I'll leave it to Freudians and others to speculate on what part of some people's psyches makes virginity seem valuable. Suffice it to say that I share your bewilderment. Obvious caveats and qualifications assumed, there's no clear reason why staying a virgin should be considered virtuous. (Odd, by the way that there is a close conventional association between virtue and virginity.)

That said, it's not really so strange that we might think about the first person we made love with -- or even kissed, for that matter -- with a certain wistfulness. But that's different from wishing that the person we eventually end up with should have been the first.

There are at least two different sorts of moral questions one might ask about prostitution and modeling. On one hand one might ask about the moral status of a particular agent's engaging in modeling or prostitution, and whether one action is morally worse than the other. On the other hand, one might ask about the moral status of the general practice of modeling and the general practice of prostitution, i.e., is it worse for the society to tolerate prostitution than modeling? (I'm assuming you don't have in mind by modeling the sexual display of one's body, but the modeling of clothes for the LLBean catalog and such.)

Regarding both sorts of questions it seems to me that much more should be considered beyond whether the practice or the act is an instance of "selling one's body". In the case of an agent, the moral evaluation of the choice would plausibly depend on the circumstances, the beliefs, desires and intentions of the agent and others involved, the consequences of the choice, etc. And in the case of the broader practice, modeling and prostitution potentially have quite different effects on a society (I'm assuming that modeling need not be sexualized).

As a result, I don't think it can be assumed that it is right to judge an individual prostitute to be doing something wrong, or a model to be doing something harmless. It depends on the circumstances. What you seem to be after, however, is whether there is a moral difference between selling visual access to one's body and selling sexual access to one's body. And if there is a moral difference, what is it?

One strategy for establishing a moral difference would be to argue that in the case of modeling, one isn't really selling one's body at all. One is displaying one's body for others to look at, but there is no sense in which the veiwer "possesses" or controls the body of the model. In the case of prostitution, the implicit contract seems to involve a giving of one's body for another's use. In order to develop this argument, one would need to be clearer about what sense of "possession" is at issue in "selling one's body" as a model or prostitute, and who the buyer is. (Maybe the buyer of the model's time does take possession of the model's body, but then the question is whether this is also true of all employers -- if I am a construction worker, have I sold my body to my employer? If so, then it doesn't seem that selling one's body is, in itself, morally wrong.)

Another strategy would be to argue that there is an important moral difference between selling visual access and selling sexual access, because looking at someone or being looked at is profoundly different than having sex with someone. Sex involves vulnerability of various sorts (vulnerability to disease, pregnancy, emotional pleasure and also emotional scarring); sex is something that is considered by many to be an expression of a deep emotional connection; and sex is often considered central to one's personhood. On this approach, it isn't just that selling one's body is a problem, the problem is that one is selling something central to one's personhood, in a way that makes one especially vulnerable, and trivializes something that carries deep significance. Since visual access to one's appearance isn't meaningful in these ways, there is nothing morally wrong with selling it, even if prostitution is morally problematic. This argument too needs some work, however, since more would need to be said about the significance attributed to sex.

Finally, it isn't clear to me why the question frames the question of the morality of prostitution in terms of the morality of the prostitute rather than the morality of the individual who buys the prostitute's services.

I tend to doubt that the correct answer to your question will come from philosophy, as opposed to psychology or neuroscience. But I would pose back to you a philosophical question: Why would it matter to you whether it is organic or developmental? Either way, you are what you are, and I see no reason to think that there is any fault here no matter what the process was that led to your being the way you are.

Maybe I have misunderstood what lies behind your question, and if so I apologize. But it sounds to me like you feel you need an excuse or explanation to "explain away" your difference. If so, I disagree. Just be who you are and be prudent about foolish and prejudiced people who might respond to you in ways you would rather avoid.

I think the problem with cheating is the cheating part. You and your husband made an agreement, presumably in good faith, that you would not do the very thing he did. I doubt if at the time he stipulated that he might have "merely sex," but would abstain from sex + love. So...he violated your agreement, and this gives you a reason to regard him as in the wrong. Period.

