From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Promiscuity refers to sexual behaviour of a man or woman who engages in sexual relations with multiple partners on a casual and/or regular basis.

Most religions disapprove of and discourage sexual promiscuity, though some allow for promiscuous practices, such as religious prostitution in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece and India.

Contents 1 Human promiscuity 1.1 Male promiscuity 1.2 Female promiscuity 1.3 Controversy 2 In the animal world 3 See also 4 References

Main article: Human sexuality

What is considered socially acceptable sexual behaviour, and what behaviour is "promiscuous", varies much among different cultures. In some cultural contexts, a woman who copulates with a man or men other than her husband is considered promiscuous, while a married or unmarried man's extra- and pre-marital like behaviour may not be considered promiscuous.^{[citation needed]}

In some cultures, the term is applied to any man or woman who has more than one lover at a given time. In some industrialized societies, it is likely used only, and derogatorily, in describing women who have many sexual partners, seemingly chosen indiscriminately. In such a case, no set number of sexual partner delimits the promiscuous from the not promiscuous.

Accurately assessing people's sexual behavior is difficult, since there are strong social and personal motivations, depending on social sanctions and taboos, for either minimizing or exaggerating reported sexual activity. The best statistics of human sexual behavior are derived from research into sexually transmitted diseases (STD). Extensive research has produced mathematical models of sexual behaviour comparing the results generated with the observed prevalence of STDs to statistically estimate the probable sexual behavior of the studied population.

A person's numbers of sexual partners, both in a lifetime and concurrently, varies widely within a population. In the U.S., seven women is the median number of lifetime female sexual partners; four men is the median number of male partners for women; 29 per cent of men and 9 per cent of women report to have had more than 15 sexual partners.^[1] 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 epidemiology of venereal diseases is whether or not these groups copulate mostly at random (with sexual partners from through out a population) or within their social groups (assortative mixing).

The word womanizer (Br Eng: womaniser), playboy, philanderer, player, ladies' man, man-whore, ladykiller, Cad and rake (rakehell) refer to a man who has love affairs with women he either cannot or will not marry or commit himself. Typically, the love affairs are sexually motivated, with slight emotional connection and attachment. The names of real and fictional seducers have become eponyms for such promiscuous men. The most famous are the historical Casanova (1725-1798)^[2], the fictional Don Juan, who first appeared in the 17th century, and Lothario from Nicholas Rowe's 1703 play The Fair Penitent.

During the English Restoration period (1660-1688), the words rake hell and rake were used glamorously: the Restoration rake is a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat typified by Charles II's courtiers, the Earl of Rochester and the Earl of Dorset, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. The Restoration rake is celebrated in the Restoration comedy of the 1660s and the 1670s. After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the rake was perceived as negative and became the butt of moralistic tales in which his typical fate was debtor's prison, permanent venereal disease, and, in the case of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, venereally-caused insanity and internment to Bedlam.

Since at least 1450, the pejorative words slut, harlot, whore describe a sexually promiscuous woman^{[citation needed]}. In great contrast to the glamour of rake for men, slut is unglamourous and also historically refers to an unhygienic woman who is personally dirty and unkempt.

In the United States there are highly suppressed arguments that promiscuity and the increasing divorce rate and termination of relationships may be indirectly related. Some also believe that the possible correlation between the two is being willfully overlooked by the media and several business that obtain large amounts of revenue from either sex related products or the exploitation of sex appeal as a marketing tool, especially when relating to promiscuity. The argument states when one sexual partner takes another that they are exposing then to their pheromones which the affix themselves to them and that when the latter takes a new partner they then exposed then to their previous partners pheromones. Sensing the pheromones of an equal gender on their partner this help to create a building tension which eventually begins to fester seeking the first available opportunity to release it, which are rumored to cause displaced aggression over trivial issues that would otherwise go unnoticed. The whole process being attributed to a kind of territorial marking in humans. It has also been surmise that this is the reason why many religions sects claim that promiscuity leads to a less happier marriage.

Further information: Animal sexuality

In the animal world, some species of animals, including birds such as swans, 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 mammalian species, investigators estimate that 90 percent of socially monogamous species exhibit individual promiscuity in the form of extra-pair copulations.^[3][4][5]

Among primates, chimpanzees and bonobos, humans' closest living relatives, are promiscuous.

• Brothel
• Cottaging
• Orgy
• Polyamory
• Swinging

1. ^ New survey quantifies the sex we’re having MSNBC
2. ^ Julie Coleman (1999). Love, Sex and Marriage: A Historical Thesaurus. Rodopi. ISBN 9042004339. 
3. ^ Reichard, U.H. (2002). Monogamy—A variable relationship. Max Planck Research, 3, 62-67.
4. ^ Barash, D.P. & Lipton, J.E. (2001). The Myth of Monogamy. New York, NY: W.H. Freeman and Company.
5. ^ Research conducted by Patricia Adair Gowaty. Reported by Morell, V. (1998). Evolution of sex: A new look at monogamy. Science, 281, 1982-1983.