2003.001 Sexual Ethics and Criminal Law, Lester ... - Francis Bennion

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question. What really does our sexuality amount to? It is the essential that impels the human race to reproduce itself, for otherwise it force die out. It achieves this by making orgasms pleasurable, would pleasure is not truly the criterion. What I am concerned with, though it comes to sex, is the solemn fact that this is the way the human when goes on into the future. For that reason alone, sex demands race What we are discussing here goes far beyond mere ¯eshly respect. or what the Bill sneeringly calls sexual grati®cation. 3 pleasure, Unhappily failure to grasp the truth of that has led some, notably in 5. Bill, to treat sex with a twisted, even grotesque, signi®cance. this think that children, if merely touched by sex, are somehow They irredeemably scarred and marred. Yet the truth is that thereby are far more robust than that. They need to be, for they children all of us are sexual creatures ± and sex needs toughness. like We should not altogether blame the Home O ce, sponsors of the 6. for its crass approach. It is the way the vast majority of the Bill, people see sex, at least when they have reached middle age. British what truly mars many children who encounter sex even in a Yet consenting, way is the horri®ed attitudes to this non-violent, of the adults around them. The grown-ups raise their occurrence and shriek, so the poor innocent terri®ed children are hands ± often for life. It is not sexual acts that mar them, but the damaged unknowing hysterical attitudes of the adults who rule their stupid So the cycle continues . . . lives. If left alone, infants by themselves harmlessly arrive at the truth about 7. They perceive it as a part of life, like hunger, thirst, wonder, and sex. A developing, growing part, which they master bit by bit. enquiry. in any way obnoxious or to be shunned, but just an aspect of the Not things are. No primitive community is troubled by sex. Why way we who think ourselves civilised trail so far behind them? should Unhappily in our community adults come along, very early in 8. to knock the natural sensible attitudes out of the heads of the life, 3 See, e.g., clause 13. 7
children ± with the intention of making them su€er. Sex hate is poor cause of their su€ering, and sex hate is what we are up against the It is not usual to combine treatment of a Government Bill with a 9. legacy such as the writings of Shakespeare. This is regret- literary Our public a€airs need all the help they can get, and much table. is to be got from our literary heritage. But still there is the great help of custom. Leaping this, I venture to quote Shakespeare in the divide context of the need to ®ght those who would wrong sex ± present desperate grown Diseases desperate appliance are relieved, By Or not at all. 4 Of course I acknowledge the deviant urges that drive sex o€enders, 10. deeply regretting the absence of any Government initiative to while their causes, and possible cures. It would be useful to investigate what impels sex o€enders to do what lamentably they do. probe often bypass the obviously useful, and have done so Governments this case, drearily repeating long-accustomed patterns. in 4 Hamlet IV.3. when it comes to this Bill. 8
Page 1 and 2: SEXUAL ETHICS AND CRIMINAL LAW A Cr
Page 3 and 4: y Published Publishing Lester PEGAS
Page 5 and 6: and Politics Ethics Sex Code: Moral
Page 7: The Sex Hate Bill? This report sets
Page 11 and 12: e clear about its ethical foundatio
Page 13 and 14: ce group on reforming sex o€ences
Page 15 and 16: ``Sexual activity between minors''
Page 17 and 18: A further element is that much publ
Page 19 and 20: Nor in such cases is it ``appropria
Page 21 and 22: only arise ``where it is clear that
Page 23 and 24: to be proved by the prosecution bey
Page 25 and 26: act in question, though exhypothesi
Page 27 and 28: Sexual interference with human rema
Page 29 and 30: Bill's elaborate de®nition gets us
Page 31 and 32: the disabled? 49 When dealing with
Page 33 and 34: The Bill's proposals relating to se
Page 35 and 36: Obviously in this report I have onl
Page 37 and 38: . . . the ®rst guide to secular se
Page 39 and 40: natures, abortion and pornography.
Page 41 and 42: far the best section of Bennion's w
Page 43 and 44: We should comply with the ethical c
Page 45 and 46: It is immoral, as contravening the
Page 47 and 48: Where it is known or suspected by e

2003.001 Sexual Ethics and Criminal Law, Lester ... - Francis Bennion

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