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People who are sexually promiscuous make me mad

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I need to come to terms with it and take heed of the advice given in this thread.

I obviously don't know your situation but getting away from the ex would definitely help. "Out of sight out of mind" is not absolutely true and should probably be "out of sight a little less likely to be on the mind" because it does help.

Additionally, if you can't physically get away from her (she's at work or school or something), just try to ignore her being there. Try to see her as any other person because that's essentially what an ex-significant other is. The commitment and connection you had isn't there anymore so why keep the negative aspects of it? Why worry about someone who provides no benefit for you? What do you have to lose?

It's easier said than done, but with some conscious effort you can get over her and not let her affect you. Every time you start thinking of her or what she does, immediately come back to the fact that you no longer have a connection to her. Don't think that just because you have a certain reaction each time you see her that you have to succumb to your automatic thoughts. The more you do it, the less it will affect you.

Once you're no longer hurt by your ex, other people won't affect you as much and eventually they won't affect you at all. It will take some effort but it will certainly be worth it in the end.

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Every time you start thinking of her or what she does, immediately come back to the fact that you no longer have a connection to her. Don't think that just because you have a certain reaction each time you see her that you have to succumb to your automatic thoughts. The more you do it, the less it will affect you.

good advice, that may be where i'm going wrong. It is also partly the hurt of my ego of knowing she is doing the same and i will be forgotten, or forgotten already after the good times shared and effort i put in. I need to selfishly think of myself and overcome my ego

edit: It was her who said she couldn't speak to me any longer because i felt i couldn't be with her after her drunken behaviour after we were through and by not speaking to me anymore it would be easy for her to "block it out" like she does with other things in her life

Edited by Matt
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Matt,

You have rational standards, and some others don't. The solution is not let them push your buttons. There is a good chance that someone with low standards is a button pusher. A friend told me to just be content with yourself - and hold an I don't care attitude so that your buttons don't get pushed. Achieve your goals and pursue your happiness- but what other people are doing really doesn't concern you. There's always going to be something to get angry about in another irrational person's life. If you let this shit get to you, and care, you'll develop health problems and your body will engage in chemical memory responses. It's not worth it to me to absorb someone else's irrationality and develop neck stress, acid reflex stuff, whatever. If I continued getting enraged like I did, I'd have to pay 55$ for massage therapy every week at least.

When you are talking to them - just step aside, like outside of your body, and just don't care - lol. Think about all of the negative associations they have absorbed, like you are attempting to absorb by allowing them to push your buttons, that is causing you this distress. Alternatively, knock yourself out.

Also, if you understand how an animal gets excited and has sex, you can understand how people randomly engage in sex. The last thing you need is a guilt complex for promiscuity - you just need an I don't care attitude. What if not one woman existed that matched your standards on the planet? You'd have to just develop an I don't care attitude and or stick to the best (rational/hot) ones. You can apply your argument of ...how can someone get off to this - to how can someone shoot heroin.. etc. Don't care.

Edited by MoralParadise
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Thank you MoralParadise for the reply. I think it's a really good advice to be outside myself and not give a shit about those who kinda don't give a shit about themselves, and like you said act like animals, animals which choose to ignore the long term consequence of their actions and act on impulse and thought which has not been investigated as to what the reasons are of if its a rational thought. LOL, my ex actually justified her slutty behaviour as "I wanted sex, so i had sex" but apparently wouldnt do it again because there was no intimacy, i suppose she will try and fake that too. But you are right i realise now it is none of my concern and i also wont be bothered as to how people interpret my "i dont care attitude" because im already tired of appeasing people i dont want to listen to. Thanks

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  • 7 months later...
Matt,

You have rational standards, and some others don't. The solution is not let them push your buttons. There is a good chance that someone with low standards is a button pusher. A friend told me to just be content with yourself - and hold an I don't care attitude so that your buttons don't get pushed. Achieve your goals and pursue your happiness- but what other people are doing really doesn't concern you. There's always going to be something to get angry about in another irrational person's life. If you let this shit get to you, and care, you'll develop health problems and your body will engage in chemical memory responses. It's not worth it to me to absorb someone else's irrationality and develop neck stress, acid reflex stuff, whatever. If I continued getting enraged like I did, I'd have to pay 55$ for massage therapy every week at least.

When you are talking to them - just step aside, like outside of your body, and just don't care - lol. Think about all of the negative associations they have absorbed, like you are attempting to absorb by allowing them to push your buttons, that is causing you this distress. Alternatively, knock yourself out.

