"How Long, O Lord?"

On Promiscuity and Hope

Why is “slut” the worst thing we can call a woman? Because we are repulsed and disgusted by promiscuity, and that leads to us being disgusted by women who are promiscuous. I’m going to spend a little time here deconstructing the reasons behind our disgust and behind the reasons for promiscuity, and then I’m going to provide some ideas for alternative reactions.

Women are not generally promiscuous. Promiscuity is NOT normal. Fewer than 9% of women report having fifteen or more partners in a lifetime. The number of women who have had dozens of partners or partners who are nameless hook-ups is extremely low. Yet these women bear the brunt of society’s attacks (and they probably join in the same attacks). What we need to understand is that these women are promiscuous because they are damaged – usually sexually, and always psychologically. More than 25% of women are sexually molested or abused. Many of the remainder are emotionally affected by issues related to body image or mental abuse. Women in society who aren’t damaged might be the rarity, actually. Clearly, promiscuity is not the only reaction to psychological damage: eating disorders, cutting, depression, aggression, and even other sexual problems such as frigidity could also be the results.

As humans, we are repulsed by promiscuity at a deep, animal level. This is a fact. It’s why “slut” hurts so much. The results vary between cultures, but a promiscuous woman is considered morally damaged world-wide. Victor Frankl gives one reason for connecting our instinctual reactions toward promiscuity to our value system, claiming that conscience works to apply human values that are actually a product of evolution:

“conscience must apply a measuring stick to the situation one is confronted with, and this situation has to be evaluated in the light of a set of criteria, in the light of a hierarchy of values. These values, however, cannot be espoused and adopted by us on a conscious level-they are something that we are. They have crystallized in the course of the evolution of our species; they are founded on our biological past and are rooted in our biological depth.” 

So, our reaction to promiscuity – our disgust in what we call “trashy” women – is founded in our biological depths. Such reaction is understandable when you see promiscuity as the symptom of damage and reproduction as the goal of humans. We are repulsed by symptoms of disease for health reasons. We are repulsed by promiscuity because it is a symptom of psychological damage – and we do not want to produce children with psychologically damaged people if we can help it. Basically, we need to understand that our reactions of disgust are natural but that they are also harmful and outdated.

Today we do not need to be pushed away by promiscuity because we can understand from where it comes and we can be empathetic to these damaged women. In fact, having spoken with several men and women about promiscuity in the last few weeks, I have learned that men are likely to ignore the past promiscuity of their partners “as long as that’s over” – and often such behavior does end once a woman joins a supportive, monogamous relationship. Such men do not understand the behavior but also do not tend to delve deeply. Most women who volunteered an opinion responded much less favorably: “Well she’s become trash, so she certainly couldn’t be in a real relationship.” Clearly, these women do not understand that promiscuity, like eating disorders and other coping mechanisms, is a symptom of damage or the women would be much more empathetic – and this proved to be true for 100% of these women once the connection was made. So, how do we make that connection for everyone?

First, I think we need to understand that no woman wishes to be a “slut.” Promiscuity is evidence that the link between sex and love – the healthy, normal link – has been damaged. As Frankl tells us:

“[For psychologically healthy people,] Human sex is always more than mere sex, and it is more than sex to the extent that it serves as the physical expression of something metasexual, is the physical expression of love. Only to the extent that sex carries out this function is it a rewarding experience.”

Yet the metasexual connection can be broken in many ways: perhaps the woman was asked to join in sex games with a parent at seven, perhaps she was engaged in incest with a brother at fourteen, perhaps she was in an abusive but sexually satisfying relationship with a boyfriend at twenty, or perhaps she was emotionally destroyed in a divorce at forty-five. Any of these scenarios will provide a break between the physical act of sex which is enjoyed in each scenario and the metasexual connection which is either absent or broken in each scenario.

Unfortunately, the promiscuous behavior itself reinforces this break: a woman who engages in sex acts with random strangers is engaging in self-destructive behavior. She is much more likely to be raped or to become infected with an STD than women with normal approaches to sex. But knowing how strong is our animal desire for sex, we can understand why any of us might engage in a few instances of such behavior. It’s when the half-dozen expected moments in a lifetime become dozens of such experiences, especially for younger women, that the promiscuous behavior is so obviously connected to personal identity/ psychological problems. These women have degraded themselves to the point where they become regular nameless and faceless “warm, wet holes.” Sometimes the women do this because they have been taught that their value is purely sexual. More often, women become promiscuous because they want a genuine human connection (ironically).

These women engage in self-destructive, damaging sex acts with strangers, often while under the influence, because they wish to be loved and cherished. The sex is accompanied by hugs, kisses, and caresses which, while empty, mimic the very behavior these women wish to receive from a man who genuinely cares. These women know, as Frankl tells us, that:

“Normally, sex is a mode of expression for love. Sex is justified, even sanctified, as soon as, but only as long as, it is a vehicle of love. Thus love is not understood as a mere side-effect of sex; rather, sex is a way of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness which is called love.” 

The women hunger for the “ultimate togetherness” desperately, yet the damage they have suffered leads them to engage in sex acts with men who will not take them seriously as humans – they become mere receptacles. What we must understand is that the women do not want to be receptacles – they want to be loved.

So, what can we do about our reactions to such women? I’m tempted to simply yell, “Get over it!” but that doesn’t work. We can’t simply ignore our human reactions. Instead, we can communicate with ourselves and explain to ourselves what I’ve said above: These women want to be loved and cherished. Being promiscuous is not their identity. Yes, they have difficulty understanding the metasexual link – but that is reason to pity them and more than enough reason to try to empathize. In a relationship with any such woman – as with any woman who is likely to be damaged – the key is to be present in the moment, to help her (and you) deal with what happens today. The past for either of you is just that: past. Understand that although promiscuous behavior certainly signifies that she has (had to?) cheapened sex in her life, she doesn’t want to cheapen her love for you. Yes, Love and sex are, as Frankl suggests, inextricably linked for healthy humans; however, your love can find ways around the damage and create a mutually supportive and healthy relationship despite the promiscuity.

Still, understand that psychological damage is serious. Do not discount your fears as baseless or her damage as insignificant. Having had one very important relationship destroyed because of childhood trauma leading to sexual dysfunction, I understand how terrifying it can be to be confronted with any direct evidence of such damage. But if you eliminate your ability to be close to others because you see the symptoms of such damage, you eliminate your ability to join and enjoy what could be the most significant, meaningful, and uplifting relationships you could ever know.

Defining the Soul

So, what does it mean to use religious rhetoric to a non-religious person? Here are a couple of responses:

Sven Birkets: "To speak of soul is not, for me, to speak about religion; it is not to announce one-self as a church-goer, a born-again Christian, or anything of the kind. Soul, for me, is prior to religion. Religion recognized the idea and posited it as something that it could help save, but not as something that faith brought into being. Soul comes before. I think of it as the active inner part of the self, the part that is not shaped by contingencies, that stands free; the part of the "I" that recognizes the absurd fact of its being; that is not in any sense immortal, but that recognizes the concept of immortality and understands the desire it expresses; that is that desire."

Joni Mitchell: "We are stardust, billion year old carbon; we are golden and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

J. Michael Straczynski:  "Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain, perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station, and the nebula outside-- that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out."

-Delenn, Babylon 5

Annie Dillard: "We are here to abet creation and to witness to it, to notice each other's beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house."

Victor Frankl: "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." Man's Search for Meaning