As to whether his violation is forgivable, I suppose it is. But that is entirely up to you--not up to him. He doesn't get to tell you that he deserves forgiveness--that adds presumption as an additional violation to the one he already committed. So the issue of forgiveness is yours to decide. He may ask for it; he may beg for it. But it is your decision entirely.

I can see how loving the other woman might have added to the offense (though I don't see how the addition would convert a "forgivable" offense into one that is unforgivable--because even had he loved her, you might reasonably determine that it was best to forgive him--after all, it would still be entirely your decision whether to forgive him or not). But I think the main issues here are two:

(1) He already violated your love (whether or not he loved the other woman), and the isssue that needs to be resolved is what you (and he) are going to do about that. So I think his trying to make the issue whether or not he loved her to be a case of misdirection--he's changing the focus from what is most important to something much less important.

(2) He seems to think he is in a position to command--or at least make a justified argument for--it being the right thing for you to do to forgive him. He is in no position to make such a command or argument, because it seems to me that you, as the wronged party, are entirely in charge of that issue. On this point, too, it sounds to me like he is trying to put one over on you. Were I in your shoes, I would regard his argument as making him less worthy of your forgiveness, on the ground that he doesn't seem to "get" the fact that he is the one wholly in the wrong here.

If you do decide to forgive him, then he should be humble and grateful. If you don't, then he should make his retreat knowing that once he did what he did, he lost any ground for telling you what you owed him. He owes you!!!

I think the only way both people could be right is if they don't mean the same thing by "married." Here is a case that might go like that. Suppose the first person is thinking of marriage as a holy sacrament in their religious sect. According to that sect, same-sex marriage is an abomination. Because of that sect's point of view, then, someone might think that there should be no right of same-sex marriage within that sect. Now, even if that is a strongly held belief of that religious sect, it is quite another thing to try to enforce one religious sect's view of things as a matter of law for the rest of the nation (or world). So someone else might think of marriage as a legal contract between two people, one that protects certain civil rights they can enjoy as a result (such as the right to adopt a child as a married couple, for example). It might be that same-sex marriage is an abomination according to some religious groups, but also should be legally permitted as a civil right.

I'm having a bit of trouble finding the argument here. Let's take a "transaction" that most of us think is just fine: accepting a proposal of marriage. If Pat agrees to marry Robin and then gets cold feet, Robin can't force the issue. But what of it?

Or take another example: I agree to buy your house. I sign the contract. And then I back out. In most jurisdictions, far as I know, you can't sue me for specific performance; you can't force me to buy the house, though there are various damages that you would be entitled to recover from me.

As things stand in most places, a contract for an act of prostitution isn't enforceable, and so Travis has no legal claim against Elise -- particularly if she gives back the money. But suppose that these sorts contracts were legal, since your issue is presumably with people who think they should be. In that case, there's still no reason to think that Travis has some sort of right to rape Elise, though depending on the legal regime, he might have a civil claim against her that would allow him to recover monetary damages.

In fact, there's a strong whiff of red herring here. All of us agree that some kinds of consensual arrangements are legitimate, and the law recognizes a good many. That means we'll always face the question of what someone is entitled to if the other party reneges on a legitimate agreement. The answer will depend on the case. It might be nothing at all; not all private agreements amount to enforceable contracts. It may be that some sort of monetary damages are in order. It might be, depending on the case, that requiring the original agreement to be kept is the remedy. It all depends. But the fact that people sometimes go back on consensual agreements tells us nothing at all about whether private acts between consenting individuals should always be permitted. In particular, someone who thinks prostitution should be legal doesn't need to be committed to the bizarre view that a prostitute who has a change of mind should be required to submit to rape.

