A contemporary Kantian on sex: Why sexual desire is objectifying — and hence morally wrong. (And here is the relevant text from Kant’s lectures on sex.)
When I read (ahem) hardcore dualist stuff like this, I always wonder if they and I are talking about the same experience.
For example, think about most people’s reaction to the possibility of sex with a realistic robots. They say, Ewwwww—that’s just an object. I want a real connection with a real person. But the paradigm cases of “objectified” sex would be sex with an actual object, e.g., a robot, and, yes, those sexual encounters that are only semi-mindless joinings of bodies.
Yet the Kantian response seems to be, But that’s what sex always is. Which means that the entire psychological experience of sex, which for most people is inextricably integrated with the physical, is omitted or invisible to the Kantian.
I’ve always liked this line: The biggest sex organ in the human body is the brain. For humans, sex is not merely a matter of apsychological physical drives and actions; it is an integrated psycho-physical experience.
Related: My podcast on real and semi-real sex experiences.