[From "Philosophy and Sex", 3rd ed., Baker, Wininger, and Elliston, eds. (New York: Prometheus Books, 1998)]
The Western tradition has been remarkably conservative in its reflections on sexual morality.1 Whether this conservatism is due to the fact that practically every major philosopher before Hegel was a bachelor male dedicated to the pursuit of some form of reason is a moot point on which I shall not speculate. Whatever the explanation, most philosophers have tended to formulate and resolve sexual issues in favor of the status quo. Perhaps because sexual promiscuity (the only type I shall consider) has usually been a practice widely at variance with prevalent norms, it has scarcely arisen as an issue at all-much less been criticized or defended. Today, however, sexual norms have changed-at least for an increasingly significant number of society's members. This change challenges the philosophers to question the assumptions on which the conventions that regulate our sex lives are based, much as recent political changes have provided the motive for a radical critique of social practices and institutions.2 My purpose here is to take up this challenge by offering a defense of promiscuity: first, I shall criticize current notions of promiscuity as inadequate and provide my own definition; second, I shall rebut some traditional arguments against promiscuity; and third, I shall defend it in terms of three sexual paradigms. I shall conclude with some reflections on the limits of my defense.
Linguistic Forays
What is meant by "promiscuity"? It may be that the word has no descriptive content, but only emotive and/or hortatory force. On this view, to condemn a practice or person as promiscuous is simply to express feelings of disapproval, or to issue a prohibitive "Stop!" This position attempts to resolve the issue of meaning by limiting "promiscuity" to its emotional or prescriptive force.3 Even this restriction, though, does not eliminate all of the problems. For not all people oppose promiscuity, and hence the intended overtones are not always negative. And this position leaves an important question unanswered: To what kinds of persons or actions does the term apply? Only when this question has been answered are we in a position to ask how we should feel about, act toward, or react to promiscuous people or behavior.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "promiscuous" as: "without distinction, discrimination or order." Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary adds: "engaging in sexual intercourse indiscriminately or with many persons." The root notion operative in these definitions is indiscriminate, sometimes signified quantitatively, according to Webster's.
But this definition is too broad and begs the question at hand. For the promiscuous person clearly does draw some distinctions: typically he or she does not derive sexual satisfaction from a lover's shoe or copulate with a dead body or a sibling. In such cases more precise terminology is applied-fetishism, necrophilia, or incest. Even a promiscuous person usually discriminates between things and persons, between living people and dead people, between people who are members of the family and those who are not. Since some distinctions are operative, the suggestion that a promiscuous person is completely indiscriminate is too strong.
Similar difficulties arise with Webster's numerical criterion: How many liaisons must a person engage in before he or she is promiscuous? Clearly more than one is required; anyone who has made love to only one person cannot (logically) be labeled "promiscuous." But is two enough? Perhaps a person who carries on two affairs would be called "promiscuous." But imagine someone who married at twenty and who remarried at forty, two years after his wife died. Clearly, under these conditions he is not promiscuous. If two is not enough, then increase the number to three and repeat the scenario: married at twenty, forty, and sixty, two years after each wife died. This twice-widowed "Romeo" satisfies Webster 's numerical criterion, for he has engaged in sex with many (that is, three) people; and yet he is clearly not promiscuous. As more marriages are added it still remains uncertain at what point a person becomes promiscuous. And even if a clear line could be drawn, the question would immediately arise: Why draw it there, for what is the criterion for assessing the number of liaisons that suffice to justify the judgment "promiscuous"? This is a further legitimate question raised by Webster's definition but left unanswered.
Of course these examples deal with sequential liaisons, which may be more problematic than their simultaneous counterparts. But I think the basic problem remains: Is a person who carries on two serious loving affairs that endure for a lifetime promiscuous? I think not. Then again, if two are not enough, how many are required and on what grounds?
By these two counterattacks I am suggesting that it is false that a promiscuous person is indiscriminate and facile to assess promiscuity numerically. But what is it, then, that invites this judgment? More likely the condemnation arises not because such people do not discriminate at all, but because they fail to discriminate according to the prevalent sexual code. Promiscuous behavior challenges our sexual conventions, thereby giving this label its emotive force and prescriptive overtones.4
More precisely, promiscuity violates a very special principle that regulates our erotic life: "Sexual relations shall be exclusively heterosexual and ... no sexual activity shall take place outside monogamous unions which are, intentionally at least, life-long."5 It is this "Western norm," as Ronald Atkinson terms it, that prescribes the distinctions to be drawn, the discriminations to be made, and the order to be upheld in our sex lives, to which the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary alludes.
But to say that promiscuity violates the Western norm is still too broad, for so does coprophilia. Though many people use the term in this vague sense, a more precise definition is needed.
Promiscuity is sometimes identified with "free love." This persuasive definition (or redefinition) may induce some to accept this sexual pattern because freedom, like motherhood, is a good everyone is supposed to espouse. But what exactly is the sexual freedom in question? If it means freedom from all sexual prohibitions (including, for example, those against perversions), then this rephrasing is again too broad. And if it means freedom from just the Western norm (which would allow perverted sex within marriage), then it is no improvement. Moreover "free love" is a misleading expression: like everything else, sex has its price-assessed in terms of time, effort, emotional tensions, and a tradeoff of other benefits and burdens.
Promiscuity may be identified with recreational sex-intercourse just for the fun of it. But this definition is disquieting because of what might be hidden under the adverb "just"; and the term "fun" would align the defenders of promiscuity with that "vulgar hedonism" that some may want to reject in favor of a broader conception of the good life. Though when it harms no one promiscuity may be defensible simply on the grounds that it provides pleasure, this justification should not be built into the definition. A more neutral definition is preferable in order to avoid this commitment at the outset and thereby leave open the question of its justification.
