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> I am definitely not a feminist either, though. I very much want a woman who has some self respect and dignity and does not jump in bed with random men, because she thinks it is some act of self-empowerment.

I think you misunderstand feminism. Promiscuity does not mean you’re necessarily a feminist. One does not imply the other.

It doesn’t mean that. However feminism allows for that as a choice. I think the OP doesn’t classify as feminist because they want to deny that choice in general.

No it doesn't? Non-feminist women sleep around all the time as a choice. That definition of feminism makes no sense. You are confusing feminism with sex positive.

Of course feminist women that are not sex positive are exist too. Some of the people need to get out more and meet feminists in real life!

No that is definitely not my view at all. Everyone should be free to do whatever they want.

I am just talking about what behaviours/views/values I find a turn-on/turn-off and what I personally seek in a partner.

I do however believe that some lifestyles are healthier than others, although maybe there is no one universal best lifestyle and it depends both on circumstances and life goals to some extent.

"Feminist" is a bit like "socialist", indeed some would argue it is a continuation of the same tradition. There's too many meanings and too many variations.

My mother was a feminist and I would not say I have views that contradict hers. There are certainly flavors of feminism which are more about empowerment of women which I would find no problem with. I am admittedly more turned off by the oversexualization of today's culture (emphasizing relationships based primarily on sex), and blame all genders for this, but I do see a lot of proclaimed feminists today pushing these kinds of lifestyles, hence my comment.

You have an incredibly screwed up impression of feminism.

It's literally a movement that seeks to gain equality for women. That's it. Gaining dignity is a large part of the movement!

There's no feminist creed that says "go out and have lots of sex". There are married feminists. There are asexual feminists. There are a lot of lesbian feminists.

For the downvoters, I'm going to paste the definition from the dictionary:

feminism (noun): the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state

(Cambridge Dictionary)

Not to mention the fact that the word dates from 1895, so it's not exactly some 'internet label'.

That is a definition that at first glance seems crystal clear, but then you realize it is meaningless, because everyone understands equality to mean something different.

I agree but like effective altruism, incel, and other such terms… the meaning in our culture is different now.

Effective altruism is about finding the most effective way to use your money/time to improve happiness for the most people. Yet everyone thinks it’s about crypto and AI singularity.

Incels are just involuntarily celibate people. But now everyone labels an incel as also someone who hates women and wants to be a mass murderer. Even though most men and women are all incels until they’re not! Most people are involuntarily celibate for some sustained period at some point in their life.

The way feminism is construed today is very much mixed up with identity politics and class division. It’s not just about pushing forward equality. I‘ve distanced myself being called a feminist due to the latest generations getting some whackass ideas and not actually unifying people but instead trying to segregate further and divide us up more.

Yeah, that's fair!

For clarification, are you arguing that promiscuous women lack self respect in general, or that it’s only in the case that they believe they need to for “self empowerment”?

That is my crude understanding of such behaviour, yes. Now if you want to get into the philosophical discussion of whether that is actually a lack of self-respect or not, that's not really interesting to me.

I think to some extent one's perception of whether somebody has self-respect or not is subjective, because everyone holds different values. For example some people value a lot. Then if I turn down a job with a high salary because of moral reasons, they might perceive me as having less self-respect. In this case, I value intimate relationships to a higher value and think sex should have meaning beyond, "I wanted to have fun that evening" ...

I dance a lot. Some people assign dancing closely with another as a form of great intimacy that should only be done with someone special.

But for some forms of dance - this is the normal way to dance with anyone.

Some folks go through a similar journey with sex. They don’t put it on a pedestal anymore and see it as something that is holy. It doesn’t mean it cannot still be incredibly special to them or pleasing. It just means that they can enjoy this aspect of life without needing an extremely involved emotional connection. Similar to dancing.

>I think to some extent one's perception of whether somebody has self-respect or not is subjective, because everyone holds different values.

I think just about every self identifying feminist would say that their attitudes towards promiscuity are in line with this statement.

The whole point is that there are a lot of people who want to have a say in how women have sex, and with who, and the feminist perspective is that it really isn’t any of their business.

If you find that people call you a conservative that’s really the main reason why, if you are happy in your own relationship then it really should matter to you how people view their own sex life. While you may view other peoples dysfunctional relationships to be a result of their sexual behavior, in my expertise the sexual behavior is almost always downstream of the dysfunction, whether the individual is promiscuous or not.