I witnessed a debate between two women on TV about the slutwalks coming to London.  One of whom argued that it was great was all for them and thought it was great whilst the other argued that women reclaiming the word “slut” and protesting against slut shaming was a good thing but that the promotion of promiscuity which she felt slutwalks were doing was wrong.

So, let’s dissect this question.  Is it wrong to be promiscuous ?

Now, as we saw in the post Why Sex Exists, sex exists in nature for reasons of survival and not reproduction as many people would assume.  It is an evolved defence mechanism against parasites to keep sexually reproducing creatures one step ahead of the parasites that their immediate ancestors  grew up with.

In other words when you look at the question of why sex exists at all it can answered in pure form style in just 3 words – parasite defence mechanism.  Or, if you want to get even more “pure form”  about it and answer the question in just one word – biodiversity.

Nature absolutely loves biodiversity.  In some creatures like the turkey that can reproduce either sexually or asexually, we see this demonstrated.  The female turkey can produce fertilised eggs by herself when isolated from male turkeys but when she does this, the chicks that hatch will not be as strong nor as resistant to disease or parasites as chicks conceived with a male turkey.  They will be less likely to survive.

Nature loves biodiversity.  Lack of biodiversity get punished time after time.

We see this in human beings too.  We can’t pull off the turkey’s neat trick and reproduce without sex but what happens when human beings have sex and reproduce with close family members and without biodiversity?  Recessive genes problems surface and it results in a higher risk of birth defects and various health defects including lower immunity and fertility.

The constant DNA / gene shuffling that happens with biodiversity on the other hand produces stronger, healthier off-spring with less birth defects, less diseases and some other more visibly pleasant advantages.

Purely for research of course … here’s some pics.

Adriana Lima – Native South American, Swiss and African

Jessica Alba – French, Mexican and Danish

Alessandra Ambrosio, Brazilian, Italian and Polish

 Ok, so nature quite clearly likes DNA shuffling and biodiversity.  It produces fine specimens.  So would that make both sluttiness and promiscuity a good thing right?  Well, not quite.  Let’s take a look at both in turn.

The word “slut” is a weapon wielded by both men and women but it means different things depending on whether it is a man or a woman who says it.

When men say it to a woman they mean that either she is having sex with more men than he approves of or she is advertising her sexuality in a way that makes him uncomfortable.

When a woman says it to a woman she means she is breaking the Sex 2.0 deal.  The rule that says she should never sell her sexuality for less than the price of security and she is undermining the market for all the other women (after all how can other women sell something in exchange for security when it is being given away for free).  As punishment for undermining the market , she must be shamed.

In both cases “slut” is a very, very Sex 2.0 word for reasons that are covered in more detail in the book and thankfully it has no place in a Sex 3.0 world.

In a Sex 3.0 world you can have as many sexual partners as you want – zero, one or more – without slut shaming or shaming of any kind because the Sex 2.0 deal is no longer relevant to modern society again for reason I cover in the book.

So promiscuity is good too, right?

Well no not really.  Promiscuity essentially means not exercising any discretion in your choice of sexual partners.  Completely lacking in standards of selection.

A lack of standards of selection can be punished in a number of ways.  First of all a lack of standards of selection would suggest that you don’t care about the quality that you end up with.  If you don’t care about the quality of what you end up with it would suggest that you either are desperate or have such a low opinion of yourself that you don’t think you have the right to filter anyone out.

Pure form relationships are run on the 4 cornerstones of communication, honesty, trust and respect.  If you want high quality pure form relationships in your life then lack of standards of selection is not going to get you there.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having more than sexual one partner in your life at the same time as long as you are honest about it and they have the same freedoms that you have.  That is not promiscuity.

Nor would it be “slutty” for a woman to have more than one sexual partner at any one time.  That is a completely meaningless word in a Sex 3.0 world because the Sex 2.0 deal is dead and “slut” is a Sex 2.0 enforcement word.

There is a sweet spot in which you can have the choice of multiple partners at the same time and not be either a slut nor be promiscuous and that sweet spot has a word to describe it.

That word is “unfenced”.  More details here.