Amerika

We already know that sexual promiscuity leads to breeding idiots. But does it reveal underpinnings that suggest our popular morality is distanced from a morality of sensibility?

Charlotte Markey, a psychologist at Rutgers University, and her husband Partrick Markey, a psychologist at Villanova University, asked 210 adults to take a test that measured their interpersonal characteristics. Each subject was also asked to list the number of people he or she had had sex with.

Patrick Markey notes that it’s particularly interesting that warm people tend to be promiscuous, because in some ways, it conflicts with the moral thinking that promiscuity is bad.

Each subject was also asked to list the number of people he or she had had sex with. When they compared the participants’ responses, they were able to confirm that dominance is a key trait of people who have a lot of sexual partners. They also found that individuals who are either extremely warm or extremely cold toward others tend to be promiscuous, while people who are just moderately warm have the fewest sexual partners.

Warm, affable people may enjoy sharing their warmth with others by, well…sleeping with them, while antagonistic people may jump from bed to bed to avoid having a monogamous relationship that carries the potential of being rejected or treated poorly. And having a dominant personality makes it easier to approach potential sex partners.

Examiner

If you want everyone to like you, sleep with them. Give them whatever you have. And then expect them to support you, which they might on the basis of reciprocal altruism or parochial altruism.

If you want to be moral, however, you’re going to follow a K-strategy in your life as a whole: pick carefully your friends and neighbors, sex partners and actions, because most things are failure and you want to rise above.