December 5, 2018

"The outside lawyers were told by multiple people that CBS had an employee 'who was "on call" to perform oral sex' on [CEO Les] Moonves."

"According to the draft report: 'A number of employees were aware of this and believed that the woman was protected from discipline or termination as a result of it.'... 'Moonves received oral sex from at least 4 CBS employees under circumstances that sound transactional and improper to the extent that there was no hint of any relationship, romance, or reciprocity.'"

From "‘Transactional’ Sex and a Secret Resignation Letter: Takeaways From a Report on Les Moonves/A 59-page draft report produced by lawyers for CBS’s board contains new details and allegations about Mr. Moonves, the company’s former chief executive" (NYT).

Is "transactional sex" a standard term? Here's a Wikipedia article, "Transactional sex":
Transactional sex refers to sexual relationships where the giving of gifts or services is an important factor. Transactional sex is a superset of prostitution, in that the exchange of gifts for sex includes a broader set of (usually non-marital) obligations that do not necessarily involve a predetermined payment or gift, but where there is a definite motivation to benefit materially from the sexual exchange. The participants do not necessarily frame themselves in terms of prostitutes/clients, but often as girlfriends/boyfriends, or sugar babies/sugar daddies. Those offering sex may or may not feel affection for their partners.
I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange. If the exchange must be sweetened on one side, with extras beyond the sex itself, then you shouldn't have sex at all. I'm not offering this as a legal standard, just my idea of what good people should do.

Anyway, "transactional sex" is an interesting term to me. I won't make a new tag, though. I'll just use the overarching term "prostitution." A lot of things are on what I would call the "prostitution continuum."

141 comments:

Darrell said...

I use "Prostitution Spectrum."
Blow Girls. And Blow Boys, I imagine,
There's no business like show business was prophetic.

J. Farmer said...

A lot of things are on what I would call the "prostitution continuum."

Marriage, for example.

Ann Althouse said...

"Marriage, for example."

A lot of marriages, obviously. Yours?

PJ57 said...

I wonder how they disclosed that in the CBS proxy statement. Other perquisites?

Brn said...

In one of Joe Eszterhas's books (I think it was American Rhapsody), he wrote that it was common for Hollywood executives to have a "manacurist" on staff for just this purpose.

Unknown said...

So like Kamala Harris and Willie Brown??

tim in vermont said...

One of the main things that is different about women from just about any other female animal is that that they are always sexually receptive, even when not in a part of their cycle where they can conceive. What a strange adaptation... it's almost like God (metaphor) designed them that way to keep men around long enough to raise our slow maturing and helpless young. Almost like sex is evolutionarily transactional.

But I still believe in love, and surrender to the illusions that our hormones and brain wiring foster.

Otto said...

"I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange"
example: father wants to fu*k his daughter and daughter wants to fu*k her father
Ann says "go at it"
example: Law professor wants to fu*k one of her (his) student and student wants to fu*k his (her) professor.
Ann says "go at it"
Ann is a cultural marxist

Saint Croix said...

I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange. If the exchange must be sweetened on one side, with extras beyond the sex itself, then you shouldn't have sex at all. I'm not offering this as a legal standard, just my idea of what good people should do.

My position is that people should only have sex when there is love in their hearts.

I had a room full of attorneys laugh at me one time when I said that. But it's still my position.

If we reduce sex to sport, we're going to have a lot of dead babies, a lot of hidden violence, and a lot of dishonesty.

tim in vermont said...

Clinton had his hottie blonde that the secret service called his Energizer bunny. He should have stuck to that. It sounded like she enjoyed it. It really is the "against their will" thing that bugs me. Prostitution should be legal and regulated, like massage therapy.

rehajm said...

For the service providers, any compensation for services must be reported the IRS, even if the service is illegal. For Moonves, non cash benefits must be reported to the IRS according to the full value of the benefit to the employee.

CBS has a thicket of W-2s and 1099s to figure out.

rhhardin said...

The ladies are there so Moonves can keep his mind on work. You don't want him thinking of pussies all day.

Hagar said...

Icky people, our "elite."

rhhardin said...

The lady exchanges sex for sex and money. She just wants it less than Moonves. The money is change left over.

J. Farmer said...

A lot of marriages, obviously. Yours?

Not married, Ann. Perhaps you can send a few commenters my way.

Mike Sylwester said...

Did Moonves criticize Trump for his "grab their pussy" remark?

