In human sexual behavior,
promiscuity denotes sex with relatively many partners. In human cultures where
polygamyThe term polygamy is used in related ways in social anthropology, sociobiology, sociology, as well as in popular speech. Polygamy can be defined as any "form of marriage in which a person [has] more than one spouse."In social anthropology, polygamy is the practice of marriage to more than one...
is accepted, it is distinguished from promiscuity.
Promiscuity is common in many animal species. Some species have promiscuous mating systems, ranging from
polyandryPolyandry refers to a form of sexual union, in which a woman is married to two or more husbands at the same time....
and
polygynyPolygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time." It is distinguished from a relationship where a man who has a sexual partner outside marriage, such as a concubine, casual sexual partner, paramour, or other culturally recognized secondary partner...
to mating systems with no stable relationships where mating between two individuals is a one-time event. Many species form stable pair bonds but still mate with other individuals outside the pair. In
biologyBiology is the natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy...
, incidents of promiscuity in species that form pair bonds are usually called extra-pair copulations.
Human promiscuity
What
sexualHuman sexuality is how people experience the erotic and express themselves as sexual beings. Frequently driven by the desire for sexual pleasure, human sexuality has biological, physical and emotional aspects...
behavior is considered socially acceptable, and what behavior is "promiscuous", varies much among different cultures, and within a culture different standards are often applied to people of different gender and civil status. It should be noted that while male promiscuity previously had glamorous connotations that acted as an affirmation of masculinity, female promiscuity was seen as a sign of emotional instability, and loose morals in women. In some German tribes in the first century BC (according to
Julius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar , , was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
in his
Commentarii de Bello GallicoCommentarii de Bello Gallico is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting local armies in Gaul that opposed Roman domination...
) it was pure
scandalA scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed. A scandal may be based on true or false allegations or a mixture of both....
for a man to have sexual relations before his twentieth birthday, taking some power away from that old stigma about a perpetual ruling class of proud, promiscuous men.
Accurately assessing people's sexual behavior is difficult, since there are strong social and personal motivations, depending on social
sanctionsSocial control includes social mechanisms that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliances to the rules of a given society or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control mechanisms used to prevent the establishment of...
and
tabooA taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and forbidden. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society. The term comes from the Tongan language, and appears in many Polynesian cultures...
s, for either minimizing or exaggerating reported sexual activity. Extensive research has produced mathematical models of sexual behavior comparing the results generated with the observed prevalence of
STDsA sexually transmitted disease , also known as sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans or animals by means of sexual contact, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
to statistically estimate the probable sexual behavior of the studied population.
The number of sexual partners an individual has varies within a lifetime, and varies widely within a population. In the U.S., a 2007 national survey had the following results: the median number of lifetime female sexual partners reported by men was seven; the
median number of male partners reported by women was four. Be it given that the
mean number of partners among men and women must be equal, it is possible that men exaggerated their reported number of partners, women reported a number lower than the actual number, and/or a minority of women had a sufficiently larger number than most other women to create a mean significantly higher than the median. Twenty-nine percent of men and nine percent of women reported to have had more than 15 sexual partners in their lifetimes. Studies of the spread of STDs consistently demonstrate that a small percentage of the studied population have more partners than the average man or woman, and a smaller number of people have fewer than the statistical average. An important question in the
epidemiologyEpidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine...
of sexually transmitted diseases is whether or not these groups copulate mostly at random (with sexual partners from throughout a population) or within their social groups (
assortative mixingIn the study of complex networks, the term assortative mixing refers to a bias in favor of connections between network nodes with similar characteristics. In the specific case of social networks, assortative mixing is also known as homophily...
).
A 2006 comprehensive global study (analysing data from 59 countries worldwide) found no firm link between promiscuity and STD's, with poverty and mobility being more important factors. This contradicts other studies.
Global promiscuity
A 2008 US university study of international promiscuity found that
British peopleThe British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, one of the Channel Islands, or of one of the British overseas territories, and their descendants. In a historical context, the term refers to the ancient Britons, the indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain south of the...
are the most promiscuous in the industrialised world. The study measured one-night stands, attitudes to casual sex, and number of sexual partners.
