Update on Eros and Ethos

by Jason Stotts

If you’ve been reading Erosophia for a while now, you know I’m working on my first nonfiction book currently titled: Eros and Ethos: The Ethics of Modern Sex.  It has been going painstakingly slow for quite some time, but I’m happy to announce that the speed of writing has improved and great strides are being made now!  Not only that, but Part 1, the first part that contains the primary theory of Eros and Ethos, is now complete in early draft!    It’s 110 single spaced pages and 58,000 words.  Seeing it all together was such a thrill for me.  Now that the book is really taking shape and writing is going much faster, I’m really thrilled with things and can’t wait to get a complete draft so I can go and start editing and bringing things together really tightly.  At the rate I’m going now, I hope to be completely done in a year.  Perhaps even sooner if I can really push myself.

I hope you guys are as excited about this as I am!

Incidentally, if you are part of the admissions committee in a PhD program in philosophy…feel free to drop me a line.  Or the Kinsey Institute, which would be awesome.  Or a joint PhD in philosophy at IU with work at Kinsey. Dream spot.

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Introduction

Part 1: Theory

 Ch. 1 – Ethics (Done)

1.  The Necessity of Sexual Ethics
2.  Happiness
3.  Egoism
4.  Death as the Motivation of Ethics
5.  Virtue as a Means to Happiness

Ch. 2 – Emotions (Done)

1. The Problem of Emotions
2. The Nature and Development of Emotions
3. Philosophy and Emotions

Ch. 3 – Love (Done)

1. Challenging the Paradigms of Love
2. What Kind of Person is Capable of Love?
3. The Nature of Romantic Love

Ch. 4 – Romantic (Erotic/Sexual) Relationships (Done)

1. Relationships are not Love
2. The bases of intimate Relationships
3. Characteristics of proper Intimate Relationships
4. Marriage
5. Friendship v. Romantic Love

Ch. 5 – Sexual Attraction and Fantasy (Done)

1. Cultural Paradigms of Attraction
2. The Shallowness of Physical Attraction
3. Character Attraction
4. Philosophy and its role in sexual attraction
5. Fantasy

Ch. 6 – Identity, Orientation, and Self-Understanding (Done)

1. Understanding Identity and Orientation
2. Masculinity and Femininity

Ch. 7 – Sex, Union, and Intimacy (Done)

1. The Basic Nature of Sex and Early Considerations
2. Sexual Pleasure and Sex as Emotional Response
3. Intimacy and Union

Conclusion and Summary of Part 1 (Done)

Part 2: Applications

Ch. 8 – Erotic Decadence (Nearly Done)

1. Principles of Ascension and Decadence
2. Perversion: Making Sex Decadent
3. Fetishism
4. Sexual Violence
5. Inauthentic Love

Ch. 9 – Faith, Mysticism, and Sex

1. Virginity, Abstinence, and the Ethics of Denial
2. Dualism and Its Implications
3. Human Genital Mutilation
4. Taboos

Ch. 10 – Reproduction, Progeny, and Family

1. Family
2. Parental Responsibility
3. Abortion
4. Birth Control

Ch. 11 – Sex for Sale

1. Pornography
2. Strip Clubs
3. Prostitution

Ch. 12 – Children and Sexuality

1. The Sexual Child
2. Pedophilia v. Ephebophilia
3. Incest

Ch. 13 – Relationship, Love, and Sex (Partially Done)

1. Same-Sex Marriage
2. Relationships: A Continuum of Permissiveness
3. Swinging
4. Open Relationships and Polyamory
5. Polygamy: Polyandry and Polygyny
6. Friends and Sex

Ch. 14 – Kink

1. The Nature of Kink
2. Sodomy
3. Pegging
4. Fisting
5. BDSM

Ch. 15 – Public and Private

1. Public Nudity and Nude Beaches
2. Exhibitionism
3. Voyeurism

Ch. 16 – Obscenity and Legal Issues in Sexuality

1. Obscenity
2. The “Right not to be Offended”
3. The Age of Consent
4. The Right to Privacy and Sexual Self-Determination
5. Elderly Adults and Sex

Ch. 17 – Paradigms of Attraction

Conclusion