Also, was Moonves the only executive in his business who enjoyed this perk?

rhhardin said...

Itellectual property should only be exchanged for intellectual property.

The example has to be non-rivalrous to be parallel.

dix said...


Housewife charged in sex for security scam

iowan2 said...

Trump is great at observational awareness. He talks about what he sees others doing. You know ;) like "they let you grab them by the pussy if you're famous"

Trump talks about what he sees others doing in his world.

The left actually does those things.

Fritz said...

Brn said...
In one of Joe Eszterhas's books (I think it was American Rhapsody), he wrote that it was common for Hollywood executives to have a "manacurist" on staff for just this purpose.


You gotta buff the tips.

rhhardin said...

A husband could have a consensual affair if his wife doesn't want sex.

He'd be a good person then.

David Begley said...

“example: Law professor wants to fu*k one of her (his) student and student wants to fu*k his (her) professor.
Ann says "go at it" “

Two of my male law professors at Creighton did that. And, of course, there was the University of Iowa law prof who gave a lecture and asked two of my Catholic female law classmates for a threesome. And in an apartment in the law school,building. He must have thought they were groupies or something. Knew one of them very well. Surprised she didn’t slap him.

MikeR said...

"I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange. If the exchange must be sweetened on one side, with extras beyond the sex itself, then you shouldn't have sex at all. I'm not offering this as a legal standard, just my idea of what good people should do."
Why does this make any sense?

Darrell said...

Les Moonves probably opted for a Hum and Coke to make the women work three times as long. Bastard.

David Docetad said...

"I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange."

That's one heck of a moral stand.

I generally go with one should only engage in sex when it is with one's spouse, and you are both in the mood. And sometimes, for the good of the team, you get in the mood even if you are not.

mockturtle said...

Somewhere between casual sex and St. Croix's idealistic vision is a more practical view. Sex is a basic human need, rather like food and water. Obtaining sexual comfort need not always be an act of love but, for believers in God, should be confined to marriage.

Maybe some women view sex as a quid pro quo arrangement but that seems outdated when women are more financially independent. Most women don't marry wealthy men, after all.

David Docetad said...

"Why does this make any sense?"

A very good question. What makes sex different than a massage? Why is it special? If it is special, maybe confining it to marriage has a purpose.

Oso Negro said...

If only human females were cheerfully open to routine sex-for-sex exchanges and utterly uninterested in sex for social status or lucre! Sadly, in my personal survey of thousands of women, maybe 10% of women fall into the category of just wanting a good fuck. The rest want a wee bit more. I suggest the rest of you fellows follow Ann's advice. My offspring will handle the future.

tim maguire said...

tim in vermont said...
One of the main things that is different about women from just about any other female animal is that that they are always sexually receptive,


A number of primate species, including humans, use sex for general bonding purposes (that includes political advantage), not just for procreation.

David Begley said...

If sex is a basic human need, then government must provide it. That’s right in the constitution.

J. Farmer said...

@mockturtle:

Maybe some women view sex as a quid pro quo arrangement but that seems outdated when women are more financially independent. Most women don't marry wealthy men, after all.

I agree, but marrying for romantic love is a relatively new idea. Marriage for most of human history has been a transactional arrangement. This of course remains true for large parts of the world today. Also consider the general differences in attraction between men and women. Women tend to be attracted to mean with high status and power, and men tend to be attracted to women who are young and beautiful.

As my father is fond of saying, never insult a man's ego or a woman's beauty.

Ann Althouse said...

"My position is that people should only have sex when there is love in their hearts."

So a woman loves a man very much but does not want to have sex with him. He would enjoy sex with her if he didn't know she didn't want him sexually. She offers to give sex purely out of love, but truthfully says she does not like the sex itself. He loves her too. Should he accept her offer? I say no.

tim maguire said...

You should only have sex when you want to. The specific reasons why you want to are not important.

tim in vermont said...

He should accept her offer and start looking around. She should work on her 'blind eye.'

whitney said...

I'm confused. Are we for sex workers or we anti sex workers?

Ann Althouse said...

You are misreading me if you think I've said that as long as 2 people both want the sex, they should have sex.

Obviously, I think there are additional rules, such as no sex with children and no parent-offspring sex.

