we catalogue sexual body parts? Do we
clearly understand ‘sexual body part’? (Portmann's definition is, in one sense, broader than (A3): any
patch of skin will do. It thereby avoids these problems.) Are the hands sexual body parts? Two
people might shake hands, without the act's being sexual. Alternatively, they might press their hands
together and experience a rush of sexual pleasure. Sometimes the hands are used nonsexually and
sometimes sexually. Hence there is no straightforward answer to the question, “are the hands sexual
body parts?” Whether hands are sexual parts depends on the activity in which they are used. This
implies that a body part is sexual in virtue of the sexual nature of the acts in which it is involved.
Hence ‘sexual body part’ depends logically on ‘sexual activity,’ not the other way around. The point
was made above that a gynecological examination is not automatically a sexual act because the
genitals are touched, so contact with a sexual body part is not sufficient for an act to be sexual. But
we could say, instead, about this case that the genitals are not a sexual body part in the requisite
sense to begin with; during a gynecological examination, they are not being treated as sexual body
parts.

The fact that on those occasions when holding hands is sexual, the act is accompanied by certain

5
sensations–sexual pleasure–suggests that sexual activity might be profitably analyzed in terms of
sexual pleasure. To be precise, as proposed by Robert Gray: (A4) sexual acts are all and only those
acts that produce sexual pleasure, or (equivalently) a necessary and sufficient condition for an act to
be sexual is that it produce sexual pleasure. So, as another example, both acts of the reproductive
type and acts not of that type are sexual when and only when they produce sexual pleasure. What
unites the two types, say heterosexual fellatio and homosexual (or same-sex) fellatio, is that both
can produce pleasure and, we can assume, a qualitatively similar if not identical pleasure.

(A4) is a powerful analysis with advantages over the others. Whether an act is sexual does not
depend on the sex/gender of its participants, but only on whether it produces sexual pleasure.
Masturbation, solitary and mutual, can be sexual acts. Further, dual masturbation, too, can be a
sexual act, as well as sexy telephone/Internet chatting and flirting ourselves to orgasms on the
beach. (Producing sexual pleasure does not require contact.) And sexual perversions are sexual in
virtue of producing sexual pleasure. (A4) does not merely entail that these acts can be sexual; it
accounts for, explains, the sexual nature of a wide variety of acts.

(…)

A disadvantage of (A4) is that it leaves no conceptual space for sexual acts that fail to produce sexual
pleasure (Soble, Fundamentals, xxxvii-xl; Philosophy of Sex and Love, xvii-xlii; Sexual Investigations,
127-31). If producing sexual pleasure is partially definitive of ‘sexual activity,’ as a necessary feature,
then the absence of sexual pleasure entails that the act is not sexual. Consider a couple who have
lost sexual interest in each other and who engage in routine foreplay and coitus from which they
obtain no pleasure. Or consider a Catholic couple that succeeds in fulfilling Augustine's (354-430)
wish that in performing the (ideal) marital conjugal act, they fulfill its procreative purpose without
experiencing sexual pleasure (On Marriage and Concupiscence, bk. 1, chap. 9; 170). According to
(A4), because these couples experience no pleasure, the coitus they engage in is not a sexual act
(nor is it ‘having sex’). If so, (A4) rules out the very possibility of ‘bad sex,’ for whenever the sexual
event is ‘bad’ (not pleasurable), the analysis judges the sexual event not to be a sexual act. Hence
the category ‘unpleasurable (i.e., nonmorally bad) sex’ is empty.—"That's a relief. All this bad sex I've
been putting up with all my life” (you're hearing the voice of Rodney Dangerfield; 1921-2004)
“wasn't really sex at all. So I've never had any bad sex.” (Of course Dangerfield means ‘bad sexual
activity.’) Note that the objection to (A4) is not exactly that these couples are engaged in a sexual
act, one in which they experience no pleasure, and these couples are counterexamples to the
analysis. The objection is simply that (A4) entails that ‘bad sex’ is a contradiction. That implication is
counterintuitive, no matter what we say about the activity of the two couples. (…) At best, these
analyses state a sufficient condition for an act to be sexual, but not a necessary condition.

It would, however, also make sense to object to the analysis by claiming that the acts of these
couples are counterexamples: coitus is a sexual activity, if anything is, even if the parties are not
enjoying it. Or think about another couple: the woman puts up with twenty minutes or so of vaginal
intercourse with her husband and derives no pleasure from it. (He uses a lubricating jelly to make
insertion easier and thrusting less painful for her.) Most people, as opposed to a philosopher trying
desperately to save his or her cherished position, would say that all [these] people, even the woman
in the last example, engage in sexual activity. Most people would admit, if honest, that they had, at
one time or another, taken part in sexual activity that they did not find arousing or pleasurable. They
went through the motions because they were being kind to their partner, or because after a date
they feared their partners who refused to leave, or because they were trying to conceive yet also
hoped the act would be finished as quickly as possible. Or because they (‘erotophobes’) utterly
dislike sexual activity, with its noxious odors, repulsive fluids, and loss of control, and so do not, by
their natures, enjoy it, yet for various reasons must force themselves to engage in bouts of

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unpleasurable sexual activity. These people have, as frequently and consistently as Dangerfield, ‘bad
sex’ for their entire lives, but for a different reason. Unlike Dangerfield, they prefer it that way. One
might say about all these cases that they do not provide counterexamples to (A4), because that
these acts are not sexual is not farfetched, exactly because they are zingless and torpid (see
Primoratz, Ethics and Sex, 47-49). But that move to defend (A4) only reasserts that if pleasure is
absent, the act is not sexual, and that the set ‘bad sex’ has no members because the phrase is a
contradiction.

