The promiscuity myth
Why the rooster carousel isn't real, and why it persists in the popular imagination
We’ve been receiving mixed messages lately: on one hand, we’re in the midst of a sex recession, with young people retreating into digital monasticism as secular monks and nuns; on the other, we’re in the midst of a carnal carnival of fleshy carousel rides.
Those who orbit the manosphere believe both are occurring simultaneously (minus the nuns); promiscuity is out of control today, but women are Chadsexual—just as horny as men, if not more so, but only for Chad.
This drives them to spend their youth messing around with Chads during what’s referred to as their hoe phase. After they’ve had their fun and hit the wall, they suddenly begin showing interest in men they previously wouldn’t have given the time of day. Not out of any genuine attraction, of course, but because they realize their sexual marketplace value is rapidly declining and they’ve failed to lock down Chad, so they instead look to settle down with a schmuck who will serve as a dependable beta provider.
To be fair, if you insist on the notion that ‘hook-up culture’ is in full swing yet this isn’t most men’s experience, what other conclusion are people to draw from this? It’s a notion that invites conspiratorial thinking to fill in the gaps.
Feminists of the sex-positive variety have long endorsed a similar view under the banner of female empowerment: women are at least as sexually driven as men—if not more so, according to feminist cultural critic Wednesday Martin. The only reason we’ve believed otherwise, the argument goes, is because patriarchal double standards and outdated Victorian norms have long suppressed women’s true desires. Even some evolutionary psychologists seem to endorse this view—seemingly under the mistaken impression that this conflicts with manosphere thought.
It’s not uncommon to see in response to those who challenge this sex-positive framing a dunk like: just because women don’t want to sleep with you doesn’t mean they don’t like casual sex!—almost reinforcing the Chadsexuality charge.
I’ve already addressed the Chadopoly myth in some detail;1 let’s now take a closer look at promiscuity more broadly.
Trends in casual sex and promiscuous sexual behaviour
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows that in addition to declining rates of sexual activity among high school students, the share reporting sex with four or more partners over their lifetime has declined across both sexes.
What constitutes ‘promiscuity’ is of course subjective. To those of a more traditional persuasion, any premarital sex might suffice. For most people though, it’d probably take at least four partners in the span of a year—a number unlikely to result purely from serial monogamy unless it’s an unusually unstable person.
We also see no rise in the share of men or women aged 21–30 reporting four or more sex partners in the past year in Monitoring the Future; this remains confined to about 10% of young adults, with the percentage for men apparently having fallen slightly.
I also looked at the General Social Survey data and found a similar pattern; while the proportion of men reporting high partner counts declined over time, for women it stayed quite stable, producing what looks like a convergence. Personally, I think this may simply reflect more accurate reporting. The mean partner counts reported by men and women are typically incompatible, suggesting misreporting. If overall promiscuity is declining but women are reporting more candidly, the effects may cancel each other out. It’s also possible that promiscuity has remained stable but men are less prone to exaggerating. Since sexual inactivity trends seem to apply to both genders equally however, I’d say the former is more likely.
A 2023 Dutch survey found that 15% of men and 14% of women aged 18–24 had sex with more than one partner in the past six months, and 8% of men and 9% of women in this age bracket had more than 10 lifetime partners. These figures were basically unchanged since 2017.
It remains the case that most young adults’ sexual acts occur within relationships rather than one-night stands or FWBs.
A 2017 Swiss survey asked specifically about casual sex. 75% of men and 71% of women aged ~26 reported ever having engaged in it, and the median number of casual sex partners over their lifetimes was 2–3. 14.4% of men and 9.4% of women reported more than 10, meaning that since becoming sexually active, 85-90% would have fewer than one partner per year.
Among those with casual sex experience, 73% of men and 76% of women had none in the past month; 19% and 20% had one; and 8% and 4% had more than one.2
South & Lei (2021) documented a decline in casual sex between 2007 and 2017; by 2017, 24% of unpartnered men and 22% of unpartnered women reported having had sexual intercourse in the past month, down from 38% and 31%, respectively. Among men, a significant portion of this decline was attributed to reduced alcohol consumption, increased time spent gaming, and higher rates of parental coresidence.
A popular notion is that dating apps have driven up promiscuity, but higher partner counts among dating app users have been found to be mediated by user characteristics, and even when it comes to one-night stands, only about 20% originate through dating apps; a larger share do in social venues like bars, parties, and festivals, where there tends to be alcohol involved.
Those invested in the promiscuity narrative often selectively reject self-reported sexual behaviour data; in this case by claiming that women are underreporting their body counts. However, self-reported sexual partner data, while not perfect, seems to be quite reliable—especially when it comes to more recent partners such as those encountered within the past year. Moreover, if one maintains that female promiscuity has risen in recent years, one must also accept the arguably counterintuitive premise that women have simultaneously become more reluctant to admit it to cancel out the effect—and since it’s rarely suggested that men understate their body counts, the ceiling on how high female promiscuity could be isn’t that high regardless.
