Promiscuity is the practice of engaging in
sexual activity
Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) ...
frequently with different
partners or being indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners. The term can carry a moral judgment. A common example of behavior viewed as promiscuous by many cultures is the
one-night stand
A one-night stand or one-night sex is a single sexual encounter in which there is an expectation that there shall be no further relations between the sexual participants. It draws its name from the common practice of a one-night stand, a single ...
, and its frequency is used by researchers as a marker for promiscuity.
What sexual behavior is considered promiscuous varies between cultures, as does the prevalence of promiscuity. Different standards are often applied to different genders and civil statutes.
Feminists
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male poi ...
have traditionally argued a significant
double standard
A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for situations that are, in principle, the same. It is often used to describe treatment whereby one group is given more latitude than another. A double standard arises when two ...
exists between how men and women are judged for promiscuity. Historically, stereotypes of the promiscuous woman have tended to be pejorative, such as "the
slut
''Slut (archaic: slattern)'' is an English-language term for a person, usually a woman or girl, who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous. It is usually used as an insult, sexual slur or offensive term of d ...
" or "the harlot", while male stereotypes have been more varied, some expressing approval, such as "the stud" or "the player", while others imply societal deviance, such as "the womanizer" or "the philanderer". A scientific study published in 2005 found that promiscuous men and women are both prone to derogatory judgment.
Promiscuity is common in many animal species.
Some species have promiscuous
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 animals, the term describes which males and females mating, mate under which circumstances. Reco ...
s, ranging from
polyandry
Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives" ...
and
polygyny
Polygyny (; from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); ) is the most common and accepted form of polygamy around the world, entailing the marriage of a man with several women.
Incidence
Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any o ...
to mating systems with no stable relationships where mating between two individuals is a one-time event. Many species form stable
pair bond
In biology, a pair bond is the strong affinity that develops in some species between a mating pair, often leading to the production and rearing of offspring and potentially a lifelong bond. Pair-bonding is a term coined in the 1940s that is freque ...
s, but still mate with other individuals outside the pair. In
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, incidents of promiscuity in species that form pair bonds are usually called
extra-pair copulations
Extra-pair copulation (EPC) is a mating behaviour in monogamous species. Monogamy is the practice of having only one sexual partner at any one time, forming a long-term bond and combining efforts to raise offspring together; mating outside this pai ...
.
Motivations
Accurately assessing people's
sexual behavior
Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) ...
is difficult, since strong social and personal motivations occur, depending on social
sanctions and
taboo
A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
s, for either minimizing or exaggerating reported sexual activity.
American experiments in 1978 and 1982 found the great majority of men were willing to have sex with women they did not know, of average attractiveness, who propositioned them. No woman, by contrast, agreed to such propositions from men of average attractiveness. While men were in general comfortable with the requests, regardless of their willingness, women responded with shock and disgust.
The number of sexual partners people have had in their lifetimes varies widely within a population. A 2007 nationwide survey in the United States found the median number of female sexual partners reported by men was seven and the median number of male partners reported by women was four. The men possibly exaggerated their reported number of partners, women reported a number lower than the actual number, or a minority of women had a sufficiently larger number than most other women to create a mean significantly higher than the median, or all of the above. About 29% of men and 9% of women reported to have had more than 15 sexual partners in their lifetimes. Studies of the spread of
sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral ...
s consistently demonstrate a small percentage of the studied population has 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
epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
of sexually transmitted infections is whether or not these groups copulate mostly at random with sexual partners from throughout a population or
within their social groups.
A 2006
systematic review
A systematic review is a Literature review, scholarly synthesis of the evidence on a clearly presented topic using critical methods to identify, define and assess research on the topic. A systematic review extracts and interprets data from publ ...
analyzing data from 59 countries worldwide found no association between regional sexual behavior tendencies, such as number of sexual partners, and sexual-health status. Much more predictive of sexual-health status are socioeconomic factors like poverty and mobility.
