An Essay on The Ethics of Sex

My English assignment was to write about an ethical situation I recently encountered. I'm not very happy with this dense style I write in, but hopefully thats the reason I'm in English -I'm optimistic at this stage.

Some would say that sex is constantly on the minds of today’s young people, but it was in the context of the wellness class I took during winterim, rather than my free time, that I was compelled to consider the subject. The class’ text stated, “[Many young people today] go out in groups rather than strictly as couples, and each person pays his or her way. A man and woman may begin to spend more time together, but often in the group context. If sexual involvement develops, it is more likely to be based on friendship, respect, and common interests than on expectations related to gender roles. In this model, mate selection may progress from getting together to living together to marrying." Finding dating advice in a university textbook caught my attention, and it’s bold contradiction with the Judeo-Christian ideologies that I am indebted to forced me to solidify and justify my own understanding of the subject.
It would seem that most boys my age use their feelings and impulses as their guide in sexual matters. Yet feeling like something is right or really wanting to do it has never proved an entirely satiating reason for action. Many others use the Judeo-Christian prescription to avoid sex until marriage as their guide. I certainly fall into this group, though, as we believe in a reasonable, logical God, we know that His commandments cannot be irrational. Knowing that the 6th commandment had logic behind it, and that it was not an ethical consideration to be taken on face value, it became my job to figure out the logical explanation behind this moral precept.
I began with the assumption that sex serves three purposes, namely that of procreation, unification and pleasure. That sex serves a purpose is vitally important because it allows one to judge sexual actions with respect to an ideal, because an action ideally satisfies its intent perfectly. By way of example, food serves the purpose of nourishment, comradery and pleasure. There is a proper mean for each one of these purposes. As regards to nourishment, bulimics deny food its nourishing purpose, and we say that they have a mental illness. Oppositely, those who excessively indulge in food are harmed by food’s nourishment by way of obesity. We consider this gluttony a vice, and see obesity as undesirable. The mean here is to eat a balanced diet. All of the other purposes of food have similar means to it, as do the purposes of sex.
It was in this context that I evaluated my text’s statement. The text claimed that sexual intimacy could rightly spring out of friendship, yet this harms sex’s procreative purpose by placing children in the hands of a couple who are unprepared and often unwilling to care for the child. Many young people avoid this problem through contraception, but this even more directly denies sex its procreative purpose. I could not accept the text’s unreasonable understanding, and instead searched for the mean, which I believe can be found in a couple which is properly prepared and desirous to raise children. Secondly, the text claimed that friendship, respect and common interests were sufficient criteria in choosing a sexual partner. Yet people involved in daily life will have many relationships that fit these criteria. To have sex with somebody with whom you do not have a specific relationship denies sex its unifying purpose. Lastly, sex serves the purpose of pleasure. At first glance it seems that today’s youth who follow my text’s advise hardly have a problem with acknowledging this purpose of sex. Consider if some men granted a slab of roast beef the same attention they give sex. They would be looked at curiously, to say the least. Treating the pleasures of sex with the same reverence and attention we treat good tasting food is appropriate here – we’d eat whether it tasted good or not, but were none the less thankful when food tastes good. Eating food simply because it tasted good, and therefore not eating bad tasting food, would be physically harmful. I came to the conclusion that the text was wholly wrong in its opinion on sex for these three reasons.
Because we consider sex a matter of morality and ethics, an incorrect understanding can be called an immoral or unethical one. My line of reasoning led me to understand that to have sex in this way is immoral and unethical in nature. Rather, the only reasonable and ethical path for me to take is that of the one Judeo-Christian values have laid out.