Neither the definitions of the Oxford English Dictionary nor Webster 's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, nor any of the current philosophic or popular notions is satisfactory. In view of the failure of these linguistic forays to uncover a viable definition I shall offer my own. In so doing I cross a thin but significant boundary between linguistic analysis and linguistic revision. And conceding Wittgenstein's insight that language is a form of life, the dispute over the definition of promiscuity cannot be regarded as merely semantic.
With these caveats (or concessions), I shall offer the following definition, or redefinition: "promiscuity" means sex with a series of other adults, not directly related through marriage, with no commitments. Let me explain each component in turn.
First, promiscuity demands copulation-its telos is sexual intercourse. Someone who engages in the rituals of seduction without this goal is perhaps a flirt or a "tease"-but is not promiscuous. Of course not every seduction succeeds. But at least the intention to consummate the relation must be present on all occasions and realized on some. Whether the sex is "straight" or perverted is irrelevant, for these are two different phenomena. One can be perverted and not promiscuous, or promiscuous and not perverted: a lifelong incestuous relation renders a person perverted but not promiscuous; and many promiscuous liaisons accord with the paradigm of natural sex-"the two-minute emissionary missionary male-superior ejaculation service."6
Second, repetition is essential-the pursuit of a new partner must recur. Promiscuity on only one occasion is logically impossible. If someone is remarkably casual about his or her one affair, he or she may be labeled "superficial" or "unfeeling," but cannot be called promiscuous. Different partners on several occasions must be sought. The number of affairs per se does not suffice to delineate promiscuity (the mistake of Webster 's definition); plurality is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of promiscuity.
Third, both partners must be adults. If one partner is a child, then their behavior is pedophilia. If the child is a son or daughter, it is incest. In neither case is it promiscuity. Adulthood cannot be fixed chronologically; it signifies a degree of maturity some teenagers have and some elderly people lack. The other adult need not be of the opposite sex. Homosexuals and lesbians per se are not necessarily promiscuous. Some make significant personal sacrifices to maintain their relationship; though their behavior violates the Western norm, it is not promiscuous, because of the commitment their sacrifices signify.
Fourth, the couple cannot be directly related through marriage. It is logically impossible for husband and wife to engage in promiscuity with one another, though of course their sex play may sometimes bear a "family resemblance" to it. Similarly, sex between a brother and sister, even when they are adults, is a different phenomenon. It is possible to be promiscuous with distant cousins to whom one is not directly related through marriage; different societies draw the lines for incest in different ways.7
Finally and most decisively, promiscuity is noncommittal sex. It defies the traditional connection between sex and marriage-not just as a social institution, but as a symbol of a serious, loving, and intentionally lifelong relation. Promiscuity asserts a freedom from the obligation within or without marriage to "love, honor, and obey" and a freedom to engage in sex with any peer who agrees. These refusals to issue promissory notes for affection and support throughout an indefinite future and to issue a guarantee of sexual exclusivity are promiscuity's most significant departures from the traditional sexual norm.
Is such behavior defensible? I shall now turn to some familiar arguments against it.
Rebuttals and Rejoinders
Several arguments can be offered in defense of the Western norm and hence in opposition to promiscuity. As I shall try to demonstrate in my rejoinders, none are sound.
1. The Western Norm and Technology. At one time a strong argument might have been made in defense of the Western norm by invoking the causal connection between sex and reproduction: unless the natural processes are interrupted, intercourse leads to procreation; for the sake of children, on whom society's future depends, promiscuity is rightly prohibited in order to confine sex to marriage, as that secure and loving context within which children can best be raised. As stated, this argument relies on two claims, the first factual and the second normative.
The first premise has been falsified by technology: the advances of medicine have made available reliable birth-control devices and reasonably safe techniques for sterilization and abortion, thereby making sex possible without the risk of conception or birth. Second, the absolute value of the nuclear family as the only context for child rearing is at least problematic: experiments in communal living and the increasing number of single parents provide some evidence that the needs of the child can be met either through a plurality of parent figures or through just one individual. Moreover, even granting the risk of pregnancy, despite precautions, and the value of the nuclear family, despite alternatives, the prohibitions against promiscuity would not follow. First, pregnancies can be terminated. With the exception of the Roman Catholic Church, many concede the legitimacy of abortion, at least during the first trimester. Second, even if this option is disregarded, it should be emphasized that promiscuity is logically compatible with some commitments to one's partner in the event of pregnancy and to the child in the event of its birth. Promiscuity does not preclude such contingent agreements; it rules out only emotional and sexual commitments as a precondition of sex-the promise to love the other exclusively and to share a life completely.
This rejoinder asserts that available technology should be used as a safeguard against undesirable consequences. But "can" does not always entail "ought": not everything science is capable of doing should be done. Some, notably Roman Catholics, have argued strongly against the use of such means.
2. The Inseparability Premise and Promiscuity. The Roman Catholic position is that the sex act8 has two inseparable functions: to foster the physical, emotional, and spiritual union of man and woman, and to reproduce the species. If this claim were true, then the use of birth-control devices or sterilization and abortion techniques would be prohibited. Promiscuity would then become more hazardous since without contraceptives the risk of pregnancy would be much greater; and it would become less frequent since only coitus interruptus and the rhythm method could be practiced to avoid conception. Of course abstinence and masturbation would be alternatives; but to practice them is to cease to be promiscuous.
