All Dressed Sex In “Plain Sex”, Alan Goldman defines sex as contingent to the intent of fulfilling sexual desire using three main arguments; reproduction, expression of love and communication (57). I will outline his arguments and object that his definition of sexual desire is too inclusive. First, reproduction is not guaranteed when in the sexual acts of kissing, sodomy or fellatio. Second, expressing love in the form of touch can lead to falsely classifying non sexual acts as sexual. Finally, while one may have the desire for sex, sex itself may not be communicative, thereby negating emotionless sex. In defining sex as simply the intent of sexual desire, Goldman fails to see the diversity and plurality of sex. It’s counter-intuitive to view sex’s sole purpose as instrumental to reproduction since people engage in sex without desiring to reproduce and in cases where reproduction is …show more content…
For instance, petting my dog to express communication of friendship, here my intent is touch not for sexual desire. Goldman validates babies need for touch and in the case of touching in sports, he argues that those examples are for the need of baby 's attachment and the bodily function of exercising. In contrast to Goldman’s inclusive view, Linda Woodhead writes in “sex in a wider context”, viewing sex as between children, family friends and community (99). Also, Goldman’s view fails to take into account the different variety of sex within and across religions. Phil Zuckerman and Christel Manning writes in their book “sex and religion: an introduction” that while there exists many plurality of sex across different religions, there also exist many interpretations of sex within religious traditions (1-2). By simply viewing sex as plain sex, Goldman fails to see the diversity of