Also, if you understand how an animal gets excited and has sex, you can understand how people randomly engage in sex. The last thing you need is a guilt complex for promiscuity - you just need an I don't care attitude. What if not one woman existed that matched your standards on the planet? You'd have to just develop an I don't care attitude and or stick to the best (rational/hot) ones. You can apply your argument of ...how can someone get off to this - to how can someone shoot heroin.. etc. Don't care.

I should thank you again for this post, its a brilliant reminder.

I was reading this:

Why, if you’re a woman, you should never let others make you feel like a slut because you slept with a man you were attracted to:

Did I feel a physical desire for him? I did. Was I moved by the passion of my body? I was. Have I experienced the most violent form of sensual pleasure? I have. If this now makes me a disgraced woman in your eyes – let your estimate be your own concern. I will stand on mine.

from here: http://lifewithsoul.com/2008/12/ayn-rand-o...1/#comment-6634

and got irritated at this comment left on the article:

Shameless Says:

Interesting post yet I find it quite contradictory.

I really liked the first part in which you explain why a woman never should feel a slut only because she slept with a man she felt attracted to. I think that women have a right to enjoy sex as men, break out of the current social conditioning and – if they want to – have the same right to sleep around as guys have. In that sense I found the viewpoints in your post quite modern.

But then, in the last article it looks as if you completely fall back into old “machist” thoughrpatterns when you state that the highest-quality woman are the hardest to conquer and always give more satisfaction than a “brainless slut”. Isnt this just the old social conditioning, where difficult to conquer = high quality girl and fast to conquer = slut? Yes, I agree that we should strive for a high-quality, interesting girl with whom you can share a conversation and interesting experiences but this is absolutely not related to whether she will have sex with me sooner or later…

Love your posts, always interesting and inspiring even though I might disagree… :)

Cheers,

Fede

shows how people like to twist things in order to suit themselves... i left this comment:

Matt Says:

Fede i think you’re misunderstanding.

having sex with someone you are attracted to should be based on self esteem (and values, trusting that this person is someone of quality with admirable virtues)… not on whim alone

Ayn didnt believe in promiscuity

------------------------------------------

I remembered this post and referred back to it to keep me cool ;)

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  • 1 year later...

You see, I have no idea why some people hold sex as such an important act all the time. There can be sex for the act of expressing your sexual desire and love for someone and then there can be raw pure lust driven sex for the reason of getting off. It's not much unlike masturbation which is purely for the sexual release and pleasure of it, only more pleasurable, exciting, and enjoyable and instead of imagining you're having sex with that hot girl, you actually are.

I'd like to understand why some people view sex as such a heavy topic. It's just a particularly pleasurable act between two people.

Personally, I've only had two sexual partners both in proper relationships but not by choice I envy those who can get six in a year.

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Because it can have such potentially serious consequences to one's life.

I only see two and as long as protection is used I don't see that the risks of pregnancy or infection are very great. The risks are so small that it'd be like not eating food because it might be poisoned or not driving a car because you might get hit by another car.

Perhaps you mean other things that I'm unaware of. Sex to me has very few consequences. It's just cheap fun. :thumbsup:

Edited by Paeter
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Perhaps you mean other things that I'm unaware of. Sex to me has very few consequences. It's just cheap fun. :thumbsup:

Aside from the two you mention, from which protection is not full-proof, to other people sex is much more intimate and important than just "cheap fun". If you want to understand why it is more serious to other people, you might consider viewing it from beyond the perspective of just "sex to me...".

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I never said it was right to be mad, i dont want to be an angry person - but the fact is right now it does make me mad. Reason being is because people try to justify their animalistic behaviour and see ME as the one with the issue. I find it to be negative and so the negativity gets me in the frame of mind where i get mad about it because these people who act on whims seem to be "happy" doing so, I get frustrated thinking how people like that can be happy when i try so hard to be the opposite and struggle in the other direction to go against the grain of "normal" social behaviour

Dear Matt,

You are perfectly right in your outrage of having to live in an over-sexualized medium. I felt the same way the last time I spent time in London which was disappointing as I used to fancy all things British.