The most recent defense of this inseparability premise is found in Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae: to violate the inseparability of the unitive and procreative aspect of sex is "to contradict the nature of both man and woman and of their most intimate relationship, and therefore it is to contradict also the plan of God and His will."9
Carl Cohen contends that this inseparability premise is false.10 First, it has no basis in scripture or natural law, but rests only on a fallacious argumentum ad verecundiam. Second, the entailed prohibition against birth control would cause overpopulation and hunger. Third, the fear of pregnancy and the ensuing inhibitions thwart the conjugal love that the Church promulgates. Fourth, the assumption that all sexual processes must be completed is erroneous, for we recognize acts with erotic overtones that rightly remain unconsummated (for example, a father's love for his daughter). Fifth, the integrity of the spiritual and natural is frequently denied without transgressing a divine (or moral) command-for example, eating for pleasure rather than nourishment. And finally, if the Church sanctions drugs to promote physical health, it should permit drugs (for example, oral contraceptives) to promote sexual health.
Though Cohen's six points may not persuade all Catholics,11 they do provide an impressive list of reasons for legitimizing birth control. Though admittedly his purpose is to defend their use within marriage, this limitation is not demanded by his logic. They serve to justify the use of the technology that severs the causal tie on which the earlier rebuttal of promiscuity depended.
3. Promiscuity as a Threat to Monogamy. Like adultery, promiscuity may be judged immoral on the grounds that it endangers one of our society's central and sacred institutions-monogamous marriage:12 allowing people to achieve sexual gratification while escaping long-term commitments undermines this basic institution in a way that threatens the stability of our society; in selfdefense, society rightly imposes social sanctions against the threatening promiscuous behavior.
This argument rests on two assumptions: first, that promiscuity has adverse effects on monogamy; and second, that monogamy is socially superior to the alternatives.
The first assumption is a questionable causal claim. For despite the recent weakening of sexual taboos, marriage continues to be a popular practice. Even conceding the high divorce rate does not weaken this claim, for many who are divorced remarry-thereby testifying to the value they accord this institution. Consequently, the so-called new morality is not clearly harming marriage. Indeed, two alternative hypotheses about the causal relation between promiscuity and monogamy are equally plausible: by providing for a broader range of sex partners from which to select a spouse promiscuity increases the probability of sexual compatibility within marriage, and hence the probability of a more "successful" marriage (at least according to this one criterion of success-the satisfaction of one need); and by eliminating the need to marry merely for sexual gratification (and hence to disregard those other factors that contribute to suc cessful marriages, such as respect, considerateness, shared values, love, and compassion), promiscuity again increases the likelihood of a successful marriage. Perhaps the trouble with premarital unions, trial marriage, and open marriage is that they have not been tried, for the strong presumption that monogamy is the only way to institutionalize our sex life works against such experiments. Freeing sex of the monopoly of marriage could provide for new institutions that might satisfy more effectively the emotional and physical needs of society's members and offer greater scope for the exercise of personal freedom and initiative in creating new lifestyles. Though society once had the right to insist that its members have a "license to procreate," to use Michael Bayles's expression, with the development of new contraceptives it no longer has the right to insist on a license to copulate. Abolishing the demand for such a license by permitting promiscuity may ease the unnecessary and spurious pressures on monogamy, so as to promote rather than prevent healthy changes within this institution.
4. Lying, Deceiving, and Exploiting. According to the popular prototype, promiscuous people are unfaithful and unreliable: they break promises, say things that are not true, and use others for their own sexual gratification. If this prototype were true, promiscuity would indeed be wrong, because it would violate familiar moral rules: people are supposed to keep their promises, tell the truth, and not deceive or exploit others. But does promiscuity necessarily involve these forms of immorality?
At one time these subterfuges may have been necessary in order to obtain sex and yet avoid commitments. To circumvent the Western norm, which was justified when copulation entailed procreation, those who wanted only the "joys of sex" were forced to tease, tempt, and manipulate. Under these circumstances promiscuity is wrong-not because it is promiscuity, but because it violates well-established ethical principles. The moral fault lies not in noncommittal sex but in the lies, deceptions, and exploitation to which some happen to have recourse in order to have intercourse. Such immoral behavior is only contingently associated with promiscuity; logically, rather than empirically, it is not necessary. In some groups or societies openly promiscuous behavior is tolerated, if not encouraged. When the threat of pregnancy is minimized, sex for its own sake becomes possible, enjoyable, and desirable-thereby making many of the earlier reasons for lying, deceiving, and exploiting invalid. That promiscuity must involve immoral behavior then becomes an anachronism, an empirical claim that is no longer true. Promiscuity per se or prima facie is not wrong. At most, it is the immoral things promiscuous people sometimes happen to do that are wrong.
This defense is complicated by the fact that a double standard is operative within large segments of society: men are allowed to "sow their wild oats," whereas women are denigrated as "loose" or "fallen" for the same behavior. Though this sexual inequality may once have served to protect women who had more to lose through such "sins" (for it is women who become pregnant, and not men), now it discriminates against them. Because of this double standard, promiscuity is to the advantage of males and to the disadvantage of females. Consequently it becomes exploitive in a more subtle fashion: men receive sexual gratification; women receive social condemnation.
This argument invites the initial rejoinder that it is not promiscuity that is wrong, but the double standard. In this case it is not promiscuity that we should abandon, but the double standard that places promiscuous women at a disadvantage in comparison to promiscuous men. However, this response may be too facile, too theoretical in its disregard for the reality of the social inequality of the sexes. Yet, even conceding the inadequacy of this initial rejoinder, this argument against promiscuity on the grounds that it exploits women would not apply to all cases: women immune or indifferent to social reprobation and members of groups without a double standard could still be promiscuous and yet not necessarily exploit others or be exploited by them. Since promiscuity cannot be shown to be wrong in all cases, the charge that it necessarily violates generally accepted moral principles is false.
