Scruton Scrutinized: Personal vs. Purely Bodily Beauty
Sir Roger Scruton is a well-known conservative philosopher. He is frequently cited by philosophically inclined anti-porn activists. So naturally, I've started reading Scruton's work on beauty, sexual desire, and pornography. Scruton is an excellent writer, and I've found that he and I actually have a decent amount of common ground. But I'm unpersuaded by the case against sex work that I have seen in his writings. Even if we recognize and respect the kind of beauty Scruton emphasizes, we need not abolish sex work. I explain why that's the case in this post, where I reflect on some passages from Scruton's book Beauty that caught my attention.
Beauty: The Centerf–... err, –piece of Scruton's Anti-Porn Ethic
On p. 47, Scruton writes:
There is a distinction, familiar to all of us, between an interest in a person's body and an interest in a person as embodied. A body is an assemblage of body parts; an embodied person is a free being revealed in the flesh. When we speak of a beautiful human body we are referring to the beautiful embodiment of a person, and not to a body considered merely as such.This last sentence is counterintuitive. Suppose it's possible for the body to exist without embodying a person; the body may be there, but nobody's home. That doesn't mean that in such a possible scenario we can't accurately speak of the body as beautiful. Surely it deserves to be called beautiful as much as a flower does. At most, the body then lacks a certain kind of beauty with which a person could suffuse it, but there is a legitimate question about what kind of beauty that could be (especially assuming the body would look and behave exactly the same with or without a person inhabiting it). If any beauty were missing solely due to the body's not housing a person, I should think it would be the beauty of a nonphysical soul rather than bodily beauty.
Suppose instead that it's impossible for the body to exist without embodying the person it does; either the full body or some part of the body (e.g., the brain) is, or inevitably generates, the person. If some part of the body just is the person, then even the body "considered merely as such" has whatever beauty (its embodiment of) the person has. If on the other hand some part of the body generates the person, without being one and the same thing as the person, the body itself is still inextricably linked with the person, so that it's hard to see how the worry arises that the body's beauty might be diminished by sex work.* Sure, consumers of sexual commodities might in certain contexts be exclusively interested in a sex worker's body rather than the person it inevitably generates, but at least the beauty of embodiment itself remains intact despite its not attracting one's interest.
Now, sometimes it is morally objectionable to show no interest in the kind of beauty, or value, a person's body has precisely because it houses a person. For example, if someone, such as a stripper who approaches you at a strip club, gives you a compliment (and you can tell, say because you know the stripper, that the compliment is genuine), it's disrespectful to ignore their kindness, commenting on their appearance—even positively!—rather than thanking them. Since the beauty of the stripper's embodiment partly consists in their ability to make remarks displaying how nice of a person they are, the problem here is that you disregard the beauty of the stripper's embodiment. But other times it seems perfectly acceptable to pay little attention to personal beauty. This is not only true when one is distracted by purely bodily beauty. If you have a study session with a friend, at times you'll most likely bury yourself in your textbooks and disregard your friend's personal and bodily beauty, despite their presence. Even while you look at your friend or communicate with them, it's acceptable to direct your attention, in thought and speech, exclusively toward academics. Likewise, if you're at a strip club and (a) you're too far from the strippers to meaningfully communicate with them or (b) the strippers don't show interest in communicating, it's okay to direct your attention exclusively to the purely bodily beauty of the strippers, even while you're watching them perform, and even if you can observe their personal beauty by simply shifting your attention. Assuming the workers are sufficiently informed about the nature of the job before taking it, they consent to this, and reasonably so. How are they harmed if their personal beauty is temporarily ignored (but, importantly, always believed in, never denied or forgotten), so long as others attend to their personhood when it counts?
"Not so fast, Ben," you may retort. "What's at issue is precisely whether attending to the personal beauty of a sex worker counts whenever one is receiving their services. Plus, arguably, the reason that it's okay to ignore your friend's personal beauty during a study session is that you not only want but need—are best advised—to concentrate on your education. Education is extremely important. The same cannot be said of titillation." Understood. Allow me, then, to argue more directly that one need not always attend to the personal beauty of a sex worker while receiving their services. Imagine you and your friend go to the movie theater to see The People vs. Larry Flynt. Despite how hard you try to listen and respond meaningfully whenever your friend speaks, there will almost certainly be moments when, intentionally or not, you focus more on the movie than what your friend says. At those moments, it is excusable, if not justifiable, not to fully attend to the beauty of your friend's linguistic faculties, because your friend understands your desire to focus on the movie—which you paid to see. And this is true even though it's not that important to watch a movie; you just want to, but that's all the reason you need. In the same way, it is excusable, if not justifiable, not to always fully attend to a sex worker's displays of personal beauty while they serve you. The worker understands your strong desire, or need (if you will),** to focus on their body—which, again, you paid to see.