As a parent myself, my first reaction to your question is to say that it sems to me confusion about what is best for one's children is more the norm than the exception. Hardly a day goes by in my own case in which I feel profound uncertainty about how I should handle the wonderful and terrible project of parenting! So take whatever I say now with a boulder of salt, because, as you see, I regard myself as deeply in the dark about such things, at least as much as you feel you are.

It does seems to me, however, that there will prove to be increasing limits on the degree of control you will have over this issue, and so you should right now be thinking of something like an "exit strategy," by which I mean that you should be considering what you want your daughter to be able to think and do for herself (and without any interference from you) in regard to her relationships with boys in the coming few years. Then, think of ways you can help her to achieve the sort of prudent and deliberative reactions that would eliminate the need for you to take protective measures at all. The fact is that you are already losing control of your daughter, and that process is going to continue--even escalate--in the coming years. For now, yes, you can simply prevent her from going out with boys. But very soon now, you will not be able to prevent much of what you fear most for her--she will have to do all that on her own.

So to answer your question with another question, I would ask you to consider whether a strict policy of not going out is, in your opinion, the best strategy for helping her to learn to be appropriately cautious and prudent in the ways she is going to need to be. Of course, at such an early age, there needs to be a lot that is off-limits. But is there no place, no time, no way at all that your daughter cannot begin now to have the sorts of independent experience with boys that will show her what she needs to be careful about, watch out for, and so on? Her interests in boys, I assure you, will not be eliminated or even diminished by adding the fascination of their being forbidden to her! How will she build the skills she will need--for one of the most important (and often difficult) aspects of adult human life? When will you consider the process of slowly releasing the limits, all the while guiding and advising her--because if you don't, she will simply void them and operate behind your back?

I guess what I am inclined to think is that not all of the sort of contact your daughter now finds interesting is "wrong," as you put it. Her interest, after all, is natural, and comes with the process of growing up. Your daughter may be reaching this stage earlier than her friends, but that doesn't mean that she hasn't actually reached this stage, or that you can really succeed in delaying entirely what is actually a very natural development. Increasingly, the only effective role you will be able to play in this is as a guide, advisor, and confidante--rather than as an absolute ruler. If you cling too long to the role you played when she was a small child, you risk losing the very influence she needs you to have during her adolescence and early adulthood. Don't make that mistake! Try now to begin to release your grip a bit, and remind yourself that allowing her to make some mistakes on her own is the only sure way to help heer to learn how best to behave as an adult must do.

I hope you find this at least a little helpful. And now...can you give me some advice about my own children? I'm scared to death sometimes about them!

I agree completely with all of Nicholas Smith’s suggestions about parenting. I especially like his remarks about the importance of an "exit strategy." Our job as parents, after all, is to raise our children to be independent and responsible adults, but they can hardly acquire these skills if they are never able to make their own decisions and learn from their own, hopefully minor, mistakes. We do want our teenagers to feel comfortable coming to us for advice and insight, not worried that they will get harsh judgment or even punishment, because as Prof. Smith suggests, if they fear this response, they simply will not come to us at all.

At the same time, though, the high rates of teenage pregnancy and of women and children living in poverty remind us of the decisions that many fourteen year old girls will make when given the opportunity. This fact might suggest to us that many fourteen year old girls are not yet ready to make wise decisions for themselves. In such circumstances, it is our responsibility as parents to be "paternalistic"– to prevent them from making mistakes that will have lasting and negative implications for their lives. However, it might also suggest that being a mother is, in fact, given the circumstances in which they find themselves, the best chance that many young women will have of living a life with some meaning and significance, no matter how many challenges they will face as single mothers with no marketable skills.

And so, I would add to Prof. Smith’s difficult advice to help your daughter to develop the deliberative skills needed for wise independent decisions, even more difficult advice. If you are inclined to restrict your daughter’s activities because you are reasonably fearful of the consequences of the choices that she will make, see what you can do to make sure that the choice that you most fear isn’t in fact the best choice for her. What, other than being with her boyfriend, does she most love to do? What sorts of talents does she have that she could develop? Does she have the opportunity to pursue these activities and develop these talents? Or is it boyfriend or boredom? And when she looks into her future, does she have any hope for fulfillment other than through young motherhood? If not, then even the wisest deliberator will make the choices that you most fear.