5. Personal Emotional Security and Growth. Peter Bertocci argues against premarital sex, and by implication against promiscuity, on the grounds that it threatens "personal emotional security."13 He contends that the demand for sex outside marriage exhibits a lack of self-discipline in people who cannot control their desires, and a failure to show respect and consideration for those on whom the demand is placed. Such undisciplined and inconsiderate behavior places needless strain on the relationship, threatening to destroy whatever values it embodies.
Is it true that a promiscuous person is completely lacking in self-discipline? The ritual of seduction frequently has its own carefully observed logic in the selection of a suitable consort, the finesse of the "first approach," and the rhythms of attracting and repulsing, until the ceremony reaches its telos.14 What Bertocci perceives as incoherent or irrational behavior is really a self-conscious refusal to be directed by the Western norm. But promiscuous people should not be faulted for failing to regulate their actions according to a principle they reject.
Does promiscuity entail inconsiderateness? The rejoinder here parallels the earlier refutation of the charge that promiscuity is necessarily exploitive. The fact that some promiscuous people are rude, brusque, or selfish does not establish this logical tie, any more than the fact that some doctors collect stamps establishes a logical tie between medicine and philately. Only if respect is defined in terms of the Western norm is promiscuity necessarily disrespectful. Though such a definition is possible, it would beg the question at hand, which must remain empirical. Acknowledging the other's freedom to engage or not engage in noncommittal sex demonstrates some degree of respect. And at each subsequent stage of the battle of the sexes, its dialectical impetus arises through the joint effort to preserve the other's freedom.15 The reciprocity of initiatives whereby each person asserts his or her selfhood, presided over by moral rules that embody recognition for "man as an end in himself" (to use Kant's somewhat chauvinistic phrase), provides further testimony for respect.
Does promiscuity threaten what is valuable in the relation? Of course the answer depends in part on what is considered valuable; pleasure, freedom, and respect certainly need not be endangered. Bertocci believes that the emotional tensions and guilt feelings that arise from violating the taboos against nonmarital sex will corrode the relation. But this harm can alternatively be eliminated by abolishing the taboos instead, so that promiscuity would no longer count as an infraction and hence no longer generate the strain that it now does. Since the traditional supports for these taboos have collapsed through an advancing technology, abolishing the Western norm is the more rational solution.
It is not promiscuity that is bad, but the arguments that purport to rebut it. These rejoinders to those arguments, though, do not prove that promiscuity itself is morally good, for I have not considered all possible arguments against it. And even if I had, the conclusion would not follow logically: promiscuity could still be bad although no one has formulated a good argument to prove it.
Perhaps promiscuity is neither good nor bad in any moral sense, but purely a matter of individual taste. To categorize it as an aesthetic rather than ethical issue concedes its normative status, but removes it from the sphere of otherregarding virtues. But even granting this move, some critical issues would remain: Is promiscuity in good taste or bad taste, and how does one decide?
Alternatively, promiscuity might be dismissed as neither a moral nor an aesthetic issue but a prudential one-a question of what is to the advantage of the agent within the sphere of actions that affect only him or her. This approach too leaves critical issues unresolved: Is promiscuity to my advantage or disadvantage, and how do I decide? Moreover this reduction of the normative to the prudential seems to disregard the fact that it takes two people (minimally) to be promiscuous-that is, others are involved.
Such attempts to categorize promiscuity presuppose a clarity and consensus on the nature of good taste and personal advantage that is altogether lacking in the literature. So I shall eschew these ways of demonstrating that promiscuity is positively a good thing in favor of a less traditional defense.
Paradigms and Archetypes
Development of a satisfactory sexual philosophy is hindered in part by lack of knowledge: Just what are the contingent ties between sexual intercourse, love, marriage, and the things or activities we find valuable? This difficulty is further compounded by linguistic confusions: the language at our disposal is notoriously vague and radically ambiguous. Moreover these two shortcomings are aggravated by a third: the absence of accepted paradigms for conceptualizing our sex life and of corresponding archetypes to give substance to our ideals. I shall now turn to three descriptive and normative models for understanding and directing sexual activities. In each case, I shall argue, promiscuity plays a legitimate role.
1. A Classical Liberal Defense. According to John Stuart Mill's principle of liberty, "the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."16
Promiscuity falls within this domain of individual liberty provided those who engage in it satisfy two conditions: they must observe some traditional moral rules, and they must exercise extreme care to avoid unwanted births. The conventional prohibitions against lying, deceit, and exploitation serve to prevent harm to others-most immediately to the person exploited or deceived and less immediately, but no less importantly, to others indirectly affected. The second proviso is designed to avoid illegitimacy, abortion, adoption, and forced marriage-not to mention the social stigma of an unwanted pregnancy, unmarried motherhood, or bastardy. Assuming then that promiscuity (as defined earlier) satisfies these two negative conditions, what can be said in its defense?
For at least some of the people some of the time sex is fun. Whatever else may be true of it, at the barest level sex remains an intensely pleasing physical activity. Like the satisfaction of an appetite (such as eating) or the release of tension (such as a good drive in golf), sex is physically enjoyable. Midst the mystification of sex it should not be forgotten that sex is and continues to be sensual; the erotic appeal of another engages all of our senses in a way equaled by few (if any) other physical activities. One paradigm that must be acknowledged by all is that sex is a type of bodily interaction that can be intensely pleasing. Granted the two earlier provisos, sex is good for this reason, if no other.