Now, sometimes it is morally objectionable to show no interest in the kind of beauty, or value, a person's body has precisely because it houses a person. For example, if someone, such as a stripper who approaches you at a strip club, gives you a compliment (and you can tell, say because you know the stripper, that the compliment is genuine), it's disrespectful to ignore their kindness, commenting on their appearance—even positively!—rather than thanking them. Since the beauty of the stripper's embodiment partly consists in their ability to make remarks displaying how nice of a person they are, the problem here is that you disregard the beauty of the stripper's embodiment. But other times it seems perfectly acceptable to pay little attention to personal beauty. This is not only true when one is distracted by purely bodily beauty. If you have a study session with a friend, at times you'll most likely bury yourself in your textbooks and disregard your friend's personal and bodily beauty, despite their presence. Even while you look at your friend or communicate with them, it's acceptable to direct your attention, in thought and speech, exclusively toward academics. Likewise, if you're at a strip club and (a) you're too far from the strippers to meaningfully communicate with them or (b) the strippers don't show interest in communicating, it's okay to direct your attention exclusively to the purely bodily beauty of the strippers, even while you're watching them perform, and even if you can observe their personal beauty by simply shifting your attention. Assuming the workers are sufficiently informed about the nature of the job before taking it, they consent to this, and reasonably so. How are they harmed if their personal beauty is temporarily ignored (but, importantly, always believed in, never denied or forgotten), so long as others attend to their personhood when it counts?
"Not so fast, Ben," you may retort. "What's at issue is precisely whether attending to the personal beauty of a sex worker counts whenever one is receiving their services. Plus, arguably, the reason that it's okay to ignore your friend's personal beauty during a study session is that you not only want but need—are best advised—to concentrate on your education. Education is extremely important. The same cannot be said of titillation." Understood. Allow me, then, to argue more directly that one need not always attend to the personal beauty of a sex worker while receiving their services. Imagine you and your friend go to the movie theater to see The People vs. Larry Flynt. Despite how hard you try to listen and respond meaningfully whenever your friend speaks, there will almost certainly be moments when, intentionally or not, you focus more on the movie than what your friend says. At those moments, it is excusable, if not justifiable, not to fully attend to the beauty of your friend's linguistic faculties, because your friend understands your desire to focus on the movie—which you paid to see. And this is true even though it's not that important to watch a movie; you just want to, but that's all the reason you need. In the same way, it is excusable, if not justifiable, not to always fully attend to a sex worker's displays of personal beauty while they serve you. The worker understands your strong desire, or need (if you will),** to focus on their body—which, again, you paid to see.
* Scruton sometimes seems to express this worry when speaking of desecration, defilement, pollution, obscenity, etc. But I'd understand if one read Scruton as consistently expressing a concern that modern culture disregards and dishonors beauty, not that it lessens or eliminates beauty.
** Matt Fradd demurs whenever people claim to need sexual pleasure. His rejoinder is that one can live, or survive, without sexual pleasure, whereas one can't live without things like food and shelter—legitimate needs. One wonders if he would raise the same objection to the suggestion that humans need love, a good laugh every now and then, or the opportunity to reproduce. Emotionally speaking, many humans need love and laughter; they might rather die than endure a loveless, laugh-less existence. And biologically speaking, the opportunity to reproduce is as much a need as survival. You can meet your biological needs by surviving many years and reproducing occasionally, but you can meet them equally well by surviving relatively few years and reproducing rapidly.
** Matt Fradd demurs whenever people claim to need sexual pleasure. His rejoinder is that one can live, or survive, without sexual pleasure, whereas one can't live without things like food and shelter—legitimate needs. One wonders if he would raise the same objection to the suggestion that humans need love, a good laugh every now and then, or the opportunity to reproduce. Emotionally speaking, many humans need love and laughter; they might rather die than endure a loveless, laugh-less existence. And biologically speaking, the opportunity to reproduce is as much a need as survival. You can meet your biological needs by surviving many years and reproducing occasionally, but you can meet them equally well by surviving relatively few years and reproducing rapidly.
Obscene Gestures
From p. 48:
The obscene gesture is one that puts the body on display as pure body, so destroying the experience of embodiment. We are disgusted by obscenity for the same reason that Plato was disgusted by physical lust: it involves, so to speak, the eclipse of the soul by the body.Presumably this is meant to refer to things like sex work and sexualization in movies, TV, music, apparel, cosmetics, and dance. But why not adopt a more enchanted view of sexualized individuals? Why think the stripper puts their body on display as "pure body," not as a body with a face and hands that serve as windows to the soul? That is how Scruton views faces and hands, after all. On p. 49, he says:
Whether it attracts contemplation or prompts desire, human beauty is seen in personal terms. It resides especially in those features—the face, the eyes, the lips, the hands—which attract our gaze in the course of personal relations, and through which we relate to each other I to I. Although there may be fashions in human beauty, and although different cultures may embellish the body in different ways, the eyes, mouth and hands have a universal appeal. For they are the features from which the soul of another shines on us, and makes itself known.
Here's the thing: much of the appeal of a strip club lies in the knowledge that the strippers are able to communicate with their faces and hands, as well as in the opportunity to actually interact with the strippers. The strippers even communicate in distinctively human ways—ways in which animals cannot communicate—thereby revealing their advanced intellectual capacities. Similarly, much of the appeal of porn and movies featuring sexualization lies in the way the actors engage in distinctively human communication.
