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Many different people in the discourse, coming from many different schools of thought, seem to find it intuitively obvious that having sex in public is morally wrong.  (Indecent exposure presumably counts in the same category.)

I am very baffled by this.

I mean – yes, some people who see it are going to find it very unpleasant to witness.  Probably a fair number of people will find it unpleasant.  This is also true of things you can do in public like “holding hands with your gay spouse” or “being black” or “wearing clothing that features provocative political slogans.” 

The only general solution that doesn’t seem to lead to endless social war, or to intensely repugnant conclusions, or to a melt-your-brain-into-slag level of mandated utilitarian calculation regarding the psychic preferences of untold numbers of strangers, is a basic deontological rule: other people do not get input into your visual presentation in public, and their opinions on the matter can be morally discounted to zero.  Which includes the visual presentation that is “I am naked” or even “I am having sex with this other person.” 


I mean, if you want to make the case that it’s distasteful or even possibly rude, I’m not hugely inclined to argue.  I might well even agree.  But “distasteful” and “rude” don’t amount to “unethical” under most schemata.

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…is the objection primarily about children who might see it?  Because I don’t think that’s a very good objection either, but admittedly it requires a more sophisticated level of argumentation in order to address it, because children make everything ten times harder in the world of moral philosophy.