This defense does not entail that pleasure alone is good. The underlying hedonism is not "vulgar," to use Michael Bayles's term, for no attempt need be made to reduce sex merely to a sensation of pleasure.17 A variety of things good in themselves can be acknowledged while still insisting that pleasure as "the joy of sex" is one of them. Insofar as promiscuity maximizes the pleasures that can be derived from sex, it is good; and insofar as the prohibition against promiscuity is a limitation on the pleasures to be derived from sex, it is unwarrantedin a word, "bad."
Despite his insistence that pleasure and pleasure alone is good in itself,18 Mill himself gives evidence that he is not a vulgar hedonist. In defending his principle of liberty he suggests that happiness is not so much a sensation of pleasure as the full development of an individual's "higher faculties." Quoting Wilhelm von Humbolt with enthusiastic agreement, Mill asserts that the end of man is "the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole."19 This remark suggests a second defense of promiscuity within classical liberalism: the freedom to be promiscuous can contribute to the full growth of the human personality.
In many areas, such as clothing, vocation, and recreation, the need for experimentation and diversity is recognized and conceded. Mill defends his principle of liberty, not just in the intellectual arena by arguing for freedom of thought and discussion, but in the practical domain with his insistence on the individual's right to form and carry out his own "plan of life."20 The lack of commitment that characterizes promiscuity is a freedom to explore patterns of sexual behavior at variance with the tradition. This exploration can engage one's "higher faculties" of reason, judgment, and good taste.21 Promiscuity opens up to each person a broader range of sex partners and practices.
From the standpoint of classical liberalism, then, promiscuity may increase the pleasures of individuals, enhance the cultivation of their higher faculties (happiness in the eudaemonian sense) and enrich society with the ensuing institution.
2. Sex as Body Language. The sexual paradigm operative in the liberal defense of promiscuity has its limitations. For though sex is admittedly a form of bodily interaction that leads to pleasure, it is clearly more than that in some sense. In his papers "Sexual Paradigms" and "Sex and Perversion,"22 Robert Solomon suggests what this "more" might be: As body language, sex has "meaning" that goes beyond its physical dimensions.
Just as words are more than marks and sounds, sex is more than thrusts and moans, caresses and sighs. Just as verbal language has a dimension of meaning beyond phonemes and morphemes,23 so body language has a significance beyond the intertwining of two bodies. The sentences and words of verbal languages have their analogues in the gestures and particular movements of body language. As in all language, these latter are subject to rules that demarcate well-formed formulae. Body language has its own semantics and syntax.
This type of language can serve to express feelings, to state intentions, and to issue commands or invitations. An embrace can express genuine affection. A nod toward the bedroom door conjures up a familiar series of events. A sly glance may frequently initiate the rituals of seduction. Of course not all body language is sexual. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's infamous shrug communicates political indifference.24 A policeman's hand signal issues a legal command. And holding open an elevator door is an invitation to enter something far more prosaic than what a coy smile offers. Meaning here as elsewhere depends on context. What imparts sexual significance to body language is the kind of possibility intimated-namely, intercourse, or some incomplete moment in the dialectical movement toward it.
Promiscuity has instrumental value in that it can facilitate the mastery of one kind of body language. To be in command of a language is to possess an extensive vocabulary, clear diction, and rhetorical devices for conveying meaning. These verbal skills are acquired through social interaction. Sexual body language is learned through sexual interaction.
Sexual experiences enable an individual to develop a repertoire of gestures for communicating desire and affection and of decisive movements that clearly state intentions of love or amusement. People can be moved not only by the things we say but by the things we do-with them, for them, or to them. Desire and satisfaction can be communicated not only through verbal exchanges such as "please" and "thank you," but through a lingering look and an appreciative caress. To a shattered ego a physical embrace may express far more reassurance than its verbal counterparts, and a kiss may convey desire more eloquently than pleas or poems. The subjectivity of another, their autonomy and individuality, is confirmed in the dialectics of sex: in the reversals of their roles as the initiator and the initiated, the aggressor and the pursued, the lover and the loved, each can experience his or her own incarnate freedom and acknowledge that of the other. Like verbal etiquette, the sexual rituals of flirtation and seduction are subject to rules that prohibit interruption while another is "speaking," that prescribe that each be allowed to participate fully in the conversation, and that exclude insults, attacks, and abuses. The observance of this etiquette is an acknowledgment of the selfhood of the other. The acquisition of it is one of the opportunities promiscuity provides.
Strict adherence to the Western norm places our sex lives in a straitjacket that curtails body language to "I love you," the only message to be delivered to just one person, with fixed diction and intonation-until the disillusioned pair have become bored by the repetition.
Sex and eating are frequently compared, since both are appetites whose satisfaction is socially regulated. Consider a society where the following etiquette is operative. Each man is allowed to dine with only one woman. Before their first meal begins, each receives a solemn injunction: "Thou shalt dine with none other, so long as you both shall live." Their partnership is exclusive; no one may be invited to the meal ("three is a crowd"). Only the utensils already provided and accepted by others may be used; bringing a new gadget to the meal is an innovation attempted by many, though (curiously) condemned by all. Throughout the remaining meals the menu is fixed on the grounds that meat and potatoes are the most nourishing foods. The ways in which these meals are prepared and consumed is subject to strict regulation: one is not supposed to touch the food with one's hands; everyone must keep an upright position (it is considered an insult for one to stand while the other lies). Interaction is drastically curtailed: one is not allowed to exchange dishes; one must feed only oneself (for a man to place his spoon in his partner's mouth is a mortal sin). These rules prescribe that each person gratify his own appetite, but in the company of a select other (to eat alone is forbidden, though many do).25 During the meal a typical conversation consists of compliments-how good the meal is and how agreeable the company-regardless of their truthfulness.