The weakness of [A4] is that [it] underestimate the number of sexual acts that occur. This
undercounting has dangerous consequences. Suppose I am a social scientist studying patterns of
sexual behavior, with the aim of using demographic statistics to understand the incidence of sexually
transmitted diseases. I want an accurate accounting of how often and with whom people engage in
sexual activity. So when I ask you, “How many sexual partners have you had during the last year” I
am not asking with how many people you had a pleasurable, arousing, or satisfactory sexual
experience. I do not want you to ignore sexual acts that were disappointing and those partners with
whom you had ‘bad sex.’ These acts can be just as unsafe as pleasurable experiences. But if you use
(A4) in counting your partners, you will be silent about bad experiences. As a result, I might conclude
from my survey that all is well in Bogalusa.

What about (A5): trying or intending to produce sexual pleasure (instead of producing it)? On such
an analysis, the absence of sexual pleasure does not entail that the act is not sexual, so ‘bad sex’ is
logically possible. It is not clear that trying or intending to produce sexual pleasure is sufficient for an
act to be sexual. Some ways of trying to produce pleasure might make the act sexual, while other
ways of trying might not. Trying to produce sexual pleasure for your partner by rubbing his or her
genitals, even if it fails, looks like a sexual act, but trying to produce sexual pleasure by whistling
‘Dixie’ not only will fail but also does not look like a sexual act. (It might be one, if your partner has a
kinky thing for ‘Dixie.’) Perhaps the particular manner of trying to produce sexual pleasure is a sexual
act only if that manner of trying is already a sexual act (say, rubbing the genitals), that is, would be a
sexual act if it was not being used to try to produce pleasure but to produce pleasure. If so, we can
know what trying to produce sexual pleasure is only if we know (how?) what acts are sexual. Second,
it is also not clear that trying or intending is a necessary condition. One of the couples discussed
above is relevant here: the married Catholic pair intending only that she be impregnated, trying only
to fertilize her egg, and not concerned with the sexual pleasure of the act, having more important
things in mind and to attend to, is still performing a sexual act.

Finally, consider Goldman's proposal that (A6): sexual activity is activity that ‘tends to fulfill’ the
desire for the pleasure of physical contact (268). This analysis is more complex than it seems to be at
first glance. It has the spirit and content of several previous analyses: as in (A3), sexual activity
logically depends on physical contact; as in (A4), sexual activity logically depends on sexual pleasure;
as in (A5), sexual activity need not produce pleasure but only ‘tend to.’ The new feature is that
‘sexual activity’ logically depends on ‘sexual desire.’ Perhaps, because (A6) shares certain
definitional things with (A3), (A4), and (A5), it also shares their defects. For example, because sexual
activity is linked to physical contact, telephone/Internet chatting might not count as sexual activity.
But that might turn on whether acts that do not involve physical contact can still ‘tend to fulfill’ the
desire for contact, or whether the pleasure of contact can be produced in ways that do not involve
contact. Regardless, the distinctive component of Goldman's analysis, that sexual activity is defined
in terms of sexual desire, is problematic. If sexual activities are acts that satisfy desire, then if there is
no desire, there is no sexual activity. Counterexamples are not hard to imagine. A prostitute usually
has no sexual desire for her client. In performing fellatio on him or permitting him coitus she is not
doing something that contributes to satisfying sexual desire, for she has none. She, too, goes
through the motions. Yet the fellatio and coitus that she participates in look like sexual acts. That the

7
acts she performs are motivated by a concern for money instead of sexual desire is irrelevant.
Perhaps (A6) can be improved–defenders of some of the other analyses may also want to elaborate
this suggestion–by focusing not on act-tokens but act-types. That is, ‘tends to fulfill’ can be taken to
be about a class of acts, not a single act. It might be possible to argue that the prostitution case is
not a counterexample, because ‘tends to fulfill’ means that the acts in question, fellatio and coitus
(as act-types), usually, in general, or by their nature do lead to sexual satisfaction for the performer,
even if with regard to this particular act-token they do not.

Analysis or definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions is not always successful.
Sometimes none of the proposed conditions can do the job expected of them. This philosophical
failure may be only temporary, as when the fault resides in the scientist, not Nature. In any event,
analysis is not otiose. Much can be learned from the process, even if it does not yield Truth. Working
out why things are wrong is as enlightening as working out why things are right.

References

Atkinson, Ti-Grace. (1968) ‘The Institution of Sexual Intercourse.’ In Amazon Odyssey. New York:
Links Books, 1974, 13-23.
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Christina, Greta. ‘Are We Having Sex Now or What?’ In David Steinberg, ed., The Erotic Impulse:
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