The question whether there must always be a state that both individuals understand as love is more difficult. I think if you have a married couple who are committed to each other and both want the sex as sex, it's okay if one or both aren't sure that their current feeling for the other is love. Many people puzzle a lot over what love is, and some never call anything they feel love. I wouldn't exclude these people from even-exchange sex for sex. And a lot of people think they feel love, but maybe they are wrong, maybe they're fooling themselves.

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm confused. Are we for sex workers or we anti sex workers?"

Legally or morally?

Morally, I say no.

Legally, it's a complex policy question.

David Docetad said...

"So a woman loves a man very much but does not want to have sex with him. He would enjoy sex with her if he didn't know she didn't want him sexually. She offers to give sex purely out of love, but truthfully says she does not like the sex itself. He loves her too. Should he accept her offer? I say no."

There real question, of course, is are they married?

John henry said...

"Employee" is a legal term.

I would be very surprised if CBS had an "employee" to blow Moonves.

Did she (he?) get ss and tax deducyed? Medical and retirement bennies?

Salary or wage? If wage, did they get overtime?

And so on.

I'd love to see the job description.

I call bullshit on employee. Sounds like more fake news.

J. Farmer said...

I'm confused. Are we for sex workers or we anti sex workers?

A very complicated question. Intelligence Squared hosted a debate a number of years ago on the proposition "It's Wrong to Pay for Sex." You can watch it here. The panelists were all over the map, but Wendy Shalit for the motion and Tyler Cowen against were the most useful in my opinion.

J. Farmer said...

And of course we live in a society that says if a man wants to marry a woman, he needs to go out and buy a very expensive piece of jewelry and present it to her. There are even "formulas" for how much to spend, usually some multiple of the man's monthly income.

David Begley said...

“Ngoc Lan Tran: What kind of fuck you give me? What kind? American people, eight kind of fuck. Love fuck, hate fuck, sex-only fuck, break-up fuck, make-up fuck, drunk fuck, buddy fuck, pity fuck.”

From the movie Downsizing. Written and directed by Omaha native and resident Alexander Payne.

tim in vermont said...

The man will, if he can, find a woman who enjoys having sex with him and move on. The woman can then continue to want contradictory things alone, which is why no real woman would tell a man she loved that not only is she not enjoying the sex, but that fixing it is impossible for him.

Bay Area Guy said...

"The outside lawyers were told by multiple people that CBS had an employee 'who was "on call" to perform oral sex' on [CEO Les] Moonves"

I thought Dodd-Frank required that every company have a corporate cocksucker........

Rob said...

Jacqueline Onassis could not be reached for comment.

J. Farmer said...

I kind of miss the old school feminist arguments that saw prostitution and pornography as exploitation of women. Feminists of that stripe were often criticized for being on the same side as conservative Christians, which for a certain subset of the population is about the worst thing you can be. Camille Paglia likes to brag that her so called "sex-positive" feminism won out during the culture wars of the 90s, but I am not sure that going from Take Back the Night anti-porn protests to Amber Rose's SlutWalk in a single generation has been entirely positive for women.

rhhardin said...

"...just my idea of what good people should do."
Why does this make any sense?


Althouse has a penetration hot button issue. Her theories then line up with it.

rhhardin said...

As Doctor somebody said on the air to a woman who said sex wasn't a priority anymore, "Is your marriage a priority?"

rhhardin said...

Are roofies okay in marriage. Maybe the solution here.

bleh said...

Ann thinks it’s morally wrong for one spouse to engage in a sex act if done purely to pleasure the other spouse. So no hand jobs or blow jobs. It’s a charmingly simpleminded view of sex.

The truth is people have complicated reasons for “wanting” sex, and sometimes the desire to please a loved one is a huge motivating factor. She probably thinks her “moral” position promotes some great feminist ideal, but it doesn’t. As long as we’re judging the morality of sex acts between consenting adults within the confines of commited relationships, is it okay to say no one should ever engage in anal sex? God says it’s wrong, right? Who cares if both couples “want” it when God hasn’t consented?

gspencer said...

Bzzzzz, "Mr. Moonves, it's a little after ten. Do you want your orgasm break before coffee, or after? Kathy needs to know."

Laslo Spatula said...

In the near future women will be seen as Organic Artisan Free-Range Sex Robots.

Some men will still prefer them to the synthetic alternative.

If they can afford it.

Incidentally, these men will be called splooge stooges.

Brave New World.

I am Laslo.

Bay Area Guy said...

