On this page, I will include two perspectives on promiscuity: One from clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson and one from American conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro. Both men are members of the Intellectual Dark Web, a loosely defined informal group of commentators who oppose what they believe to be the dominance of identity politics, political correctness, partisan politics, and cancel culture in higher education and the news media.

---

DR. JORDAN PETERSON’S PERSPECTIVE ON PROMISCUITY

You can see his perspective in the video above. He starts out with a discussion about how the advent of birth control in the 1960’s dramatically changed society. Women could have sex without the burden of an unwanted pregnancy. The response to that in the 1960s was basically to have a party. The era of “free love” began where there was much open sex and sexual experimentation. 

Peterson comments that the results of this were hard on the family. And then there was the HIV epidemic. 

And now in our time, there seems to be a cultural paradox where the old taboos about sex are seeping back in through the radical left, rather than the radical right. 

There are two ideas contrasting each other here. One idea is that consensual sex is harmless fun. Another idea is that if consent is misunderstood, sex can become extremely harmful. 

What makes sex okay and what makes sex not okay is a bit more complicated than merely voicing consent. 

There’s this idea in our culture that we can extract sex from emotional intimacy, or that we can extract sex from psychological intimacy. And now we’re seeing the backlash to that idea. People feel used. If someone has intercourse and then regrets it the next day, that’s evidence that it wasn’t consensual. 

So the question is, What constitutes consent?

Can we really do whatever we want to whoever we want with no consequences and have there be no trouble about consent? It is Peterson’s argument that sex doesn’t work well outside of committed relationships. 

Across all cultures historically, there has been a strong proclivity for a social enforcement of monogamy. Peterson argues that you deviate from that at your peril. 

Peterson also brings up the problem of alcohol and says that if people were serious about reducing rapes on campus, they would get rid of alcohol. Most date rapes occur when the victim is intoxicated. 

Peterson ultimately says, Don’t do anything physically with anyone you wouldn’t talk to them about. There is emotional harm in it. There’s the cheapening of both parties. It’s gonna take a long time to sort this out. But hopefully we can do this in a serious manner, and it won’t be a matter of mobbing those who made an error. 

---

BEN SHAPIRO GIVES DATING ADVICE TO FANS

In the video above, Ben Shapiro gives advice about dating, marriage, and sex to his fans. 

In this video, he states that consent should be the first step when it comes to sex, but certainly not the only step. 

In short, if you are dating just for fun, then you don’t care about the person. Women generally crave intimacy more than men. And this idea that people can just have a one-night stand that doesn’t mean anything isn’t realistic. 

It’s human nature to form emotional attachments to the people they have sex with. And once sex happens, it’s very difficult to detach from the person. That doesn’t mean an attachment will happen every time, but it can happen a lot of the time. According to a study published in the Journal of Sex and Research  about half of people who hooked up wanted to hook up again, and about a third expressed an interest in forming a long-term romantic relationship. So it might not be a good idea to hook up with someone you don’t even like as a friend. Because there’s a one in three chance they could feel romantically attached to you. 

The purpose of dating should be to find someone to marry. Pure and simple. Dating someone for fun is like starting a business with one of your friends for fun instead of seeking out a reliable business partner. If you date someone you don’t see as compatible in the long term, you could still get stuck with them (because of feelings and sex) and before you know it, you’re attempting to build a life with someone who has completely different values, with someone you’re not even compatible with.  And that’s pretty much a waste of time and emotional energy.

Also, for women, we have a much smaller window of opportunity to get pregnant. So if we put off the marriage search to our 30s, that’s going to make it pretty difficult to find the right guy, get married, and then get pregnant all before our biological clocks stop ticking. Not a politically correct statement, but it’s the biological truth. 

Some people want to wait until they’re economically stable before marriage, but Ben Shapiro says that’s not necessary. Yes, you want to be economically stable for your kids, but this isn’t necessary for marriage. Marriage and finances are a lot more separate than children and finances. People don’t even have to live together to be married. They simply have to be committed.