The New York Times often promotes socially destructive policies and reckless personal behaviors in opinion columns. The latest example sees self-identified “sex and culture” writer Magdalene J. Taylor promoting promiscuity as a socially desirable cure for loneliness that will benefit society by forging greater levels of “social solidarity.”
Taylor offers no preferred social context in which to increase your rate of coitus. She doesn’t recommend more spice as a means of improving romance in marriage. Nor is her focus on intimacy as bonding relationships. Indeed, she makes no mention of the importance of commitment to healthy sexual relations. She simply asserts: “Those of us in a position to be having more sex ought to be doing so. Here is the rare opportunity to do something for the betterment of the world around you that involves nothing more than indulging in one of humanity’s most essential pleasures.”
Talk about diminishing the importance, power, and meaning of sex! Taylor misses the potency of loving the person with whom one shares a bed. She makes scant mention of the importance of sex as a form of self-giving, devotion, family formation, and having children. And she ignores the crucial role of fidelity and trust in intimate partnering.
No, getting it on as often as possible is a “political statement” that will lead—she doesn’t say how—to “the betterment of the world.” Thus, she writes, “Any capable people should have sex—as much as they can, as pleasurably as they can, as often as they can.” She doesn’t even distinguish between what is proper conduct for adults versus that of teenagers.
What claptrap. Promiscuity—because that is what Taylor advocates without using the word—is reckless. Having indiscriminate sex is often harmful—both to those who indulge in the vice and to greater society. But the only warning Taylor offers about the emotional risks of casual intimacy is the potential for “regret,” and that “sex can bring people together, but that only works if it’s good sex.”
The issue is far more portentous than that. Let’s start with the pregnancy factor. Even if one uses birth control, promiscuity increases the chance of pregnancy. That, in turn, can lead not only to increased abortion—which, to say the least, is morally consequential and potentially causing its own mental health problems—but also to parenthood outside of a bonded familial relationship.
And let’s talk sexually transmitted disease. Having “as much sex as you can as often as you can” outside of a mutually monogamous relationship increases one’s chances of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, chlamydia, and herpes. Having more sex partners can also increase the chance of developing prostate, oral, and cervical cancers. It can even lead to heart disease.
Promiscuity can also be a significant contributor to depression, anxiety, increased substance abuse, and other mental health disorders. While certainly not everyone who engages in casual sex has adverse mental health consequences, many do. Indeed, particularly among adolescents, having as much sex as you want as often as you can is a potential driver of suicidal ideation.
But having a more relaxed view of sex isn’t the same thing as endorsing Taylor’s irresponsible call for cavorting whenever and with whomever one can take to bed. Indeed, considering the significant problem of unintended pregnancies, the raging STD epidemic, and the worsening mental health crisis this country faces, what we really need isn’t increased licentiousness but greater probity in the conduct of our intimate lives.