I thought Bill Clinton and his Democrat enablers already resolved this thorny issue? They said that if the Big Kahuna gets an occasional blow job from an intern, it's not sexual harassment because it's consensual and it's not adultery because oral sex is not really sex.

Hey, look on the bright side - at least the team of designated female CBS cocksuckers were making good wages - unlike the lowly designated intern cocksuckers, like Lewinsky.

rhhardin said...

Artificial intelligence will someday advance to a sex robot that wants sex, for Althouse purists.

Mere indifference won't solve the moral problem here.

rehajm said...

I thought Dodd-Frank required that every company have a corporate cocksucker........

Creepier: Dodd-Frank has/had strict provisons on executive compensation...including a clawback provision.

Gabriel said...

@J. Farmer:And of course we live in a society that says if a man wants to marry a woman, he needs to go out and buy a very expensive piece of jewelry and present it to her. There are even "formulas" for how much to spend, usually some multiple of the man's monthly income.

You know what the consequences are, socially, for not going along with this?

Nothing.

My wife and I have wedding rings but don't wear them. Me, because I worked in a machine shop a lot and didn't want my finger ripped off, or the ring damaged. And we both thought an engagement ring a frivolous expense.

Society "says" we "need" to do this in the same way society says we need to tell kids about Santa Claus. It's a tradition which you are free to participate in to the extent you wish. People won't shun you, or blast you on Twitter and try to get you fired.

Ann Althouse said...

"There real question, of course, is are they married?"

No, it isn't. If you need to give a 2-part answer, go ahead.

Darrell said...

CBS hires Mr. Wu as a corporate consultant.
Cocksucker!

Ann Althouse said...

"Ann thinks it’s morally wrong for one spouse to engage in a sex act if done purely to pleasure the other spouse. So no hand jobs or blow jobs. It’s a charmingly simpleminded view of sex."

You have an unexamined premise that the person who gives a blow or hand job doesn't experience sexual pleasure. It's just one way, good for one but not for the other. Maybe you're doing it wrong!

Anonymous said...

Oso Negro: If only human females were cheerfully open to routine sex-for-sex exchanges and utterly uninterested in sex for social status or lucre! Sadly, in my personal survey of thousands of women, maybe 10% of women fall into the category of just wanting a good fuck. The rest want a wee bit more.

A common error following on that (accurate) description would be assuming that the other 90% wanting the "wee bit more" is rational and calculating - entirely a transactional consideration - and strictly separated from female libido. IOW, that women are men.

Not saying you're making that fundamental error here, Oso, but I think Althouse is. Thinking that women's mixing up "status and lucre" in any way with sex is inherently immoral is kinda like believing that it's immoral for men to "decide" they want youth and beauty in a sex partner.

bleh said...

“You have an unexamined premise that the person who gives a blow or hand job doesn't experience sexual pleasure. It's just one way, good for one but not for the other. Maybe you're doing it wrong!”

Nice try at deflection. You’re the one with the ridiculous, indefensible moral view of sex. Stay focused on that.

bleh said...

“If a person giving a blow job doesn’t orgasm just from giving the blowjob, the blowjob is a moral travesty.” - Ann Althouse

rhhardin said...

Furniture helps. Get a polyamory for the bedroom.

tim in vermont said...

Bzzzzz, "Mr. Moonves, it's a little after ten. Do you want your orgasm break before coffee, or after? Kathy needs to know."

“That slut should learn her place! She only ‘needs’ to know when I feel like telling her!”

rhhardin said...

Maybe Althouse is a nymphomaniac but worried about other people.

rhhardin said...

The golden rule doesn't work here. Treat people as you would like to be treated.

It just makes it worse.

J. Farmer said...

@Gabriel:

Society "says" we "need" to do this in the same way society says we need to tell kids about Santa Claus. It's a tradition which you are free to participate in to the extent you wish. People won't shun you, or blast you on Twitter and try to get you fired.

Completely agree. I am simply describing, not endorsing. But social ostracization does exist.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

did he send out a 1099 form ?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Ann Althouse said...

So a woman loves a man very much but does not want to have sex with him. He would enjoy sex with her if he didn't know she didn't want him sexually. She offers to give sex purely out of love, but truthfully says she does not like the sex itself. He loves her too. Should he accept her offer? I say no.

I don't know what it means to say that she does not want to have sex with him, but she offers purely out of love. Assuming there is no coercion involved, she offered to have sex because (out of love) she wanted to give him something that he would enjoy very much. What kind of husband would turn down a gift freely offered out of love?