Researchers said Britain's position on the international index 'may be linked to increasing social acceptance of promiscuity among women as well as men'. Britain’s ranking was 'ascribed to factors such as the decline of religious scruples about extramarital sex, the growth of equal pay and equal rights for women and a highly sexualised popular culture'.
The top 10 ranking OECD nations with a population over 10 million on the study's promiscuity index, in descending order, were the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
, the
Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe that is sometimes considered to be Eastern European. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague...
,
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
, the USA,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
,
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, and
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Another study that looked at promiscuity based on total number of sex partners found that
AustrianAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
men were the most promiscuous males in the world with 29.3 sexual partners on average, while
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
women were the most promiscuous females in the world with an average of 20.4 sexual partners. New Zealand was the only country studied where women averaged a higher number of sex partners than the men.
One study found that Westerners were more promiscuous than those in developing countries, while the rate of STDs was higher in developing countries.
Male promiscuity
The words "womanizer", "player", "stud", "lady-killer", "skirt-chaser" and "
rakeA rake is defined as a man that is habituated to immoral conduct. Rakes are frequently stock characters in novels. Often a rake is a man who wastes his fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process...
" may be used in reference to a man who has
love affairsAffair may refer to professional, personal, or public business matters or to a particular business or private activity, as in family affair, a private affair, or a romatic affair.-Political affair:...
with women and will not marry or commit to a relationship. The names of real and fictional seducers have become eponyms for such promiscuous men. The most famous are the historical
Giacomo CasanovaGiacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt was a Venetian adventurer and author. His main book Histoire de ma vie , part autobiography and part memoir, is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century.He was so famous as a...
(1725–1798), and the fictional
Don JuanDon Juan or Don Giovanni is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra, by Tirso de Molina, is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630...
, who first appeared in the 17th century, and
LotharioLothario is a character in the play The Fair Penitent , by Nicholas Rowe. In the play, Lothario seduces and betrays Calista. The word lothario has thus entered the English language as an eponym: a lothario is a handsome, seductive ladies' man....
from
Nicholas RoweNicholas Rowe , English dramatist, poet and miscellaneous writer, was appointed Poet Laureate in 1715.-Life:...
's
1703The year 1703 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* July 29, July 30, July 31 - Daniel Defoe is pilloried for seditious libel.-New books:...
play
The Fair PenitentThe Fair Penitent is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy The Fatal Dowry, the Philip Massinger and Nathan Field collaboration first published in 1632...
.
James BondCommander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by novelist Ian Fleming in 1952. He is the protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games. He is portrayed as an SIS agent residing in London...
is another famous fictional character that can be considered a womanizer.
During the
English RestorationThe English Restoration, often shortened to the Restoration, began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Commonwealth of England that followed the English Civil War...
period (1660-1688), the term
rake was used glamorously: the
Restoration rake is a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat typified by
Charles IICharles II was the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father King Charles I was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. The English Parliament did not proclaim Charles II king at this time. Instead they passed a statute making such a...
's courtiers, the
Earl of RochesterJohn Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester was an English Libertine, a friend of King Charles II, and the writer of much satirical and bawdy poetry.He was the toast of the Restoration court and a patron of the arts...
and the
Earl of DorsetCharles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset and 1st Earl of Middlesex was an English poet and courtier, son of the 5th Earl of Dorset ....
, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. The Restoration rake is celebrated in the
Restoration comedyRestoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama...
of the 1660s and the 1670s. After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the
Glorious RevolutionThe Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England in 1688 by a union of Parliamentarians with an invading army led by the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau who, as a result, ascended the English throne as William III of England...
of 1688, the rake was perceived negatively and became the butt of moralistic tales in which his typical fate was
debtor's prisonA debtors' prison is a prison for those who are unable to pay a debt.Prior to the mid 19th century debtors' prisons were a common way to deal with unpaid debt...
, permanent venereal disease, and, in the case of
William HogarthWilliam Hogarth was a major English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from excellent realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral...
's
A Rake's ProgressA Rake's Progress is a series of eight paintings by 18th century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–33 then engraved and published in print form in 1735...
, venereally-caused insanity and internment to
BedlamThe Bethlem Royal Hospital of London is a psychiatric hospital in Beckenham, south east London. Although no longer in its original location and buildings, it is recognised as the world's first and oldest institution to specialise in the mentally ill. It has been variously known as St...
.