This is an extract from an article you might find interesting. http://inversions-and-deceptions.blogspot.com/2008/08/doctor-is-in.html

We also need to remember that sex plays an important ideological role in a mediocracy. Its function is to prove we are all equal, i.e. equally mechanical. Mediocratic culture relentlessly advertises it, the point being not to encourage toleration of human desires but to celebrate our degradation. This is achieved by means of an ambivalent attitude, promoting sex on the one hand while sneering at it on the other.

Sex is presented as ‘individualistic’ in a mediocracy, but is tacitly used to emphasise our role as social agents entering into adult community activities. Every individual’s sexuality and sexual activities have, in a sense, taken on a public dimension. They are to be available for inspection by society, with mass media (of course) playing a crucial role in providing publicity.

(...)

Sex is considered an important defining characteristic of the mediocratic individual (see above). Emphasising it helps to reduce the individual to the status of an automaton. Sex is to be regarded as invalidating any idealistic or romantic notions that people might have, particularly about themselves.

Sex is the principal criterion of normality in a mediocracy. Abstinence is considered unhealthy, low levels of sexual activity a sign of psychopathology calling for treatment.

- Fabian Tassano Edited by volco
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I only see two and as long as protection is used I don't see that the risks of pregnancy or infection are very great. The risks are so small that it'd be like not eating food because it might be poisoned or not driving a car because you might get hit by another car.

Perhaps you mean other things that I'm unaware of. Sex to me has very few consequences. It's just cheap fun. :thumbsup:

Well then can I ask some life advice from you? Because for me it seems sex is a time when your very self melts with another one. It can be glorious or extremely disturbing.

A bad movie is cheap fun.

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Can anyone provide an objective definition, criteria, or standard by which to judge one as "promiscuous?"

Obviously their is not a standardized cutoff line or anything, but I think it is possible to make a reasonable assumption about someone's standards based on your own experiences.

For a starting place, according to this study, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19374216/ 9% of women have had 15 or more sexual partners in their lifetime, with the average being 4. So more than 4 is less selective and less than 4 is more selective, on average. 15 is far less selective. Obviously luck and the individuals capacity for character judgment can cause that to vary a bit, though probably not much.

For example, I know from my own experiences that finding people of value that are also romantically available to you is a fairly rare occurrence, so if someone tells me they've had 42 partners and each of those partners was an amazing conglomeration of values, they're probably just lying to themselves and me. I can safely assume, in that situation that they have pretty low standards and their having chosen me to have sex with is all but meaningless at that point. There is no "recognition of values," spiritual connection, or increased relational longevity as a result. It's..."just cheap fun," and any meaning they pretend to tie to it is entirely dependent on their capacity to compartmentalize(read:evade) their own hacked up value base.

The terms promiscuous, slut, whore, etc are all just conceptual place holders for the realization that the person you are evaluating has low moral standards and poor discrimination and discernment. They evaluate sex as a celebration of values lowly and probably evaluate human achievement lowly as well. People's pasts are fairly good predictors of their futures and those terms are just identifications of that.

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Statistics are NOT valid. Noting what people actually do, in no way informs one about what they SHOULD do.

"The terms promiscuous, slut, whore, etc are all just conceptual place holders for the realization that the person you are evaluating has low moral standards and poor discrimination and discernment."

On what basis? Why would you say thay had low moral standards? By what standard?

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Statistics are NOT valid. Noting what people actually do, in no way informs one about what they SHOULD do.

"The terms promiscuous, slut, whore, etc are all just conceptual place holders for the realization that the person you are evaluating has low moral standards and poor discrimination and discernment."

On what basis? Why would you say thay had low moral standards? By what standard?

Statistics are completely valid, they just don't necessarily imply causation. The usefulness is that they help move the assumptions out of the realm of anecdotes. Most people that I am close with are at the lower end of the spectrum but someone in a different peer group could reasonably conclude that the average was closer to 15 or 20. What that tells me is that most people can reasonably find 4 or so high value people, worth sleeping with, over the course of their lives. If you get many standard deviations outside of that then there is an implication of differences in standards, necessarily except for cases of really great luck. This is particularly true of women since the required amount of effort to find someone to have sex with amounts to driving to a bar and saying, "yes." It applies to men also, but with a shift to slightly higher numbers because there is a bit of effort required to even get a girl to say yes...though less and less as women get easier which has been the case for the last 50 years or so.

The basis, I described after the statistic, was that I know from my own experiences how rare people of high value are, and how much time and energy must be devoted in order to find and vet them, to be even reasonably certain of their value. If someone tells me that they find this sort of person bi-weekly, bi-annually, or every 6 years, then I have a great deal of information about how they establish their values.