Are you equating wanting to have sex with feeling horny?

rhhardin said...

Men are like waffles. Women are like spaghetti.

Relationship advice book title stumbled into looking for the name of the on-air doctor who asked is your marriage a priority.

Dr. Laura.

Bay Area Guy said...

Ok, so are you guys here ready to a make a fortune?

We start a company - Uber Cocksucking Service (UCS) -- which is kinda like Uber Eats.

When a powerful horny CEO like Les Moonves desperately need an office hummer - transactional or otherwise - instead of padding the payroll with ditzy designated cocksuckers, you simply hit the UCS app on your cell phone and Uber drops off a hot babe to smoke your pole at the office, and then immediately scrams when the job is complete.

You could even contract with young males to service powerful female CEOs like Sheryl Sandberg or powerful gay CEOs like David Geffen or that Gay CEO at Apple. Why discriminate in this day and age?

The Uber of blow jobs is the future. Let's not miss the golden opportunity.

tim in vermont said...

“If a person giving a blow job doesn’t orgasm just from giving the blowjob, the blowjob is a moral travesty.” - bleh

Oh come on, bleh. if sex were simply about sensations and intensity of orgasm, but sides would retreat to masturbation. It’s about relationships, it’s about experiencing pleasure through witnessing pleasure, it’s about a lot of things.

tim in vermont said...

If giving head offers zero pleasure, what pleasure do people get from watching porn?

rightguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rightguy said...


I heard a long time ago that getting ahead in life was all about "who you know and who you blow...".

Darrell said...

what pleasure do people get from watching porn?

Digital. Grab your dick and double click.

Birches said...

I think the person was probably a regular employee. Didn't Roger Ailes have someone like that on staff too? She had a make work job but everyone knew the reason she was there was because Roger said so.

MadisonMan said...

You do know: Just because multiple people tell you something, that does not make it true.

I'm suspicious of this news item.

Gahrie said...

What happened to the idea that the purpose of sex is procreation?

What happens if a woman doesn't enjoy sex...but wants a child? Would the sex in that case be transactional?

Darrell said...

Didn't Roger Ailes have someone like that on staff too?

No.

rhhardin said...

Armstrong and Getty speculate about any touches of romance. Candles. Maybe scented.

Jupiter said...

"I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange. If the exchange must be sweetened on one side, with extras beyond the sex itself, then you shouldn't have sex at all. I'm not offering this as a legal standard, just my idea of what good people should do."

You're confused. You are treating sexual activity as different from every other form of activity. But the reason we treat sex as different from other activities is not that it causes pleasure. Lots of activities cause pleasure, mutual or otherwise, but only sex creates children. So what you are actually doing here, is taking the sacralization of sex, derived from its reproductive purpose, and transferring it to the incidental fact that sex causes pleasure. From there, you derive this bizarre notion that mutually pleasurable sex is the only moral form of sex. But why should that be? Should you only cook when you're hungry?

bleh said...

“What happened to the idea that the purpose of sex is procreation?

What happens if a woman doesn't enjoy sex...but wants a child? Would the sex in that case be transactional?”

According to Althouse, yes. A moral line has been transgressed.

Fernandinande said...

Resignation Letter

So they must be looking for a replacement...where do I send my résumé?

David Begley said...

Bay Area Guy:

Will this app have a spit or swallow option?

Leslie Graves said...

I know a married couple. They love each other and they had a great sexual relationship.

One of them was stricken with a serious illness. The combination of the medication and the illness itself caused a complete annihilation of sexual desire and the ability to experience sexual arousal/pleasure. This might not be permanent.

The non-sexual/ill person provides a sexual service to the other person once a week.

This bothers me. It just seems so, so transactional. My instincts here line up with the Althouse rule.

The only place I can think of where my instincts don't line up with the Althouse rule is when a couple wants a kid and maybe one or the other isn't all that much into sex today or this week, but hey, gotta do it. That doesn't bother me at all, for some reason.

President-Mom-Jeans said...

Althouse said "A lot of marriages, obviously. Yours?"

Not everyone is so great at marriage that their first one ends up in divorce, and then they trade their taxpayer funded retirement plan for gardening services.

Jupiter said...

