People who have promiscuous sex are mentally impaired. Even if their brain lacks the intimacy instinct, they also put their life in danger from STD. I mean, even if they don't care about intimacy, nobody mentally sane would risk their life by having promiscuous sex. They just don't care about dying. Maybe they are all nihilists with suicidal tendencies.
I'll assume you are including serial monogamy in this.
It's important to note that these kinds of impairments can be temporary. And sometimes for men especially, there is an expectation to have a specific kill-count. A relationship is more likely to be stable if the number of partners a male has had is about x4 that of the female. And when you factor in the tendencies for females to downplay and males to up-play the number of partners they have had, the spoken ratio might look more like 10:1. These exaggerations tend to be flat number shifts rather than percentages.
For a dude trying to find a woman, for the purposes of stability in long term relationships, it's actually recommended to sleep around up to the target ratio. They've witnessed this female behaviour in animals too, where females will flock to a sexually successful male.
The downside with the number of sexual partners is that the higher the number for both people, eventually it statistically reduces the stability of the relationship anyway. A dude with 400 encounters might be the best fit for a chick with 100 encounters, but that will just be an optimization within an already poor overall potential for stability.
Exposure to STDs is a consideration, but if you've ever been in a "monogamous" relationship with someone that turned out to be hooking up with new people behind your back on a regular basis, you will realize that protection is an illusion. You were exposed the whole time. And this kind of scenario will be more likely with women that have fertility issues, including artificial fertility issues like birth control. It will also be more likely with women that claim to have experienced a traumatic event like rape or sexual abuse.
There are basically two partners that a woman is biologically looking for, one to get her pregnant and the other to help raise her children. If you are lucky enough, you will fit both roles at the same time. But the male sleeping around bit is basically a signal to the female that you have a capability to produce offspring, and therefore would fit well into the first partner role to get her pregnant.
Call it temporary impairment, but I went from 3 to 10 in three weeks with the realization that the perception of my number was that I had too few (and let's be real here, about 2 a week while working full time is not hard to do). For a male, demonstrating that previous partners were impersonal is important. For a female, it's basically the opposite, it is usually to her advantage to have mostly just meaningful attempts at long-term relationships. For a female, stated ratio of long-term relationships to one night stands is important too. The one night stand encounters usually serve as a narrative for denying random males from certain experiences (e.g. when she says "I got with him and he wanted to go the whole way but I just gave him a blowjob instead"). At face value, it can seem odd about why a female would focus on that, but it has everything to do with setting the illusion of rules she follows so that she can "break" those rules with you to show you that you are better value than her previous partners (which is also to say that if she went further and faster with someone else, she doesn't consider you the highest value, and she will not likely talk about that because she will still want to make you feel special so that you reciprocate that affect).
All this said, I think monogamy is the way to go (if you've seen my other comments, you'll know why). But I don't think your approach in criticizing promiscuity is fully fleshed out. The STD argument doesn't work because the intention to be in a monogamous relationship does not gaurantee reduced exposure (we need to look at this from an actuarial perspective with the specifics and risk mitigation techniques). The other part is that not all STDs are terminal or permanent so the consequence for exposure is not necessarily high. Your argument is also just an attempt to appeal to an individual's physical self-preservation, and does not address ego driven individuals, or those driven by a societal greater good (hemlock drinkers, etc). It would not be an argument that would work with masochistic individuals (e.g. "bug seekers"). It might work with germophobic types.
The topic of monogamous vs promiscuous behavious is complex, but I agree that if someone that would normally be monogamous is acting promiscuously, that is a sign of impairment (but just not necessarily for the reason you proposed).
The_Reunto -3 points 1 year ago
I'll assume you are including serial monogamy in this.
It's important to note that these kinds of impairments can be temporary. And sometimes for men especially, there is an expectation to have a specific kill-count. A relationship is more likely to be stable if the number of partners a male has had is about x4 that of the female. And when you factor in the tendencies for females to downplay and males to up-play the number of partners they have had, the spoken ratio might look more like 10:1. These exaggerations tend to be flat number shifts rather than percentages.
For a dude trying to find a woman, for the purposes of stability in long term relationships, it's actually recommended to sleep around up to the target ratio. They've witnessed this female behaviour in animals too, where females will flock to a sexually successful male.
The downside with the number of sexual partners is that the higher the number for both people, eventually it statistically reduces the stability of the relationship anyway. A dude with 400 encounters might be the best fit for a chick with 100 encounters, but that will just be an optimization within an already poor overall potential for stability.
Exposure to STDs is a consideration, but if you've ever been in a "monogamous" relationship with someone that turned out to be hooking up with new people behind your back on a regular basis, you will realize that protection is an illusion. You were exposed the whole time. And this kind of scenario will be more likely with women that have fertility issues, including artificial fertility issues like birth control. It will also be more likely with women that claim to have experienced a traumatic event like rape or sexual abuse.
There are basically two partners that a woman is biologically looking for, one to get her pregnant and the other to help raise her children. If you are lucky enough, you will fit both roles at the same time. But the male sleeping around bit is basically a signal to the female that you have a capability to produce offspring, and therefore would fit well into the first partner role to get her pregnant.
Call it temporary impairment, but I went from 3 to 10 in three weeks with the realization that the perception of my number was that I had too few (and let's be real here, about 2 a week while working full time is not hard to do). For a male, demonstrating that previous partners were impersonal is important. For a female, it's basically the opposite, it is usually to her advantage to have mostly just meaningful attempts at long-term relationships. For a female, stated ratio of long-term relationships to one night stands is important too. The one night stand encounters usually serve as a narrative for denying random males from certain experiences (e.g. when she says "I got with him and he wanted to go the whole way but I just gave him a blowjob instead"). At face value, it can seem odd about why a female would focus on that, but it has everything to do with setting the illusion of rules she follows so that she can "break" those rules with you to show you that you are better value than her previous partners (which is also to say that if she went further and faster with someone else, she doesn't consider you the highest value, and she will not likely talk about that because she will still want to make you feel special so that you reciprocate that affect).
All this said, I think monogamy is the way to go (if you've seen my other comments, you'll know why). But I don't think your approach in criticizing promiscuity is fully fleshed out. The STD argument doesn't work because the intention to be in a monogamous relationship does not gaurantee reduced exposure (we need to look at this from an actuarial perspective with the specifics and risk mitigation techniques). The other part is that not all STDs are terminal or permanent so the consequence for exposure is not necessarily high. Your argument is also just an attempt to appeal to an individual's physical self-preservation, and does not address ego driven individuals, or those driven by a societal greater good (hemlock drinkers, etc). It would not be an argument that would work with masochistic individuals (e.g. "bug seekers"). It might work with germophobic types.
The topic of monogamous vs promiscuous behavious is complex, but I agree that if someone that would normally be monogamous is acting promiscuously, that is a sign of impairment (but just not necessarily for the reason you proposed).