Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:07:02.880Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ethics and Sex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

Fiona Patten
Affiliation:
sex industry lobbyist
Catharine Lumby
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Elspeth Probyn
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Get access

Summary

The sex industry and, more specifically, the pornography production and distribution components of it, are often portrayed as if the people involved in them exist in a kind of ethical void. Can you comment on this view?

People sometimes think that only monsters would be involved in commercialising sex – the first thing that gets talked about as soon as the topic of pornography comes up is child pornography. But the vast majority of people in the industry have families and children and have no interest in exploiting children or anybody else for that matter. If you want to look for child pornography, the last place you'd go looking is the sex industry – the industry is not interested in children at all. You're much more likely to find the sexualisation of children in scout halls and churches.

Those of us who work in and with the industry are constantly accused of being immoral; we're under constant moral scrutiny. And that forces us to think very hard about ethical issues. We are forced to do that more than most industries to show that we aren't unethical. Certainly, the industry is very careful about restricting premises and web sites to deter children and teenagers from having access to adult material. We're interested in adult customers, not kids. So much so that a woman sued Sexpo [an annual industry exposition] after being refused entry because she wanted to bring in her child she was breastfeeding.

Type
Chapter
Information
Remote Control
New Media, New Ethics
, pp. 212 - 215
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×