If food and sex were only the satisfaction of appetites, these restrictions might be defensible-though the prohibitions against some changes would still be contentious. However, some innovations, at least for some people, not only could enhance the efficiency of such practices, but could add to their meaning as well. To "dine" with several different people can make eating not only more pleasant, but more enlightening too. To vary the "menu" is a safeguard against boredom that not only expands the topic of conversation, but also has nutritional value. To invite a guest similarly intensifies the conversation, which need not dissolve into monologues if considerateness is shown by all.26 People should be allowed to get their fingers sticky (sex is wet) and to eat alone (masturbation makes neither your eyesight grow dim nor your hair fall out). Sometimes it may be more convenient to eat standing up or lying down: the exceptions of one society may elsewhere be the rule. More interaction can make the experience more significant; for example, switching dishes when the desires are different (to the dismay of many, they frequently only look different) provides variety that, after all, is still "the spice of life." If the food is not well-cooked and the company is no longer mutually attractive, admit these shortcomings; such honesty may lead to better meals. Only recently have the stereotypes that determined who issued the invitations, and who prepared the meal and did the serving, begun to dissolve. Exchanging traditional sex roles by allowing the woman to show greater initiative (if not aggression) can enhance mutual understanding and respect by dramatizing what it is to be in the other person's place.
Loosening the restrictions of the Western norm in these ways is tantamount to permitting, if not promulgating, promiscuity. The ensuing changes promise to make our sex lives not only physically more satisfying, but also more meaningful. This second defense of promiscuity has expanded the model of sexual behavior from mere bodily interaction for pleasure to a form of corporeal dialogue. With the third defense, to be offered next, these models are expanded further, to envelop man in the totality of his concrete existence.
3. Authentic Sexuality: An Existential Defense of Promiscuity. Heidegger's insistence that Being-with (Mitsein) is an essential structure of existence correctly stresses that the human personality is always situated within a social matrix.27 My world includes others to whom I relate in various modes of solicitude. To this Heideggerian insight Merleau-Ponty adds that sexuality is an irreducible dimension of the being of the self as body subject: the erotic contours of the world reflect my incarnate being as sexual within that gestalt that is my existence taken as a whole.28 Conjoining these two insights yields eros as a dimension of all modalities of social existence.
Among the three basic ways to be with others-against them, for them, or indifferently passing them by-Heidegger distinguishes two positive modes of "solicitude" (Fursorge): to leap-in (einspringen) is to perform some task for another; to leap-ahead (vorausspringen) is to prepare another for their genuine or authentic (eigentlich) possibilities.29 This authenticity stands in contrast to the inauthenticity of everyday life, which is lived under the domination of the "they-self" (das Man) and distinguished a lack of distinction in public, anonymous ways of thinking and acting.30
This everyday immersion in the commonplace, with its uncritical assimilation of the traditional, is disrupted by the call of conscience,31 which summons the self (Dasein) to the recognition and acceptance of its finitude, or what Heidegger somewhat misleadingly calls "guilt."32 My choices (Existenz) are finite: in pursuing one path I must forego its alternatives. My power over the world into which I am thrown (geworfen) is finite: some aspects of my situation remain forever beyond my control. And finally, my genuine existence, even when attained, is bounded by inauthenticity: the accommodating and tranquilizing ruses of the mediocre (durchschnittlich), leveled-down public life constantly tempt me to abandon personal initiative and responsibility.33 This finitude is also temporal: my death is the ever-present possibility of my no longer having a world in which to reside, an eventuality certain to overcome me, though the moment always remains indefinite.34 Authenticity (Eigentlichkeit) arises as a resolve (Entschluss) to remain open (Erschliessen) to this finitudeto be responsive to the summons to guilt and to anticipate (vorlaufen) death.35 In their everyday lives, and indeed throughout a philosophical tradition, people have closed themselves off (a kind of ontological untruth for Heidegger36) from guilt and death, hence from that reality that they are and from that totality of entities (Ganzheit des Seienden) to which they are inextricably bound.
Authentic sexuality-admittedly a rather un-Heideggerian conjunctionrequires a similar openness to others. Commitments are chains that bind us to some and exclude us from others, blinders that narrow down the field of social praxis to a privileged one (monogamy) or few (friendship). To elicit the many facets of the human personality requires a dynamic network of social interaction. Full sexual growth similarly requires a receptivity to the many erotic dimensions of social existence. Promiscuity provides this openness through its freedom from emotional and sexual commitments.
In the Western tradition love has been mistakenly treated as exclusive because it is erroneously thought of as possessive (compare, to "have" a woman), or that in which I have invested my will, in Hegelian terms.37 But another person (Mitdaseiende) is neither a tool (Zuhandene) to be appropriated to my ends, nor a mere object of cognition (Vorhandene) to be explored. Rather, others are entities like me, with whom I share a world. Consequently love should be construed in Heideggerian terms as a leaping-ahead that affirms another's genuinely human possibilities, or in R. D. Laing's terms, as the confirmation of that which is true and good in another.38
The tradition has reversed the relation between sex and love-for reasons that once applied but, as previously pointed out, that are now anachronistic. The nakedness of sexual intercourse is not only physical, but psychological and emotional too: by laying bare not just our bodies, but our thoughts and feelings, two people can achieve a privileged moment from which they may then decide what kinds of commitments subsequently to make to one another. Promiscuity prepares for this moment through its "lack of commitment." To insist on an emotional involvement that closes off the future as a condition of this sexual self-revelation to others is, ironically, to frustrate the growth of the very love that such commitments are intended to cultivate. And to insist that this commitment as love can be made to only one other person is to succumb to the ontological fallacy of confusing people with things.
With its freedom from emotional and sexual restrictions promiscuity can play an important role in the achievement of authentic sexuality. This negative freedom-from is a positive freedom-for a genuinely human mode of social and sexual interaction.