Now this is actually more interesting. Moonves tried to fuck his doctor! This guy is like one of those little dogs that humps everybody's legs.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/les-moonves-admits-to-unwanted-kissing-of-his-doctor-19-years-ago

What makes it interesting is that her employer, UCLA, advised her not to report it to the police. Let's ponder the ethics of that little transaction. Meanwhile, she wrote about it in a scholarly article, but didn't identify Moonves because of the doctor-patient relationship.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Does this employee also do butt stuff? Asking for a friend.

Or maybe that’s a different employee.

The head girl, the butt girl, the arm candy hj girl ?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Leslie Graves said...

The non-sexual/ill person provides a sexual service to the other person once a week.

This bothers me. It just seems so, so transactional.


So partner A has the opportunity to provide partner B (the person they love) with great joy, pleasure, and stress relief, at zero dollar cost, and with nothing more than maybe 15 minutes of moderate effort a week. (Joy, pleasure, and stress relief that partner B is precluded from seeking from anyone else.) And you think they should forgo that opportunity, because they are not feeling horny at that particular moment?

I do not understand this.

David Docetad said...

Blogger Jupiter said...

"You're confused. You are treating sexual activity as different from every other form of activity. But the reason we treat sex as different from other activities is not that it causes pleasure. Lots of activities cause pleasure, mutual or otherwise, but only sex creates children. So what you are actually doing here, is taking the sacralization of sex, derived from its reproductive purpose, and transferring it to the incidental fact that sex causes pleasure."

This is right on. I attempted to make this point above, but you have done a much better job at it.

Ann's confusion is understandable. Same-sex marriage fully breaks the relationship between marriage, sex, and children. There can then be nothing special about sex.

Leslie Graves said...

If I were the person receiving the sexual service (from someone who is not enjoying any of the sex itself), I would not in fact feel great job, pleasure or stress relief in that situation. I would be creeped out by myself, if I wanted my partner to do that.

If I were the healthy partner who still wanted and even craved sex, I would go down the celibacy path in solidarity with my sick spouse.

mockturtle said...

Thinking that women's mixing up "status and lucre" in any way with sex is inherently immoral is kinda like believing that it's immoral for men to "decide" they want youth and beauty in a sex partner.

Good point, Angle-Dyne

gahrie said...

Althouse has never understood the male sex drive.

rhhardin said...

Timed obligatory sex in an attempt to conceive is called sushi night.

rhhardin said...

Rmembering bush: husband with no sex in a long time.

mockturtle said...

So partner A has the opportunity to provide partner B (the person they love) with great joy, pleasure, and stress relief, at zero dollar cost, and with nothing more than maybe 15 minutes of moderate effort a week. (Joy, pleasure, and stress relief that partner B is precluded from seeking from anyone else.) And you think they should forgo that opportunity, because they are not feeling horny at that particular moment?

I do not understand this.


Neither do I. Who would not want to give pleasure to his/her spouse? And why would he/she not?

gerry said...

Ann's confusion is understandable. Same-sex marriage fully breaks the relationship between marriage, sex, and children. There can then be nothing special about sex.

Once you discard Natural Law as an inconvenience, anything goes.

Seeing Red said...

Transactional sex refers to sexual relationships where the giving of gifts or services is an important factor.

Only for the rich who don’t want to be called a John.

Doug said...

I'm not offering this as a legal standard, just my idea of what good people should do.

And you graduated from law school?!

SeanF said...

Leslie Graves: If I were the person receiving the sexual service (from someone who is not enjoying any of the sex itself), I would not in fact feel great job, pleasure or stress relief in that situation. I would be creeped out by myself, if I wanted my partner to do that.

Just out of curiosity, does it bother you every time your partner does something they don't enjoy for the benefit of you and/or the relationship, or only when it's sex?

Oso Negro said...

@Angle-Dyne and Mockturtle - I am right there with you, girls! At 20, I could trade on my charm and handsome good looks. At 60, I trade on my charm, social status, and economic power. It's all good.

Oso Negro said...

@ Leslie Graves - was it Multiple Sclerosis by any chance? And what is wrong with sex as an act of service? It is one of the five languages of love!

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Leslie Graves said...

If I were the person receiving the sexual service (from someone who is not enjoying any of the sex itself), I would not in fact feel great job, pleasure or stress relief in that situation. I would be creeped out by myself, if I wanted my partner to do that.

Why would you feel that way? Do you see sex as some horrible ordeal, the badness of which can only be overcome by your hornyness? I see it as a physical activity which I could enjoy engaging in for my partner's pleasure, even if it was giving me no pleasure.

