It is an illusion that a sexually better society would have to draw sexual conduct into the public arena. Humans have sexual conduct in privacy, and often in secrecy, for good reasons.
We are never emotionally indifferent towards the sexual conduct of other people. If confronted with the sexual conduct of others, we may react with jealousy, disgust, aggression, mental pain, hatred, or other strong, often negative, feelings. We are unlikely to be indifferent. The emotions we react with are not rational, and they may even be totally out of proportion. It is futile to attempt to change this pattern of reactions. We may be the masters of our intellect, but we are the slaves of our emotions.
For the aim of creating sexually better societies, we may discuss sexuality in public in general terms, and for the purpose of scientific or philosophical insight. Having sexual contact in public, or discussing the sexual conduct of certain people in public, or, even worse, reporting on the sex life of specific people in the media, all has adverse effects on the sexual experience of people. It promotes conflict over harmony, and tens to brutalize a society.
For this reason alone, a strong government ought to limit the right of the mass media to report on sex topics, and to exploit such topics solely for the purpose of generating sales, or publicity for advertisements.
Because having sexual contact in privacy and secrecy is a fundamental element of personal freedom, the extent to which governments police the sexual conduct of the members of a society, and to which governments try to impose certain moral standards, needs to be strongly limited indeed.
Because for each of us, whether male or female, the pursuit of optimal sexual experience is at the core of the only sensible personal value system, and because for each of us, optimal sexual experience can only be attained if we interact and experiment with different people, while at the same time, each of us easily reacts with negative emotions on the sexual conduct of others, especially those with whom we are in contact, the right to privacy and secrecy overrides the traditional moral imperative of honesty and faithfulness.
Just as media reporting on the sexual conduct of specific persons generates negative emotions in the public arena, honesty about multiple parallel sexual relationships, or multiple previous sexual relationships generates adverse emotions and easily leads to violent conflict.
For this reason, ethics in a sexually better society ought to emphasize that dishonesty about parallel or previous sexual contacts for the purpose of social harmony is a higher moral value than truthfulness.
Likewise, future ethics ought to educate that it is an element of the human nature to be sexually attracted to more than one person, and that the pursuit of sexual experience is at the core of the only sensible personal value system. A certain degree of secrecy in the pursuit of optimal sexual experience is necessary, and morally justified, as openness contradicts the high ethical value of tranquility in human societies.
Thus, a government dedicated to the personal freedom of a country’s citizens ought not to interfere in the sexual conduct of the people for the purpose of imposing certain (out-dated) moral standards (such as faithfulness). Multiple sexual relationships, not even in the case of married people, ought not to be an excuse for public interference for as long as no violence is involved in these sexual relationships. To keep sexual contacts private and secret, and to protect the privacy and secrecy of sexual contacts by not talking truthfully about them, and by willfully concealing them, are important elements of personal freedom, and apart of that conducive to the superior moral concern of social harmony.
THE BASIS FOR HUMAN SOLIDARITY
THE SIZE OF GOVERNED COMMUNITIES
CONTENTS OF PERSONAL FREEDOM: PRIVACY AND SECRECY
THE BENEFITS OF RELATIVE POVERTY