Other studies have suggested that people with multiple casual sex partners are more likely to be diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections.
Severe and impulsive promiscuity, along with a compulsive urge to engage in illicit sex with attached individuals is a common symptom of
borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder (BPD), also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD), is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of unstable interpersonal relationships, distorted sense of self, and strong ...
,
histrionic personality disorder
Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive attention-seeking behaviors, usually beginning in early childhood, including inappropriate ...
,
narcissistic personality disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, a diminished ability or unwillingness to empathize with other ...
, and
antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD or infrequently APD) is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of disregard of, or violation of, the rights of others as well as a difficulty sustaining long-term relationships. Lack ...
but most promiscuous individuals do not have these disorders.
Cross-cultural studies
In 2008, a U.S. university study of international promiscuity found that
Finns
Finns or Finnish people ( fi, suomalaiset, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland.
Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these ...
have had the largest number of sex partners in the industrialized world, and
British people
British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs mo ...
have the largest number among big western industrial nations. The study measured one-night stands, attitudes to
casual sex
Casual sex is sexual activity that takes place outside a romantic relationship and implies an absence of commitment, emotional attachment, or familiarity between sexual partners. Examples are sexual activity while casually dating, one-night ...
, and number of
sexual partner
Sexual partners are people who engage in sexual activity together. The sexual partners may be in a committed relationship, either on an exclusive basis or not, or engage in the sexual activity on a casual basis. They may be on intimate terms ...
s. A 2014 nationwide survey in the United Kingdom named Liverpool the country's most promiscuous city.
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
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
nations with a population over 10 million on the study's promiscuity index, in descending order, were the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Australia, the United States, France, Turkey, Mexico, and Canada.
A 2017 survey by Superdrug found that the United Kingdom was the country with the most sex partners with an average of 7, while Austria had around 6.5. A study funded by
condom
A condom is a sheath-shaped barrier device used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy or a sexually transmitted infection (STI). There are both male and female condoms. With proper use—and use at every act of in ...
-maker
Durex
Durex is a brand of condoms and personal lubricants owned by the British company Reckitt Benckiser. It was initially developed in London under the purview of the London Rubber Company and British Latex Products Ltd, where it was manufactured bet ...
, conducted in 2006 and published in 2009, measured promiscuity by a total number of sexual partners. The survey found Austrian men had the highest number of sex partners globally, with 29.3 sexual partners on average. New Zealand women had the highest number of sex partners for females in the world with an average of 20.4 sexual partners. In all of the countries surveyed, except New Zealand, men reported more sexual partners than women.
One review found the people from developed Western countries had more sex partners than people from developing countries in general, while the rate of STIs was higher in developing countries.
According to the 2005 Global Sex Survey by Durex, people have had on average nine sexual partners, the most in Turkey (14.5) and Australia (13.3), and the fewest in India (3) and China (3.1).
In many cases, the population of each country that participates is approximately 1000 people and can equate to less than 0.0003% of the population, e.g. the 2017 survey of 42 nations surveyed only 33,000 people. In India, data was collected from less than 0.000001% of the total population at that time.
According to the 2012 General Social Survey in the United States by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, Protestants on average had more sex partners than Catholics. Similarly, a 2019 study by the Institute for Family Studies in the US found that of never married young people, Protestants have more sexual partners than Catholics.
Male promiscuity
![calonghi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Calonghi.jpg)
Straight men (heterosexuals)
A 1994 study in the United States, which looked at the number of sexual partners in a lifetime, found 20% of heterosexual men had one partner, 55% had two to 20 partners, and 25% had more than 20 sexual partners. More recent studies have reported similar numbers.
In the United Kingdom, a nationally representative study in 2013 found that 33.9% of heterosexual men had 10 or more lifetime sexual partners. Among men between 45 and 54 years old, 43.1% reported 10 or more sexual partners.