I'm not hostile. I don't go out of my way to call promiscuous people names. Ultimately, they'll get to experience the consequences(emotional, sexual, and possibly otherwise) of their mistakes as we all do, without my help. That said I'm not going to ignore the symbolism and correlation of someone's approach to this major value in their lives and its connection to their approaches to all of life's other values and deny myself an extremely valuable predictor of their potential to add or subtract from my life.

Edit...I reread your question and realized that I didn't really answer it directly. The standard is my familiarity with reality and the nature of human relationships. In a human time-frame some things are possible and somethings are not. I would react similarly if someone told me that they had 137 REALLY good friends or they wrote a really GREAT novel...last week, or thought they had a really good chance of winning the lottery. I would simply not weight their opinions on anything very highly.

In short, the depth of emotional reactions is tied to experience and time. To shorten those implies a lack of depth and understanding in it.

I also wanted to clarify that I do think that people can change over time, but that they usually don't much after 25 or so and even then, never without the scars.

Edited by aequalsa
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You still have not provided an objective validation.

How many people, and in what time span is "promiscuous?"

How "high" must a persons value be before it is not being promiscuous to sleep with them? And how long and well must you know them?

Is anyone less valuable that say, Ayn Rand, unacceptable? What is the standard here?

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Statistics are completely valid, they just don't necessarily imply causation. The usefulness is that they help move the assumptions out of the realm of anecdotes. Most people that I am close with are at the lower end of the spectrum but someone in a different peer group could reasonably conclude that the average was closer to 15 or 20. What that tells me is that most people can reasonably find 4 or so high value people, worth sleeping with, over the course of their lives. If you get many standard deviations outside of that then there is an implication of differences in standards, necessarily except for cases of really great luck. This is particularly true of women since the required amount of effort to find someone to have sex with amounts to driving to a bar and saying, "yes." It applies to men also, but with a shift to slightly higher numbers because there is a bit of effort required to even get a girl to say yes...though less and less as women get easier which has been the case for the last 50 years or so.

Aren't you just assuming that the avarage equates to high standards here? When, in fact, there can be many different reasons for the number of partners that people have?

The basis, I described after the statistic, was that I know from my own experiences how rare people of high value are, and how much time and energy must be devoted in order to find and vet them, to be even reasonably certain of their value. If someone tells me that they find this sort of person bi-weekly, bi-annually, or every 6 years, then I have a great deal of information about how they establish their values.

Assuming this holds true for everyone, does it not imply that in some circumstances it might be more reasonable to apply more "casual" standards?

For example. I have met one person i've been seriously interested in. It did not work out. Then i've met a few women i've found thorougly admirable, but none of them have been single. I'm closing in on thirty now, so considering how rare and difficult it is to find The One™ I could very well have grey hair when that happens. I sure hope not, and i'll do my best to not let that happen, but it could happen.

I don't like the idea of spending most of my life in abstinence, and I don't think that would be any more healthy than getting drunk every weekend and spending the night with some random slut. Luckily, I think there's an alternative. Women who are of high value, though not necessarily your highest. Someone you may like very much, but not love(atleast not in the same sense).

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I don't like the idea of spending most of my life in abstinence, and I don't think that would be any more healthy than getting drunk every weekend and spending the night with some random slut. Luckily, I think there's an alternative. Women who are of high value, though not necessarily your highest. Someone you may like very much, but not love(atleast not in the same sense).

I think this is the main issue. How low of a standard are we speaking before the standard is one of promiscuity? Does anything less than highest value qualify as promiscuous? I usually understand promiscuous to be sleeping around with whomever based on little more than physical appearance, lacking in judgments about character. Number of partners is not exactly relevant, what's essential here is what level of non-discrimination, in terms of level on a value hierarchy, is promiscuity?

Edited by Eiuol
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I think this is the main issue. How low of a standard are we speaking before the standard is one of promiscuity? Does anything less than highest value qualify as promiscuous? I usually understand promiscuous to be sleeping around with whomever based on little more than physical appearance, lacking in judgments about character. Number of partners is not exactly relevant, what's essential here is what level of non-discrimination, in terms of level on a value hierarchy, is promiscuity?

