There are many people who think that sexual promiscuity is the worst thing that a person can do. I can think of many things worse than promiscuity.
Incest is worse than promiscuity. Domestic violence is worse than promiscuity. Throwing sulfuric acid into the face of a child for going to school, or murdering a young woman for getting raped, is worse than promiscuity.
The women who are most at risk for promiscuity are women who are beautiful and kind. Every man wants such women, and they experience greater than normal levels of temptation. If promiscuity is seen as the worst sin, then the women who get attacked the most are the better women. The women who experience the least amount of temptation are women who are unattractive and mean. This allows such women to claim moral superiority. In most cases they don’t have moral superiority; they simply have less temptation.
This, then, results in a wrong set of incentives in society. Meanness and unattractiveness get elevated to moral virtue, while beauty and kindness gets a woman attacked. Virtues and vices are reversed, resulting in the better women leading the hardest lives. This is bad for the world and this is bad for society.
Are such women “sluts” and “whores”? These words are not in my vocabulary. I’ve definitely found high character in a number of kind and beautiful women, whether or not they were promiscuous, and it is certainly better than the character of women who are unattractive and mean. These are virtues, and ones that deserve to be rewarded. Then there will be more of such things going round, and the world will be a better place.
Should one encourage promiscuity? Probably not, but it’s right to put things into perspective. There are many much worse sins than promiscuity, and the attacks that promiscuous women get are way out of proportion. A line that most comes to mind is “may he who is without sin cast the first stone.” And most of the people who attack such women are in no way without sin.
Now there have been times when promiscuity was trendy, and there have been times when it was not trendy. The people in promiscuous periods thought that they were effectuating social progress, and the people in non-promiscuous periods thought that they upheld traditional beliefs. In both cases what we saw were trends. Trends that were later replaced by other trends, whether supporting promiscuity or working against it.
Here is what actually is effectuating both social progress and traditional beliefs: Having understanding. It is important that people understand where others are coming from. What is needed is a more loving, more compassionate frame of mind that understands social dynamics responsible for any given phenomena. A kind and beautiful woman is going to be at a strong risk of promiscuity. And her falling for it should not be a life-ruining error.