Gay men (homosexuals)
A 1989 study found having over 100 partners to be present though rare among homosexual males.
An extensive 1994 study found that difference in the mean number of sexual partners between gay and straight men "did not appear very large".
A 2007 study reported that two large population surveys found "the majority of
gay men
Gay men are male homosexuals. Some bisexual and homoromantic men may also dually identify as gay, and a number of young gay men also identify as queer. Historically, gay men have been referred to by a number of different terms, including ' ...
had similar numbers of unprotected sexual partners annually as straight men and women."
The 2013 British
NATSAL study found that gay men typically had 19 sexual partners in a lifetime (median).
In the previous year, 51.8% reported having either 0 or 1 sexual partner. A further 21.3% reported having between 2 and 4 sexual partners, 7.3% reported having between 5 and 9, and 19.6% reported having 10 or more sexual partners.
This reflects previous findings that a minority of gay men have a disproportionate share of all gay sex.
A 2014 study in Australia found gay men had a median of 22 sexual partners in a lifetime (''sexual partner'' meant any sexual contact, including kissing). 30% of gay respondents reported 0–9 partners in their lifetime. 50.1% of gay men reported having either 0 or 1 partner in the previous year, while 25.6% reported 10 or more partners in the previous year.
Research on gay sexual behavior may overrepresent promiscuous respondents.
This is because gay men are a small portion of the male population, and thus many researchers have relied on
convenience surveys to research behavior of gay men. Examples of this type of sampling includes surveying men on dating apps such as
Grindr
Grindr () is a location-based social networking and online dating application targeted towards members of the gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community.
It was one of the first geosocial apps for gay men when it launched in March 2009 an ...
, or finding volunteers at gay bars, clubs and saunas. Convenience surveys often exclude gay men who are in a relationship, and gay men who do not use dating apps or attend gay venues.
Some researchers reported that British and European convenience surveys included approximately five times as many gay men who reported "5 or more sexual partners" than the nationally representative NATSAL study did.
Probability sample surveys are more useful in this regard, because they seek to accurately reflect the characteristics of the gay male population. Examples include the
NATSAL in the United Kingdom and the
General Social Survey
The General Social Survey (GSS) is a sociological survey created and regularly collected since 1972 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. It is funded by the National Science Foundation. The GSS collects informati ...
in the United States.
John Corvino
John Frank Corvino (born 1969) is an American philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy and the dean of the Honors College at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and the author of several books, with a focus on the morality of homosexu ...
has said that many opponents to gay rights often rely on convenience sample statistics to support their belief that gay men are promiscuous, but that larger representative samples show that the difference is not so large, and that extreme promiscuity occurs in a minority of gay men. Psychologist
J. Michael Bailey
John Michael Bailey (born July 2, 1957) is an American psychologist, behavioural geneticist, and professor at Northwestern University best known for his work on the etiology of sexual orientation. He maintains that sexual orientation is heavily ...
has stated that social conservatives have taken such surveys as evidence of a "decadent" nature of gay men, but says "I think they’re wrong. Gay men who are promiscuous are expressing an essentially masculine trait. They are doing what most heterosexual men would do if they could. They are in this way just like heterosexual men, except that they don’t have women to constrain them."
Regarding
sexually transmitted infection
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are Transmission (medicine), spread by Human sexual activity, sexual activity, especi ...
s (STIs), some researchers have said that the number of sexual partners had by gay men does not explain the rates of HIV infection, since most had similar numbers of sexual partners as straight men on an annual basis. They say that anal sex, which holds a much higher risk of HIV transmission, is the primary transmission factor, with number of sexual partners as a secondary factor.
Female promiscuity
![Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeevna by anonymous after Rotari (18th c, Russian museum)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Grand_Duchess_Catherine_Alexeevna_by_anonymous_after_Rotari_%2818th_c%2C_Russian_museum%29.jpg)
In 1994, a study in the United States found almost all married heterosexual women reported having sexual contact only with their husbands, and unmarried women almost always reported having no more than one sexual partner in the past three months. Lesbians who had long-term partners reported having fewer outside partners than heterosexual women.
