Augustana Confessions
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This is mainly a response to those defending the morality of casual sex and an expression of my frustration toward the cliché responses in regard to this issue. This is not meant to be an attack on your person. Rather, it is just an attempt to make you think before you speak. So here we go. When a person condemns the promiscuous actions of another, the common reply is something along the lines of "It is my body. I should be able to decide how to use it." Such a response is mere chatter and gobbledygook. The mere assertion of bodily autonomy says nothing regarding the proper exercise of that autonomy. So yes, it is your body, but that is a trivial statement and does not address the moral disapproval of your actions. If you are going to make a coherent defense for the moral permissibility of casual sex, you must be able explain why the right to bodily autonomy extends to this practice. Commonly, such a person would say that he is justified in having casual sex with whomever he wishes because the individual decides what is right regarding the proper use of his body. In other words, the individual has absolute bodily autonomy. This reeks of moral egoism and such a moral claim cannot be addressed in full on Augustana Confessions. I would just say though that the individual does not exist in a moral vacuum and thus cannot elevate himself above all that is around him. When a person makes a decision with their body, it must be determined whether or not the decision itself corresponds to proper ends. In other words, there is a teleology of the body that must be heeded. Absolute definitions of bodily autonomy arbitrarily elevate the individual and so carry no normative weight. Some may doubt the existence of proper ends for the exercise of the body, but I doubt many will want to go that road and fall into the trap of moral relativism.