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
My remarks might suggest that I believe promiscuity is always right. But this conclusion overstates my position. The claim I have sought to defend is more modest: for some of the people some of the time promiscuity is a good thing. Such behavior is curtailed by moral obligations to tell the truth, to be honest, and to respect others. It is also limited in time: for some, on occasion, promiscuity may not yet, or no longer, be good. To put my defense in perspective I shall conclude with a nod to Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard's refutation of the Don Juan complex locates promiscuity as one stage on life's way.39 Aping the Hegelian dialectic, of which he is both master and critic, he notes that the cause of its ultimate demise is boredom: despite the novelty achieved through the rotation method (varying the fields on which one's "seed" is sown), the full pursuit of the life of the senses ultimately succumbs to a cycle of sameness from which it can be rescued only by advancing to a higher mode of existence-the principled life of the ethical stage 40
Applied to the preceding sexual paradigms, Kierkegaard's insight suggests three corresponding resolutions of promiscuity. First, the good sex life cannot be achieved through physical gratification alone. The moral commitment represented by the Western norm is an attempt to achieve the advance Kierkegaard extols: wedded love regulated by reason seeks to overcome and yet to preserve (aufheben) the fleeting pleasures of the body. To deny this dialectical movement is to deny one's full humanity, to be arrested at a lower level of existence. Second, it may be noted that what the dialogue carried on through the body achieves in breadth it may lose in depth: having talked with many, we may discover that our most meaningful dialogue can be carried on with one. The commitment to this one person becomes, henceforth, a "natural" way to safeguard and foster this corporeal dialogue. The prohibitions against multiple dialogues were overthrown at the earlier stage so that this one person might be found and now they serve only as superfluous restrictions that need not be enforced to be observed. Finally, the openness of authentic sexuality may likewise achieve a moment at which a full commitment to a single other is its natural fruition; through its own catharsis the promiscuous life may discover a completion in Buber's I-Thou relation."41 On such occasions promiscuity ceases to be of value in the sexual life of the individual. Indeed, from this point on not to abandon it would be as wrong as the prohibitions against it were at the earlier stage.
From this temporal perspective promiscuity has definite but limited value in the movement toward a sexual ideal. Michael Bayles is correct in his insis tence that the intentionally lifelong relationship is intrinsically more valuable, but wrong in his (implicit) suggestion that intentionally temporary relations are of no value.42 The principled life represented by the traditional commitment "to love, honor, and obey" signifies a higher mode of existence that partially transcends the vicissitudes of time. Whether this ideal is expressed in Platonic terms, as the longing for a love that is eternal,43 or in Buber's terms, as a full awareness of the other in their unity, totality, and uniqueness, it must be wrung from man's historical existence. The value of promiscuity is located in the pursuit of just such ideals.
Notes
1. I am grateful to Professors Willard Enteman and Jan Ludwig for suggestions and criticisms that helped to rescue this paper from some of its more egregious errors and confusions.
2. See, for example, Robert Paul Wolff's In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). Though I shall not pursue the parallels between political and sexual life, I believe anarchy represents a moment in Wolff's account of political obligation analogous to the promiscuous moment in sexual morality: each is marked by a radical freedom that serves as the transcendental ground for subsequent commitments and obligations.
3. This thesis was advanced by A. J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic (New York: Dover, 1946), chap. 6, in order to account for the nonscientific (that is, nondescriptive) character of moral discourse. See C. L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944) and R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals (London: Oxford University Press, 1952) for subsequent refinements of this thesis.
4. What is true of promiscuity is also true of perversion: violations of the operative code tend to make our adrenalin flow. For one explanation of this emotional reaction to unnatural sexual acts see Michael Slote, "Inapplicable Concepts and Sexual Perversion," in Philosophy and Sex, 1st ed. (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1975), pp. 261-67.
5. Ronald Atkinson, Sexual Morality (London: Hutchinson, 1965), p. 45.
6. See Robert Solomon, "Sex and Perversion," Philosophy and Sex, 1st ed., p. 271.
7. The boundaries of incest vary from society to society and, indeed, between groups within society. Freud sought to account for these differences in the incest taboo in terms of myth, Darwinism, and anthropology. See Totem and Taboo (New York: New Republic, 1931), pp. 249ff. Some have tried to show it is instinctive (see Robert H. Lowrie, Primitive Society [New York: Liv- eright, 1920]). Others explain the prohibition as a safeguard against biological degeneration due to inbreeding (see Lewis H. Morgan, Ancient Society [New York, 1877], pp. 69, 378, 424), or as a way of expanding and hence protecting the tribe (E. B. Tylor, "On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions; Applied to Laws of Marriage & Descent," Journal of the Anthropological Institute 18 [1888]: 245-69), or as a consequence of the prohibition against shedding the blood of one's own totemic group (Emile Durkheim, "La prohibition de ('incest et ses origins," L'Annee Sociologique 1 [1898]: 1-70). For a more recent treatment see S. Kitson Weinberg, Incest Behavior (New York: Citadel, 1955).
8. To refer to this as the "conjugal act," as the Roman Catholic Church does, is to beg the question of sex outside marriage. This restriction has a long and venerable tradition within Roman Catholicism, beginning with St. Paul's warning that it is better to marry than to burn in hell. See the following: Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book IX, chap. 7, n. 12; Thomas Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, Book 3, parts 1 and 2; Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891); and Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (1930).
9. Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, "Faithfulness to God's Design," issued July 28, 1968, at Rome.