More recent research, however, contradicts the assertion that heterosexual women are largely monogamous. A 2002 study estimated that 45% to 55% of married heterosexual women engage in sexual relationships outside of their marriage,
while the estimate for heterosexual males engaging in the same conduct was 50–60% in the same study.
One possible explanation for hyper sexuality is child sexual abuse (CSA) trauma. Many studies have examined the correlation between CSA and
risky sexual behavior
Risky sexual behavior is the description of the activity that will increase the probability that a person engaging in sexual activity with another person infected with a sexually transmitted infection will be infected or become pregnant, or make ...
. Rodriguez-Srednicki and Ofelia examined the correlation of CSA experienced by women and their self-destructive behavior as adults using a questionnaire. The diversity and ages of the women varied. Slightly fewer than half the women reported CSA while the remainder reported no childhood trauma. The results of the study determined that self-destructive behaviors, including hypersexuality, correlates with CSA in women. CSA can create sexual schemas that result in risky sexual behavior. This can play out in their sexual interactions as girls get older. The sexual behaviors of women that experienced CSA differed from those of women without exposure to CSA. Studies show CSA survivors tend to have more sexual partners and engage in higher risk sexual behaviors.
Since at least 1450, the word '
slut
''Slut (archaic: slattern)'' is an English-language term for a person, usually a woman or girl, who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous. It is usually used as an insult, sexual slur or offensive term of d ...
' has been used, often pejoratively, to describe a sexually promiscuous woman. In and before the
Elizabethan
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...
and
Jacobean era
The Jacobean era was the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I. The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Ca ...
s, terms like "strumpet" and "whore" were used to describe women deemed promiscuous, as seen, for example, in
John Webster
John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1632) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies '' The White Devil'' and ''The Duchess of Malfi'', which are often seen as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and car ...
's 1612 play ''
The White Devil
''The White Devil'' (full original title: ''The White Divel; or, The Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano. With The Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona the famous Venetian Curtizan'') is a tragedy by English playwright John We ...
''.
Thornhill and Gangestad found that women are much more likely to sexually fantasize about and be attracted to
extra-pair men during the fertile phase of the
menstrual cycle
The menstrual cycle is a series of natural changes in hormone production and the structures of the uterus and ovaries of the female reproductive system that make pregnancy possible. The ovarian cycle controls the production and release of eggs a ...
than the
luteal phase
The corpus luteum (Latin for "yellow body"; plural corpora lutea) is a temporary endocrine structure in female ovaries involved in the production of relatively high levels of progesterone, and moderate levels of estradiol, and inhibin A. It is t ...
, whereas attraction to the primary partner does not change depending on the
menstrual cycle
The menstrual cycle is a series of natural changes in hormone production and the structures of the uterus and ovaries of the female reproductive system that make pregnancy possible. The ovarian cycle controls the production and release of eggs a ...
. A 2004 study by Pillsworth, Hasselton and Buss contradicted this, finding greater in-pair sexual attraction during this phase and no increase in attraction to extra-pair men.
Evolution
Evolutionary psychologists
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evolv ...
propose that a conditional
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
tendency for promiscuity is inherited from
hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
ancestors. Promiscuity increases the likelihood of having children, thus "evolutionary" fitness. According to them, female promiscuity is advantageous in that it allows females to choose fathers for their children who have better genes than their mates, to ensure better care for their offspring, have more children, and as a form of fertility insurance. Male promiscuity was likely advantageous because it allowed males to father more children.
Primitive promiscuity
Primitive promiscuity or original promiscuity was the 19th-century hypothesis that humans originally lived in a state of promiscuity or "
hetaerism
Hetaira (plural hetairai (), also hetaera (plural hetaerae ), ( grc, ἑταίρα, "companion", pl. , la, hetaera, pl. ) was a type of prostitution in ancient Greece, prostitute in ancient Greece, who served as an artist, entertainer and conve ...
