Promiscuity: Difference between revisions

The advantage of promiscuity (from the point of view of the genes) is that it creates lots of offspring that one does not invest into, some of which may make it. More [[life history|r-selected]] species are more promiscuous as they invest less in their offspring. In welfare states men can maximize reproductive success by [[pump and dump|pumping and dumping]] many females and leaving the raising of the offspring to the state or [[betabux]].

The advantage of sexual variety is also that it increases genetic variety. Combining one's own genes with the genes of many different sex partners increases the chance that one combination is particularly successful, as it increases the genotypic and hence phenotypic diversity of the offspring (with increased variance, an extreme outcome becomes more likely). Although it increases the odds of having a single high fitness child, the rest of your children won't be as fit and might in fact be below desired fitness.

Both males and females, benefit from sexual variety (though females only if a source of resources is secured). The threat of extra marital sex on the part of females means that men need to engage mate guarding in order to ensure paternity (this is how our monogamous/polygynous mating system came about). Thus, it motivates males to constrain female sexuality, in our ancestors this was mainly done via the infanticide of offspring that were suspect or the homicide of the wife and/or lover. This constitutes a [[sexual conflict]], opposing female [[whoring]] and engagement in [[pump and dump]] on the one side for increasing sexual variety, and culture limiting sexual variety for females on the other.  

Female promiscuity gives rise to '''sperm competition''' as it means the sperm needs to compete inside the [[vagina]] and possibly also affecting shape of the [[penis]] so as to be able to scoop out competing sperm. There is little "evidence" of female promiscuity in humans; these will be considered and summarized below.  

Evidence for it:

*Cross-cultural concerns about female promiscuity, giving rise to slut-shaming gossip among females (We hardly find slut shaming in Chimpanzees and other promiscuous mating systems; thus, contrary to what is asserted, would obviously be a feature of a monogamous mating system were women stand to lose much if their pair bonded male leaves them (or not marry and settle down with her) because there are other females whom will more readily give him sex.)

*Women display a kind of Coolidge Effect in marriages sooner than men (Considering that women need to be more invested in parenting, it seems certainly plausible that women get sexually bored quicker than men (if you're having sex too often, who takes care of the kids); if anything this says more about the role of women as mothers rather than an argument for promiscuity)

*High incidence of mate poaching, mate switching, back-burners and relationship instability and a massive decline in long-term monogamous mating in contemporary "liberated" society. (This point is less about female promiscuity and is more evidence of female hypergamy, now that alpha males are more readily available and casual sex is more acceptable, the hypergamous instinct in females intensifies. Back up partners and mate switching is evidence that, when possible, a woman will trade her current partner out for a better mate. To argue for a promiscuous mating system, we need to show that a woman will still exhibit this behaviour even when paired with Alpha males; even chimpanzees will mate with lower status males from time to time in their promiscuous mating system despite the availability of Chads to have sex with females. As it doesn't seem plausible that most females will exhibit mate switching/poaching whilst with Alpha men, this cannot be used as evidence of female promiscuity in Humans)