I’ve touched on this basic issue before, but it strikes me as important enough to create a separate post on it. One of the more bizarre beliefs of our time is that there is some moral value to the statement:

No sex before monogamy!

I see this everywhere, including from Christians. What this statement is really saying is that promiscuity is good so long as it is happening on the woman’s own terms. This is similar to the argument by the Christian women that the wife in Fireproof wasn’t being whorish because she planned on divorcing her husband and marrying the other man she was after before having sex with him.

There is no moral basis for serial monogamy, otherwise known as monogamy without a lifetime commitment. All there is are male and female preferred forms of promiscuity.

Men’s preferred form of promiscuity is to have a soft harem (which he is invested in but not committed to) along with one-off sex with women he isn’t invested in. We call men who act on this preferred form of promiscuity players, cads, pickup artists, etc.

Women’s preferred form of promiscuity is to have sex with the highest status man she can (at the time), while also securing investment and commitment from him (but without offering commitment herself). The confusion occurs because the woman is being selective about who she has sex with and at any given point in time the woman appears to be in something resembling a marriage. Even more confusing, many women go through the motions of having a wedding but leave out the actual lifetime commitment. However, seeing these women as anything but promiscuous is a foolish mistake. When you look at the big picture it becomes painfully clear that what they are doing is nothing like marriage. We used to have terms for women like this, but conservative women are now uncomfortable with them. Whatever term you use, it is essential not to mistake these women as being any more moral than players or pickup artists. They are acting on animal instinct just like the players are. The only difference is their instincts are different and therefore their expression of promiscuity is as well.