" prior to the advent of society as we understand it. Hetaerism is a theoretical early state of human society, as postulated by 19th-century anthropologists, which was characterized by the absence of the institution of marriage in any form and in which women were the common property of their tribe and in which children never knew who their fathers were.
The reconstruction of the original state of primitive society or humanity was based on the idea of progress, according to which all cultures have degrees of improvement and becoming more complicated. It seemed logical to assume that never before the types of families developed did they simply exist, and in primitive society, sexual relations were without any boundaries and taboos. This view is represented, inter alia, by anthropologist
Lewis H. Morgan
Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social ev ...
in ''
Ancient Society
''Ancient Society'' is an 1877 book by the American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan. Building on the data about kinship and social organization presented in his 1871 ''Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family'', Morgan develops h ...
'' and quoted by
''.
In the first half of the 20th century, this notion was rejected by a number of authors, e.g.
Edvard Westermarck
Edvard Alexander Westermarck (Helsinki, 20 November 1862 – Tenala, 3 September 1939) was a Finnish philosopher and sociologist. Among other subjects, he studied exogamy and the incest taboo.
Biography
Westermarck was born in 1862 in a ...
, a Finnish philosopher, social anthropologist and sociologist with in-depth knowledge of the history of marriage, who provided strong evidence that, at least in the first stages of cultural development, monogamy has been a perfectly normal and natural form of man-woman coexistence.
Modern cultural anthropology has not confirmed the existence of a complete promiscuity in any known society or culture. The evidence of history is reduced to some texts of
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
,
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
, and
Solinus, which have been hard to interpret.
Religious and social views
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
,
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
, and
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
condemn promiscuity and instead advocate lifelong monogamous marriage (although Islam allows polygamy for men).
Promiscuity has been practiced in
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
communities and other
alternative subcultures since the
1960s cultural revolution.
Sex and Culture is a book by
J. D. Unwin
Joseph Daniel Unwin MC (1895–1936) was an English ethnologist and social anthropologist at Oxford University and Cambridge University.
Contributions to anthropology
In '' Sex and Culture'' (1934), Unwin studied 80 primitive tribes and six ...
concerning the correlation between a society's level of 'cultural achievement' and its level of sexual restraint. Published in 1934, the book concluded with the theory that as societies develop, they become more sexually liberal, accelerating the social entropy of the society, thereby diminishing its "creative" and "expansive" energy.
Other animals
Many animal species, such as
bonobo
The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...
s and
chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s, are promiscuous as a rule; they do not form
pair bond
In biology, a pair bond is the strong affinity that develops in some species between a mating pair, often leading to the production and rearing of offspring and potentially a lifelong bond. Pair-bonding is a term coined in the 1940s that is freque ...
s. Although social monogamy occurs in about
90% of avian species and about 3% of
mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
ian species, an estimated 90% of socially monogamous species exhibit individual promiscuity in the form of
copulation outside the pair bond.
[Research conducted by ]Patricia Adair Gowaty
Patricia Adair Gowaty is an American evolutionary biologist. She received her B.A. in biology at Tulane University and her PhD in zoology at Clemson University in 1980. She is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Los ...
. Reported by
In the animal world, some species, including birds such as
swan
Swans are birds of the family (biology), family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form t ...
s and fish such as ''
Neolamprologus pulcher
''Neolamprologus pulcher'' is a species of cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika where it prefers locations with plenty of sedimentation. The common name for ''N. pulcher'' is the daffodil cichlid. This species can reach a length of TL. It can ...
'', once believed
monogamous
Monogamy ( ) is a form of Dyad (sociology), dyadic Intimate relationship, relationship in which an individual has only one Significant other, partner during their lifetime. Alternately, only one partner at any one time (Monogamy#Serial monogamy, ...