William said...

It's my understanding that the entertainment and broadcast news industries are staffed with many attractive young women who are fiercely ambitious and not overly burdened with prudish hang ups. The male executives are similarly ambitious and similarly unburdened with bourgeois notions of morality. The behavior of Les Moonves is more a function of the structure of his industry than of his personal morality. My sympathies are with Les Moonves. I admire his forbearance and restraint in not putting a move on every attractive woman in his employ, but I suppose it can be argued that power and money occupied a larger part of his libido than mere sex........I think it's rich that the entertainment people have now made a movie about Roger Ailes. They apparently think that sexual immorality has something to do with a conservative outlook.

reader said...

What happens when both partners want a child but it doesn't happen easily/quickly? Then over the course of a few years there are times they are having sex when neither is amorous. At times it is simply a process. In fact the fear and pain of failure can make the process melancholy.

Least fun sex ever.

bleh said...

"What happens when both partners want a child but it doesn't happen easily/quickly? Then over the course of a few years there are times they are having sex when neither is amorous. At times it is simply a process. In fact the fear and pain of failure can make the process melancholy.

Least fun sex ever."

Immoral. That was easy.

reader said...

Least fun sex ever. Obviously, I meant as a couple who enjoys sex and enjoys it with each other. Not talking about rape or other evil situations.

Jupiter said...

David Docetad said...

"Same-sex marriage fully breaks the relationship between marriage, sex, and children."

Which is why it is possible to hate and despise same-sex marriage and all the nihilist vermin who promote it without having the least bit of animosity to those unfortunate persons whose sex drive is directed at their own sex. And it is also why the nihilist vermin promote it, although they could not care less about the welfare of homosexuals.

Anonymous said...

rightguy: I heard a long time ago that getting ahead in life was all about "who you know and who you blow...".

I heard it wasn't about who you know and who you blow, but how you blow who you know.

mockturtle said...

Sean F asks: Just out of curiosity, does it bother you every time your partner does something they don't enjoy for the benefit of you and/or the relationship, or only when it's sex?

Right, like taking out the garbage! No one really enjoys taking out the garbage or doing someone's laundry. It's a labor of love, like so many things in a relationship. If my spouse had an itch, I was happy to scratch it. And even when I wasn't 'in the mood', I'd usually be in the mood once the action was underway.

mockturtle said...

And vice-versa, I would add. ;-)

tcrosse said...

I heard it wasn't about who you know and who you blow, but how you blow who you know.

I heard it was who you know that blows.

Darrell said...

Lots of knowing and lots of blowing here today. . .

Anonymous said...

Jupiter: So what you are actually doing here, is taking the sacralization of sex, derived from its reproductive purpose, and transferring it to the incidental fact that sex causes pleasure. From there, you derive this bizarre notion that mutually pleasurable sex is the only moral form of sex.

Add my upvote for this remark to those above.

The process of attempting to transfer a deracinated "sacralization" to an incidental fact is a pretty good description of the whole prog project. It produces ever more incoherent "notions".

Darrell said...

Les Moonves is getting away Scott Free because everyone is focusing on their own definition of acceptable sex. Sad.

n.n said...

Friends with benefits, casting couch relationships, intersectional sex, political congruence, and Planned Parenthood. #HateLovesAbortion

Jupiter said...

Blogger Angle-Dyne, Samurai Buzzard said...

'The process of attempting to transfer a deracinated "sacralization" to an incidental fact is a pretty good description of the whole prog project. It produces ever more incoherent "notions".'

Since we're going all meta here, it used to be possible to derive moral precepts from religion. Having denied the legitimacy of religion, the Lefties are free to pick over those precepts, elevating those they find attractive and discarding others as atavistic "bigotry". Not being religious myself, I have a certain sympathy with their predicament. I find that I have a great many moral sentiments, but nothing better to justify them with than biology, which in turn reduces by way of chemistry to physics, finally petering out as mere mathematics. Mere mathematics.

rhhardin said...

Religion comes from ethics, not the reverse.

Richard Dolan said...

"I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange."

How is that a moral position? A "sex-for-sex exchange" is a market-based notion that relies on consent mutually expressed as the basis to validate the transaction. It's just the usual utilitarian argument. The point of an exchange market is that the participants to the transaction get to define what amounts to equivalent value, and however they define that equivalence (be it sex-for-sex, sex-for-money, sex-for-whatever-works), the legitimacy of the transaction doesn't change.

