Sexual Promiscuity the Sociology of Thesis

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Specifically, Schmitt addresses sexuality under what he refers to as a pluralistic perspective, asserting that men and women alike exist under a pretense of lifelong alterations in sexual desires and that in both, there may be some degree of inherent tendency toward a wide array of sexual desires across the course of a lifetime. However, the study also notes that even under this precondition, there is consistent and demonstrable empirical evidence to suggest that there is indeed some instinctual drive by the male to desire more than one sexual partner throughout his life than a is present for the female. For the female, sexual intercourse is likely to be more selective and driven by an interest in attaining certain desirable mating or socializing qualities in the partner. In contrast, the male will be more prone to apply broader standards and shorter incubation period before consent to intercourse. (Schmitt, 3) In Schmitt's perspective, there is a quality of species perpetuation that is improved by the notion of male promiscuity, with the desire in men for multiple sexual partners driven by the capacity to improve the propagation of the species. In this pluralistic account, we are given a theoretical endorsement in modern terms of the idea that a biological incentive exists for male promiscuity.

Interestingly, in Gowaty's 2003 article Sexual Natures: How Feminism Changed Evolutionary Biology, our study is given the ideal segue into a discussion of the social factors concerned with the apparent proclivity of men toward promiscuity in comparison to women. Here, Gowaty presents the argument that biological conceptions of the female as lacking sexual desires and thus likely driven to promiscuity only by virtue of emotional disturbance would be disrupted by the rise of the feminist movement.

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This accounts for a gradual alteration in our understanding of differentials between male and female sexuality. (Gowaty, 901) In the coming section, we will see that these differentials may have less to do with our biological make up than with the conditions imposed upon genders by society.

According to a 2003 study on the subject, which sought to draw connections between social characteristics and sexual proclivities, some of the psychologically driven suggestions as to what might instigate promiscuity did not actually hold up to scrutiny. Specifically, the study found on this subject that "forms of risky sexual behaviour were generally unrelated to neuroticism . . . across cultures." (Schmitt1, 201) Though such psychological instability was measured by the study, no connection between this condition and sexual promiscuity could be established, undermining assumptions that promiscuity could be classified specifically as relating to some pattern of emotional distress.

The social pressures which are often imposed upon women to conform to specific sexual expectations -- and particularly expectations that women should be less promiscuous than men -- may have very serious implications. Beyond the prospect that women may tend to display behaviors less reflective of their true sexual desires than of the sexual posturing imposed upon them by external forces, there is the even greater concern that for some women, the outward reflection of promiscuity will result in exile from social groups or settings. Ultimately, this reveals promiscuity patterns to be impacted directly by social pressures, perhaps even more so than biological conditions, with the greater tendency of men towards such behavior reflecting the difference in sexual expectations on a broad sociological scale.

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