10. Carl Cohen, "Sex. Birth Control, and Human Life," Ethics 79 (1969): 251-62.
11. See, for example, E. D. Watt, "Professor Cohen's Encyclical," Ethics 80 (1970): 218-21.
12. Richard Wasserstrom considers this point in his article "Is Adultery Immoral?" in Today's Mordl-Problems, ed. Richard Wasserstrom (New York: Macmillan Co., 1975).
13. See Peter Bertocci, The Human Venture in Sex, Love and Marriage (New York: Associated Press, 1949), chap. 2, and his Sex; Love and the Person (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1967).
14. For an entertaining description of this ritual see Soren Kierkegaard. Diary of a Seducer, trans. K. Fick (Ithaca, N.Y.: The Dragon Press, 1935).
15. In Being and Nothingness (Part 3, chap. 3) Sartre transmutes the celebrated Hegelian dialectical battle for prestige between the master and slave of The Phenomenology of Mind (pp. 228-40) into the notorious battle of the sexes. The intervening link between Sartre and Hegel is Alexander Kojive; see his Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, trans. J. H. Nichols (New York: Basic Books, 1969), pp. 31-70.
16. The Essential Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. Max Lerner (New York: Bantam, 1961), p. 263.
17. See Michael Bayles, "Marriage, Love, and Procreation," chapter 7 in this volujme.
18. Mill, The Essential Works, pp. 193ff.
19. Ibid., p. 306.
20. Ibid., p. 307. Mill's insistence on the freedom to create one's own mode of life and his emphasis on individuality and the cultivation of human faculties align him with the existential tradition of Sartre ("condemned to be free"; "fundamental project") and Heidegger (Seinkonnen- "potentiality for Being") more than Mill's interpreters have yet recognized. I quoted Wilhelm von Humbolt earlier because he (and Aristotle) may provide the historical link.
21. Mill, The Essential Works, p. 323.
22. R. C. Solomon, "Sexual Paradigms,"Journal of Philosophy 71(1974): 336-45; and "Sex and Perversion."
23. Max Black, The Labyrinth of Language (New York: Praeger, 1968). chap. 2, provides one explanation of this terminology.
24. Those less familiar with the gallic (and galling) tendencies of Canadian politics should consult Walter Stewart, Shrug: Trudeau in Power (New York: Outerbridge, 1971).
25. Lest the analogy seem farfetched by this point, it is worth recalling that Kant was one respected moral philosopher who regarded sex as mutual masturbation, salvaged only by the sanctity of matrimony. See Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infield (London: Methuen, 1930), pp. 162-71.
26. The conclusion that group sex is necessarily dissatisfying may be a faulty inference from the failures of its unskilled practitioners who have not yet mastered the complexities of multi- person corporeal conversations.
27. See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), sec. 27.
28. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (New York: Humanities Press, 1962), part 1, chap. 6.
29. Being and Time, sec. 26. R. Weber, in "A Critique of Heidegger's Concept of 'Solicitude,"' New Scholasticism 42 (1965): 537-60, misinterprets mineness (Jemeinigkeit) and the nonrelational character of death, thereby generating her spurious paradoxes. For a more faithful but less direct account see J. Macquarrie's excellent book Existentialism (Baltimore: Penguin, 1973), chap. 5, "Existence and Others."
30. Being and Time, sec. 27. For an explication of inauthenticity see Ernest H. Freund, "Man's Fall in Martin Heidegger's Philosophy," The Journal of Religion 24 (1944): 180-87.
31. Being and Time, secs. 54-57.
32. Ibid., sec. 58. On Heidegger's existential notion of guilt see Michael Gelven, Winter Friendship and Guilt (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); D. V. Morano, Existential Guilt: A Phenomenological Study (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1973); C. 0. Schrag, Existence and Freedom (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1961), chap. 6.
33. Being and Time, secs. 25-27, 35-38.
34. Ibid., division C, chap. 1.
35. On Heidegger's existential notion of death see J. G. Gray, "Martin Heidegger: On Anticipating my own Death," Personalist 46 (1965): 439-58; R. Hinners, "Death as Possibility," Continuum 5 (1967): 470-82; and B. E. O'Mahoney, "Martin Heidegger's Existential of Death," Philosophical Studies (Ireland) 18 (1969): 58-75.
36. Heidegger explicates his ontological notion of truth and relates this to the epistemological concepts in section 44 of Being and Time and in his essay "On the Essence of Truth," in Being and Existence, ed. W. Brock (Chicago: Gateway, 1949). This central concept has attracted much discussion. Ernst Tugendhat's Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl and Heidegger (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1970) is perhaps the most noteworthy.
37. G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), pp. 40-56.
38. R. D. Laing, Self and Others (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971), chap. 7.
39. See Soren Kierkegaard, "The Rotation Method" (reprinted from Either/Or), in A Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. R. Bretall (New York: Modern Library, 1946), pp. 21-32.
40. In his recourse to the rational to overcome the sensual (or the "aesthetic," as Kierkegaard somewhat misleadingly terms it), Kierkegaard's solution to the morality of sex resembles Kant's (see note 25).
41. I have not tried to develop a notion of authentic sexuality on the model of Buber's I-Thou, though such an interpretation could be provided, because what I find lacking in Buber but present in Heidegger is a fuller recognition of the historicity of such ideals. For a Buberian interpretation of sexuality see M. Friedman, "Sex in Sartre and Buber," in Sexuality and Identity, ed. H. Ruitenbeek (New York: Bantam, 1970), pp. 84-99.
42. Though Bayles does not quite say they are of no value whatsoever, he believes that they are not sufficiently valuable to warrant legal protection.
43. See D. P. Verene, "Sexual Love and Moral Experience," in Philosophy and Sex, 1st ed., pp. 105-15; and his Sexual Love and Western Morality (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. 10-47.