As sexual ethics is likely to come up for OCR A2 this year, I want to comment on some recent breakthroughs in medicine which affect ethical issues surrounding contraception. There is now a drug called PREP which can prevent a person ever getting AIDS – and so arguably gives us the choice not to use condoms when having sex, by removing the risk of disease. Is this a morally good or bad thing?

There are three general ethical issues to consider:

1. The effect of sexual behaviour on the individual.

After all, St Paul suggests in his letter to the Corinthians that those who are immoral, by which he means promiscuous, ‘sin sexually, and sin against their own body’. This idea of sinning against oneself, and one’s body, is one of the key Christian arguments against promiscuous behaviour – it implies we dull our moral senses and make long-term committed love that much harder, driving our bodies towards addiction to pleasure rather than eudaimonic long term flourishing.

2. The effect on the other person.

Sex is relational. There will usually be two people involved in sexual encounters. In seeing sexual expression as just my own business, we may neglect the relational aspect – that other people’s welfare is also involved. For example, if I refuse to use a condom, I risk harming someone else – thus invoking Mill’s harm principle, that the only justification for curbing individual freedom is to prevent harm to others.

3. The effect on society.

The third dimension of sex is social. If many people engage in no commitment, promiscuous sex the idea that sex is precious and sacred may decline, and the social effects on the family unit, the context for child rearing and so on may also change. In this way a discussion of sexual ethics may be relevant for Mill’s rule of thumb ethics – to have a general rule of thumb that contraception should be used, for example, and that means condoms to prevent risk of disease, will arguably increase social welfare and needs to be kept as a strong social rule.

Professor Mac Cormack, speaking on the Today programme, made two interesting observations. The first was that the word promiscuity is problematic. I’m inclined to agree – it’s a value-laden word similar to the New Testament word ‘immorality’. The meaning shifts with culture.

For example, not so many years ago any sex outside marriage would be called ‘promiscuous’ whereas today we might reserve the term for those having more than one sexual partner in one day. There was also, on the same programme, a strong restatement of Mill’s harm principle – the only reason for restricting sexual behaviour is to prevent harm to others. If the new PREP drug increases responsible choice, so the argument goes, there is nothing morally wrong with that as long as no-one is harmed.

That pragmatic, utilitarian view is at odds with the metaphysical argument that sex is sacred and commitment is vital as a reflection or mirror of God’s relationship to humankind. It’s important we think through these issues ahead of this summer’s exam.