, are now known to engage in
extra-pair copulation
Extra-pair copulation (EPC) is a mating behaviour in monogamous species. Monogamy is the practice of having only one sexual partner at any one time, forming a long-term bond and combining efforts to raise offspring together; mating outside this pai ...
s. One example of extra-pair fertilization (EPF) in birds is the
black-throated blue warbler
The black-throated blue warbler (''Setophaga caerulescens'') is a small passerine bird of the New World warbler family. Its breeding ranges are located in the interior of deciduous and mixed coniferous forests in eastern North America. Over the ...
s. Though it is a socially monogamous species, both males and females engage in EPF.
The Darwin-Bateman paradigm, which states that males are typically eager to copulate while females are more choosy about whom to mate with, has been confirmed by a
meta-analysis
A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...
.
See also
*
Cottaging
Cottaging is a gay slang term, originating from the United Kingdom, referring to anonymous sex between men in a public lavatory (a "cottage", "tea-room"Andre "tearoom; t-room ''noun'' a public toilet. From an era when a great deal of homosexual c ...
*
Emotional promiscuity
*
Female promiscuity
Promiscuity tends to be frowned upon by many societies that expect most members to have committed, long-term relationships.
Among women, as well as men, inclination for sex outside committed relationships is correlated with a high libido, but ev ...
*
Monogamy
Monogamy ( ) is a form of dyadic relationship in which an individual has only one partner during their lifetime. Alternately, only one partner at any one time (serial monogamy) — as compared to the various forms of non-monogamy (e.g., polyga ...
*
Polyamory
Polyamory () is the practice of, or desire for, romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time, with the informed consent of all partners involved. People who identify as polyamorous may believe in open relationships wit ...
*
Polyandry
Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives" ...
*
Polygamy
Crimes
Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married ...
*
Polygynandry
Polygynandry is a mating system in which both males and females have multiple mating partners during a breeding season. In sexually reproducing diploid animals, different mating strategies are employed by males and females, because the cost of game ...
*
Prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
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Sexual addiction
According to proponents of the concept, sexual addiction, also known as sex addiction, is a state characterized by compulsive participation or engagement in sexual activity, particularly sexual intercourse, despite negative consequences. The con ...
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Sexual revolution
The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
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Sociosexual orientation
Sociosexuality, sometimes called sociosexual orientation, is the individual difference in the willingness to engage in sexual activity outside of a committed relationship. Individuals who are more ''restricted'' sociosexually are less willing to en ...
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Sperm competition
Sperm competition is the competitive process between spermatozoa of two or more different males to fertilize the same egg during sexual reproduction. Competition can occur when females have multiple potential mating partners. Greater choice and ...
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Swinging
References
Bibliography
*Chakov, Kell
''Nineteen Century Social Evolutionism''*
Fortes, Meyer (2005)
Kinship and the Social Order: The Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan' pp. 7–8
*Lehrman, Sally
The Virtues of Promiscuity' (2002)
*
Lerner, Gerda (1986
Women and History vol. 1: The Creation of Patriarchy
*Lerner, Gerda
The Origin of Prostitution in Ancient Mesopotamia
. ''Signs'', Vol. 11, No. 2 (Winter, 1986), pp. 236–54
*Schmitt, David P.
Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating
. ''Behavioral and Brain Sciences'' (2005) 28, 247–311
* Miller Jr., Gerrit S. (1931)
The Primate Basis of Human Sexual Behavior
. ''The Quarterly Review of Biology'', Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1931), pp. 379–410
* Westermarck, Edward 891(2003)
History of Human Marriage Part 1
' Kessinger Publishing
* Weston, Kath (1998)
Long Slow Burn: Sexuality and Social Science
'
*Woock, Randy (2002)
'
*Rinaldi, Robin, ''The Wild Oats Project: One Woman's Midlife Quest for Passion at Any Cost'', Sarah Crichton Books (2015), hardcover, 304 pages
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Human sexuality
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