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Comment by lamontcg | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, there was no promiscuity in the 1970s, we should go back to the good old days.

Are we going to deny there was less promiscuity in the past? Just a few years ago the lifetime average partners was 7. Even that was screwed high due to recent trends.

Now most women I know have 7 by the time they leave college.

It sounds like you may be projecting your personal experience onto society at large.

> Are we going to deny there was less promiscuity in the past?

The data indeed shows that there was not less, but more promiscuity in the recent past that the previous poster mentioned:

https://ifstudies.org/blog/nine-decades-of-promiscuity

Men's promiscuity peaked in the generation born around 1930 and has been declining since.

Women's promiscuity peaked in the generation born in the 1950s and hasn't changed much since then (at 5-6 lifetime partners, a fair degree shy of your "7 by the time they leave college").

If you doubt that girls are sleeping around in college a lot, idk what to tell you. I guess when the stats come out in a decade or two you'll believe me.

You are bringing your anecdotes up in the face of fact, just FYI.

I've dated people with hundreds of past partners and I've dated kissless virgins. People are people.

Not everyone is promiscuous; not everyone is a prude.

Are you denying trends and averages exist?

Considering they provided data about it, I don’t think so.

They’re suggesting that data (trends and averages) contradict your perception, which is mostly based on anecdata and your own feeling I imagine.

You should entertain that option, since that’s the whole point of looking at data.

That's not what the data shows. You can't compare lifetime partners of people who lived their full lives to teenagers. If you compare number of partners in the last year (prior to survey) then promiscuity had been steadily increasing since it began to be measured.

Maybe, but if this is what the OP is claiming... he should say so, instead of snarkily replying with rhetorical questions about the existence of trends and averages.

Given that you say you're 38 and looking for a life partner, I'm baffled at your obsession with the sexual proclivities of college girls.

Up until a few years ago that was my favorite demographic. Got too expensive and time consuming though so I'm trying my age for a year or two.

So they are giving up themselves easily, yet you have a favorite demographic? Quite clearly the reason why you can’t find someone is that you are not a person people want to be together with — maybe look for the problem in yourself first, before projecting that out to whole “demographics”.

I'm starting to see why you're having so much trouble meeting someone who you believe would stick with you through thick and thin.

This is super creepy.

And that is a problem why exactly? And it is not just women, also men. Also you, it seems, preferred those morally doubtful college women. Tells more about you than anyone else.

That can't be true. That was before penicillin. Humanity would have died a syphilitic death.

1928 < 1970

Umm, yes, pre effective treatments lots of people died of syphilis which of course wasn’t well understood and had lots of false cures. It still kills hundreds of thousands of people today!

Nah man but it's his gut feeling that all women are "sluts" with 37 partners by the time they enter college, we gotta respect that /s

I've no patience for this talk. Repressing your natural sexual feelings and inculcating shame and guilt about your body is disastrous. Condoms and medical progress got us safe sex, and women's lib got us proper consent: the two only requirements to go ahead and have a good time.

He has his preferences. That's okay! But he should make peace with his views instead of trying to shame 20 year olds for (gasp!) fucking each other.

Folks! Please don't fall down the rabbit hole this 15 day old account is pushing!

New people aren't allowed to have opinions or take part in discussions?

Sure, we just have to take into account the elevated likelihood that, for instance, you are just playing out a caricature of opinions as a strawman for your main account to knock down.

But being wary of such head games all the time gets tiring. So maybe better to not interact with very fresh accounts.

I can vouch for such opinions and feelings being really held by a male human with an older-than-two-weeks HN account.

I think it was a joke.

It’s important that this was an average, there were people at each end of the bell curve.. and there still will be in future statistics. I would expect that a substantial part of subsequent change in the average is caused by shift in population to cities, where there is far more opportunity to “rack up numbers”. It’s not uncommon to come into contact with people in their late 20’s or early thirties that are still virgins (both genders). I place a bet that for a non-insignificant number of people that don’t engage in intimate relationships, it’s due to body issues caused by the very media the linked article reference.

Honestly, why are you so obsessed with the number of intimiate partners your intimate partners (or potetial partners) had before you? How many did you have? You know, because this knife cuts both ways.

Also, sex is fun. People can have as much, in any form, of it consentially as they please and like.

Why are women so obsessed with this "feminism" thing? We've built them an objectively better world than women of the past had.

Unfortunately you can't change people's feelings with logic. They don't necessarily make sense, however frustrating that might be. Men tend to be more logical, but when it comes to sex men's feelings come to the forefront. One could perhaps offer theories to explain them based on reproductive success and evolution, but does it actually matter? A shelf might be straight according to a spirit level but if it looks wonky, it's wonky.

> Men tend to be more logical

Citation Needed.

Seeing the last decades of female rights, which were hard fought for by feminists, as something us men built for women is minimizing the effoer women put into that fight while also minimizing women's ability to achieve hard things on their own. Quite some level of misogeny, tried to pass as actually caring about women and the society they live in.

It is days like this, which arw becoming more and more frqeuent since Covid, that make me really consider to leave HN... There was a time this site actually felt different.

You're missing the point completely. The "better world" was referring to things like washing machines, hair dryers and bras. It was also supposed to be ironic and you were supposed to continue reading.

It can matter a lot. The arrival of HIV in 80's changed suddenly how people interact with sex forever. Specially one night stands and casual sex. I can do some damage control about who enters in my partners list, I don't have any control about who were in yours so yes, sometimes it matters.

If you're a man who has sex exclusively with women who are not prostitutes and do not use IV drugs, your odds of contracting HIV are vanishingly small.

> Are we going to deny there was less promiscuity in the past?

You're confusing the fact that its more socially acceptable to have many partners now and be honest about it.

Women and men have always been who they are. You put lots of people together and they will start sleeping around, 10, 50, 100, 500 years ago. Its just human nature.

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