I won't pretend that communication is the primary draw for strip clubs' customers or porn's viewers, or that these people would not still go to strip clubs or view porn if there were no communication to look forward to. I also acknowledge that the kind of communication these consumers are looking for is generally nonverbal (e.g., making facial expressions and gestures, or playfully borrowing customers' personal items like hats and glasses), or verbal but flirtatious and lacking in emotional and intellectual depth. But it's distinctively human communication nonetheless. As such, how is the stripper's or the porn star's body put on display as "pure body" rather than as an embodied person? The communication observed is not only a dead giveaway—incidentally accompanying the sex work—that the sex worker's body houses a person, but it's part of the display and the job that Scruton denounces as obscene.
You may be wondering, what about the times when sex workers aren't communicating with the people around them (in any meaningful sense)? Answer: These are paralleled by all the times that people in other lines of work aren't communicating with those around them, such as when a cashier rings a customer up without saying anything, or when a software engineer sits silently in an office, eyes glued to a monitor, despite the presence of coworkers and passersby. The lack of communication is no more morally problematic in sex work than it is in these other jobs.
There is a further concern that whatever communication happens does not reveal the genuine thoughts and feelings of the sex workers; thus, it may seem the body parts with which sex workers communicate either don't at that time serve as windows to the soul, or at best serve as windows with closed blinds. But this is no truer of sex workers than of countless actors, performers, and creators in the television, film, performing arts, visual arts, and writing industries. These people communicate by various bodily means, and many of these communications tell us nothing about what the communicators truly believe, want, intend, and experience. Sometimes even communications that appear or purport to tell us something about these communicators' inner lives do not in fact do so, since they are either deceptive, misleading, or mistaken.
I won't pretend that communication is the primary draw for strip clubs' customers or porn's viewers, or that these people would not still go to strip clubs or view porn if there were no communication to look forward to. I also acknowledge that the kind of communication these consumers are looking for is generally nonverbal (e.g., making facial expressions and gestures, or playfully borrowing customers' personal items like hats and glasses), or verbal but flirtatious and lacking in emotional and intellectual depth. But it's distinctively human communication nonetheless. As such, how is the stripper's or the porn star's body put on display as "pure body" rather than as an embodied person? The communication observed is not only a dead giveaway—incidentally accompanying the sex work—that the sex worker's body houses a person, but it's part of the display and the job that Scruton denounces as obscene.
You may be wondering, what about the times when sex workers aren't communicating with the people around them (in any meaningful sense)? Answer: These are paralleled by all the times that people in other lines of work aren't communicating with those around them, such as when a cashier rings a customer up without saying anything, or when a software engineer sits silently in an office, eyes glued to a monitor, despite the presence of coworkers and passersby. The lack of communication is no more morally problematic in sex work than it is in these other jobs.
There is a further concern that whatever communication happens does not reveal the genuine thoughts and feelings of the sex workers; thus, it may seem the body parts with which sex workers communicate either don't at that time serve as windows to the soul, or at best serve as windows with closed blinds. But this is no truer of sex workers than of countless actors, performers, and creators in the television, film, performing arts, visual arts, and writing industries. These people communicate by various bodily means, and many of these communications tell us nothing about what the communicators truly believe, want, intend, and experience. Sometimes even communications that appear or purport to tell us something about these communicators' inner lives do not in fact do so, since they are either deceptive, misleading, or mistaken.
That said, it's not unheard of for strippers to be open and honest in conversations with customers. In fact, if one frequents a strip club, one is more likely to engage in such conversations with the strippers, because one gets to know them over time. So if anything, spending more time at the strip club makes the experience all the more personal, and so all the more enchanted.
Even Scruton's own example of an erotic gesture—kissing—that respects the beauty of embodiment is not that communicative. Scruton writes on pp. 47–8:
Even Scruton's own example of an erotic gesture—kissing—that respects the beauty of embodiment is not that communicative. Scruton writes on pp. 47–8:
The mouth is not, for us, an aperture through which sounds emerge, but a speaking thing, continuous with the 'I' whose voice it is. To kiss that mouth is not to place one body part against another, but to touch the other person in his very self. Hence the kiss is compromising—it is a move from one self towards another, and a summoning of the other into the surface of his being.
So what makes kissing okay, according to Scruton, is that it is a union of body parts with which people speak—that is, with which they express themselves. But this is true no matter how the people kiss each other. Notice also that people can hardly kiss and speak at the same time. Further, it's hard to believe that people generally think about each other's past/future/possible utterances while kissing; surely they instead tend to focus on the sensation of oral contact. If to kiss is to attend sufficiently to personal beauty, then Scruton has no grounds for objecting to any sexual service that involves or accompanies kisses (between the sex worker and the customer). And by extension, since body parts like eyes and hands are windows to the soul comparable to the mouth, Scruton shouldn't object to any sexual service that involves or accompanies eye contact, handholding, conversing, moaning (in unison), and the like.
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