Cristian Popa - None of the Above

Why Was Promiscuity a Bad Thing, Again?

Posted by Cristian on Nov 26 2006 under Other Stuff | 2,402 Views |

Promiscuity, by my reckoning, is one’s habit of having frequent and, to varying degrees, indiscriminate sexual relationships. What I’m trying to understand is why, assuming that promiscuity does not come accompanied by cheating, neglect of duties, emotional imbalance, or other obvious inadequacies, why, then, we regard it as something negative. What’s wrong with getting laid?

I see a few possible objections to sleeping around, and all of them are either related to or caused by the fact that in almost all societies, old impotent men, many times with brains diseased to varying degrees and lacking even the most rudimentary of sexual ethics exerted a lot of influence based, in many cases, on the authority of ancient texts written by other demented old men, just as immoral and likely just as impotent. Honest-to-God perverts, tortured by guilt and remorse, projected their sick views of sexuality upon the rest of society and made “promiscuity” what it is today: a dirty word. Elders throughout history wielded much more power than the more sane and horny youths, so it was natural that their views prevailed, even in matters that were none of their concern, such as other people’s sex lives. Sex is a strong motivator, it can be used to control, it has the potential to give and take a lot of power, and the elders made sure that they wrote its rules. I hope that some of us will be the lucky generation that will witness the perverts’ demise. (Plus, I like the sound of ‘You’re going down, old man!’) All this is not to say that women have not done their part to vilify sex. We all know who the driving force behind the abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation that still exists in certain parts of the world is, to name just one instance. In general, however, women’s influence on societies has been minor compared to that of men, for reasons better discussed elsewhere.

My decisions and opinions are mostly informed by the amount of suffering involved in their possible outcomes and implications. I am strongly against suffering, so one of my first questions before making up my mind about some thing or the other always is “who’s going to suffer?” And if the question is who is going to suffer if people have sex freely, without fear of the stigma of promiscuity, the answer is nobody. There’s no suffering involved in people sleeping with other people for pleasure. Well, not unless you and your partner are into that S&M deal, but that doesn’t count. So, what is immoral about consenting adults, in most cases honest, decent people, pursuing pleasure, as long as acceptable amounts of mutual consideration and respect are involved? Why does someone like Pastor Ted, bless his heart, feel compelled to teach people about the merits of abstinence? Why is asceticism considered by so many the ultimate sign of (of all things) morality, instead of indicating to the observer that the ascetic is fundamentally deranged? Instead of disturbing, asceticism is considered ethical. This is similar to assuming that someone is a good mathematician because he’s able to open a beer bottle with his teeth. There’s no logical correlation between abstinence and ethics, as far as I can see.

I’m only disputing the alleged deficiencies of promiscuity here, and not discussing its benefits for now. But if we were to pay heed to research instead of vicious mythology, as far as sex is concerned, I have a feeling that promiscuity would stop being the dirty word that it is.

Please e-mail me your good reasons to consider promiscuity negative in any way. If I will be given any, I will post them here for further discussion.

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