So you start with an exchange-based idea but want to offload the utilitarian idea of morality that goes with it. That's a tricky thing to pull off.

Bay Area Guy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
hshimmin said...

'The truth is people have complicated reasons for “wanting” sex.' . .

The truth is, too many of our betters fail to have learned anything from the 19th century.

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
’My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Mark Nielsen said...


Jupiter says: "Mere mathematics."

Blasphemy!

Jupiter said...

rhhardin said...
"Religion comes from ethics, not the reverse."

I doubt that. If you mean that morality preceded religion as a historical matter, I expect you are correct. Certainly, morality appears to exist in some form in all social mammals. Not so sure about the social insects. Once the reproductive unit ceases to be the individual, and becomes instead the hive, the relations among individuals become analogous to the relations among cells in our bodies.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

rhhardin said...

Timed obligatory sex in an attempt to conceive is called sushi night.

I'm confused. Is the time an upper or lower limit? Either way, it seems like unnecessary pressure.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

A.A.: "I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange. If the exchange must be sweetened on one side, with extras beyond the sex itself, then you shouldn't have sex at all."

This just applies to sex? How about foot rubs? Haircuts? Only even in-kind exchanges allowed?

If just "sex", then why? Because of the unique sacred nature of coitus, to create new life? Then handjob, blowjob, anal intercourse, and all homosexual activity is OK for pay.

Must the "sex-for-sex" exchange be immediate? OK if orgasm in return is delivered within the week?

No free sex allowed? Suppose a fella just likes to muff-dive and does not always ask or desire a one-for-one return?

Michael The Magnificent said...

Four blowjob artist at his beck and call, on the corporate payroll no less! I am jealouse.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Jupiter at 10:27-

You nailed it, sir.

DavidD said...

“... under circumstances that sound transactional and improper to the extent that there was no hint of any relationship, romance, or reciprocity.”

Is there a typo here? “... transactional and proper ,,,” would sound more correct given “... to the extent ....”

FullMoon said...

A.A.: "I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange. If the exchange must be sweetened on one side, with extras beyond the sex itself, then you shouldn't have sex at all."

'Must' is the important word.

Jim at said...

Moonves - just like Dan Rather and Mary Mapes - should've been tossed out on his ass in September, 2004 for airing forged documents in an attempt to swing a Presidential election.

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks, Leslie. I was going to add a proviso for baby-making, but I kind of viewed it a part of wanting sex for the sake of sex. The baby isn’t a sweetener, but the natural byproduct of the act of love.

Gahrie said...

I've taken the moral position that one should only engage in sex where it is a sex-for-sex exchange.

So I guess no more dinner and a movie, or such anymore. The guy is supposed to just walk up to the girl (or her to him) and ask " Hey wanna fuck?" And she is supposed to say "Sure"...right?

Hey guys...no more flowers and chocolate on Valentine's Days or your anniversary.....that would be treating your wife like a whore.

Ann Althouse said...

“If I were the healthy partner who still wanted and even craved sex, I would go down the celibacy path in solidarity with my sick spouse.”

Me too, and I would do the same if there were no specific health problem but just my partner inexplicably losing all interest in sex.

Gahrie said...

an incidental or secondary product made in the manufacture or synthesis of something else.

a secondary result, unintended but inevitably produced in doing or producing something else.


The next time you're wondering why our birthrate continues to decline...

Gahrie said...

Not for the rest of our lives Honey..I have a headache.

Leland said...

I wonder what arrangements David Rhodes had as CBS News President?

gadfly said...

If other employees knew about job descriptions with fellatio tasks, how could Moonves' and his underlings not be reported to government authorities? This story sucks!

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Ann Althouse quoted...

“If I were the healthy partner who still wanted and even craved sex, I would go down the celibacy path in solidarity with my sick spouse.”

then said...

Me too, and I would do the same if there were no specific health problem but just my partner inexplicably losing all interest in sex.

That is wonderful solidarity and support you show you partner. But based on your earlier comments it sounds like you would not show similar support for a sexually frustrated partner.

Fritz said...

Does he have to report the BJs on his taxes?

Bob Loblaw said...

If the exchange must be sweetened on one side, with extras beyond the sex itself, then you shouldn't have sex at all. I'm not offering this as a legal standard, just my idea of what good people should do.

By that standard there are lots of people (mostly men) who would never have sex. Ever.