Paid Sexual Encounters among Men: A Study in Ethics and Law [Hardcover]

Introduction? 1. Transactional Sexual Relationships? 2. The Meaning of Sex for Relationships? 3. Benefits, Harms, and Morality? 4. Status Equality in Paid Sexual Encounters? 5. Consent and Constraints on Consent? 6. The Reach of the Public into the Private? 7. Morality at the U.S. Supreme Court? Conclusions

This book analyzes the ethics of men buying and selling sex to one another. It gathers in one place key ethical and legal issues that bear on the justification for the criminalization of male prostitution.

Timothy F. Murphy is Professor of Philosophy in the Biomedical Sciences at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago. He has written extensively on ethical issues facing sex and gender minorities in healthcare.?

This book analyzes the ethics of men buying and selling sex to one another. It gathers in one place key ethical and legal issues that bear on the justification for the criminalization of male prostitution.

At present, prostitution  the solicitation or offer of paid sexual encounters  is criminalized in virtually the entire United States. Male prostitution is poorly studied across academic disciplines, and this book represents the first sustained ethical analysis of the topic. First, it shows that paid sexual encounters among men belong on a spectrum of transactional sexual relationships and that many of their features are not distinctive in a way that justifies condemnation. It shows as well that the sexuality involved  men having sex with men  does not involve relationships that are immoral in a way that might justify criminalization. The book also demonstrates that men buying and selling sexual encounters can consent in morally meaningful ways, without reinforcing status inequality, Finally, the book reviews key constitutional law cases to show that a certain interpretation of the relationship between the law and morlCì