While I think that these are questions that we as parents must ask ourselves when we are tempted to shake our heads at the so-called "poor choices" made by teenagers, I really think that our society bears an even greater responsibility. There is only so much that parents who themselves have very few options can do to provide options for a meaningful and fulfilling lives for their children. If we want our young citizens to avoid certain choices (teenage pregnancy, gang membership, etc.), we need to make sure that our society isn’t structured so that these are the very best choices open to them.

Just three quick afterthoughts, to add to Nicholas Smith's and Jyl Gentzler's wise but perhaps slightly daunting words.

First, remember most teenagers do survive just fine (with a bit of a close shave here, and an emotional storm or two there): it is our burden as parents to worry far too much. So when your daughter tells you to lighten up, she's probably exactly right!

Second, in any case, the big things that matter -- like your daughter's level of self-esteem, her self-confidence, how she regards men, and so on -- were shaped years ago. It's too late to do very much about them, and being over-protective won't help one bit. So the best thing you can do now is to be positive and supportive in her next phase of growing up.

And third, to get back to the question originally asked: is it wrong to let her go out? Well, how could it possibly be wrong, if she's an ordinary girl wanting to do ordinary things? I can't see any compelling moral principle that has that implication. So just set some sensible ground rules and insist they are stuck to ... and enjoy watching her become a young woman.

This is a nice question, and one variants of which have been turning up lately in the advice columns in newspapers. I don't have any firsthand experience of cybersex, but from what I understand, it is a kind of virtual sex, involving assumed identities and purely electronic interactions. So, is it a sexual encounter? I would say 'yes' and 'no'. On the 'yes' side, it is an encounter of some sort--it involves communication, back-and-forth response, mutual acknowledgment--and it clearly has a sexual content or character. On the 'no' side, it is not literally sex, which would seem to require, at a minimum, physical proximity and contact, and certainly it has little of the practical consequences or risks of literal sexual interaction. I suppose it is closer to phone sex than it is to literal sex, but with greater shifting or concealing of identity. (I should say, for the record, that my knowledge of phone sex comes only from Seinfeld episodes and Nicholson Baker's novel Vox!) Anyway, the answer to whether you are cheating on your partner when you engage in cybersex is also not simple. The answer I would be inclined to defend is that you are not, by any normal understanding of what 'cheating' involves, but that you are nonetheless doing something that your partner might feel, if/when he or she becomes aware of it, changes the nature of the intimate relationship you have, and perhaps not for the better. On the other hand, were you both to engage in cybersex openly and by mutual consent, it might lead to an enhancement of your relationship. Who knows? At this point, it is a matter to be further explored, if at all, with your partner, though obviously you run a risk by even bringing the matter up for discussion.

I don't disagree with anything that my distinguished co-panelists have said, but I'm inclined to add a few rule-of-thumb suggestions for anyone for whom this isn't a merely theoretical question. You might ask yourself: when you do this, do you feel like you're cheating on your partner? Would you feel cheated on if you found out that your partner had been doing the same thing? If the answer to either question is yes, you might want to pause and think about what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Answering "yes" to either question isn't conclusive; sometimes we have feelings that turn out on close scrutiny to come from nothing other than habit and prejudice. But this is an area where self-deception is particularly easy. If you think that the nature of your relationship would make it wrong to have an old-fashioned physical affair, then you might want to ask yourself how much weight you can really put on the fact that there's no skin-to-skin contact here.

People sometimes use the phrase "emotional infidelity," and so here's another question: does the cybersex runs the risk of undermining your intimacy with your partner? (That could be true even if your partner never finds out.) If the answer is yes, and if you value your relationship, then you might think twice before indulging. [And in the confessional mode: telephones aren't to my taste. I prefer megaphones.]