Female promiscuity
Since at least 1450, the word "
slutSlut or slattern is a pejorative term meaning an individual who is sexually promiscuous. The term is generally applied to women and used as an insult or offensive term of disparagement, meaning "dirty or slovenly." It may also be used as an expression of pride in oneself or envy at the sexual...
" has been used, usually pejoratively, to describe a sexually promiscuous woman. The terms "
slagSlag is a pejorative slang term, primarily used in United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Australia, to describe women who often engage in casual sex and promiscuous behaviour. Its meaning is broadly similar to the terms "slut" and "skank"...
", "
trollop", "skank", and "ho" are also used across the English-speaking-world to describe sexually promiscuous women. In and before the
ElizabethanThe Elizabethan era was associated with Queen Elizabeth I's reign and is often considered to be the golden age in English history. It was the height of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of English poetry, music and literature...
and
Jacobean eraThe Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James I of England, who was also James VI of Scotland...
s, terms like "strumpet" and "whore" were used to describe women deemed promiscuous, as seen for example in
John WebsterJohn Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates of his...
's 1612 play
The White DevilThe White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona is a revenge tragedy from 1612 by English playwright John Webster . A notorious failure when it premiered onstage, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience...
.
Nature versus nurture controversy
Evolutionary psychologistsEvolutionary psychology attempts to explain psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, that is, as the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system,...
propose that a conditional tendency for promiscuity is inherited from our
hunter-gathererA hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either...
ancestors. Male promiscuity, they say, was advantageous because it allowed males to father more children. Female promiscuity, on the other hand, is said to have allowed female ancestors to have children with superior genetic potential and/or select a male with the better resources.(Citation needed.)
Primitive promiscuity
Primitive promiscuity or
original promiscuity, is the 19th century hypothesis that human race originally lived in a state of promiscuity or "
hetaerismHetaerism or hetairism can mean:*A term employed by 19th-century anthropologists to indicate a theoretical early state of human society characterized by the absence of the institution of marriage in any form. Women were the common property of their tribe, and the children never knew their fathers...
".
Extra-pair copulation in animals
In the
animalAnimals are a major group of mostly multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously...
world, some species of animals, including
birdBirds are winged, bipedal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay eggs. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Birds range in size from the Bee Hummingbird to the ...
s such as
swanSwans, genus Cygnus, are birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae...
s, once believed monogamous, are now known to engage in
extra-pair copulations. Although social monogamy occurs in about 90 percent of avian species and about 3 percent of
mammalMammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by sweat glands, hair, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain.Mammals are divided into three main...
ian species, investigators estimate that 90 percent of socially monogamous species exhibit individual promiscuity in the form of extra-pair copulations.
Two examples of promiscuous animals are the primates chimpanzees and
bonoboThe Bonobo , Pan paniscus, until recently called the Pygmy Chimpanzee and less often, the Dwarf or Gracile Chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the Common Chimpanzee...
s. These species live in social groups consisting of several males and several females. Each male copulates with many females, and vice versa. In bonobos, the amount of promiscuity is particularly striking because bonobos use sex to alleviate social conflict as well as to reproduce.
See also
- Cottaging
Cottaging is a British gay slang term referring to anonymous sex between men in a public lavatory , or cruising for sexual partners with the intention of having sex elsewhere...
- Hetaera
In ancient Greece, hetaerae were courtesans, that is to say, sophisticated companions and prostitutes.- Overview :...
- Monogamy
Monogamy is the state of having only one sexual partner at any one time. The word monogamy comes from the Greek word monos "μονός", which means one or alone, and the Greek word gamos "γάμος", which means marriage or union...
- Polygamy
The term polygamy is used in related ways in social anthropology, sociobiology, sociology, as well as in popular speech. Polygamy can be defined as any "form of marriage in which a person [has] more than one spouse."In social anthropology, polygamy is the practice of marriage to more than one...
- Sexual addiction
Sexual addiction refers to a phenomenon in which individuals report being unable to manage their sexual behavior. It has also been called "sexual dependency," and "sexual compulsivity." The existence of the condition is not universally accepted by sexologists and its etiology, nature, and...
- Mating system
A mating system is a way in which a group is structured in relation to sexual behaviour. The precise meaning depends upon the context. With respect to higher animals, it specifies which males mate with which females, under which circumstances; recognised animal mating systems include sexual...