I also want to come out in favor of a person's standards given certain contexts as opposed to just numbers. I think four is a ridiculous cutoff for calling someone "promiscuous" or thinking of them as such, and this comes from someone who hasn't even reached four (or two for that matter). Some people end up having more partners just for the simple reason that they travel more, that they change life circumstances more often and thus don't get to stay near the people they either value highly or were coming to value. I'm thinking of a very common progression here: high school, college, graduate/professional school, career. I venture to say that people who go through this sequence are going to have more partners simply by virtue of having to move several times (assuming that most people rack up partners primarily in youth) and should not be assumed to be more promiscuous than someone who, say, stays in the same neighborhood their whole lives until marriage.

For me it is really about whether someone is selecting partners they 1) greatly value for more than just physical reasons and 2) intend to have a serious relationship with. Later as one spends more time with the person, they might discover new information that lets them know it's not going to work out. Moving on from that and finding a new partner is not a moral failing - if anything, it's a moral virtue.

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I think the main distiction should be sex as an expression of values rather than non-value driven action(like hedonism/nihilsm and otherwise expressions of lacking self-esteem). What that means in concrete terms is very contextual. I think the general attitude is more important, either treating it casually or as something serious with the potential of being of great value.

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You still have not provided an objective validation.

How many people, and in what time span is "promiscuous?"

How "high" must a persons value be before it is not being promiscuous to sleep with them? And how long and well must you know them?

Is anyone less valuable that say, Ayn Rand, unacceptable? What is the standard here?

I think you are looking for too concrete of an approach. Knowing someone for six months, and seeing them for 3 hours every month is very different from knowing them for six weeks and spending sixteen hours of every day with them. I realize that there can be outliers but outliers can't form the basis of moral decision making. Because they're rare you have to adjust to them as they occur.

In my opinion, as a general rule, I think around six months is a reasonable amount of time to get to know someone, assuming a reasonable amount of time together alone and in the context of each others friends and families, in order to determine if you would like to become involved with them. In that context, a relationship you chose to be in would have a few years to develop into something more meaningful or fizzle out if he or she isn't the one. This would likely function on an honest basis as opposed to other scenarios like sleeping with someone who "felt right" on the first night and spending the next four months trying to justify it because the intense emotional connection you got from the sex forces you to evade their inherent lack of moral worth and try to focus on the little good that is there. This sort of time frame when considered with the time between relationships leads me to think that up to 8 or so relationships would be in the reasonable range before there would be reason to immediately assume poor values or carelessness with their emotions.

Faster is more careless and I think people tend to do better when they are a little greedy with how they hand out their affections. I don't think it necessary to wait for your perfect soul mate or whatever, if that's what your asking with the Ayn Rand as a standard, question.

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In that context, a relationship you chose to be in would have a few years to develop into something more meaningful or fizzle out if he or she isn't the one.

The question is essentially this: how low standards must you have before you are being promiscuous? Number of partners at best only indicates how high your standards are, but it in no way tells you the essentials of what promiscuity is. Sometimes standards could be so high that it is utterly ridiculous, a demand for there to be The One out there, and all you have to do is find them. It seems implicit in your statements that the best goal is to find a "soul mate", a sort of "the absolute highest possible that will ever be attained." Marriage does seem to be the only proper goal of romance in the standards you mention, that "perhaps marriage material" is the standard you advocate to judge when sex is perfectly moral.

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Aren't you just assuming that the avarage equates to high standards here? When, in fact, there can be many different reasons for the number of partners that people have?

No, I would say that my assumption is that ones number of partners is, generally, inversely proportional to the selectivity of the chooser.

Assuming this holds true for everyone, does it not imply that in some circumstances it might be more reasonable to apply more "casual" standards?

Yes, with the caveat that "more" doesn't mean none. Using your personal circumstance as an example, I would like to clarify that I am not implying that someone should wait for "the one." In point of fact, I don't really buy into the concept. My experience has been that people's characteristics, both good and bad, are not always immediately obvious, so a thoroughly admirable woman is well worth the attempt, even, and actually, especially if she doesn't seem perfect at the first.

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I usually understand promiscuous to be sleeping around with whomever based on little more than physical appearance, lacking in judgments about character. Number of partners is not exactly relevant, what's essential here is what level of non-discrimination, in terms of level on a value hierarchy, is promiscuity?

I generally agree, but I do not see it as a dichotomy. One can be more selective or less, and its is uncommonly rare, and I would argue, unrealistic to think that someone who has 15 or 20 partners has been reasonably selective.

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