Is casual sex normal?

Andrew D Atkin:

It bores me looking at articles such as this, talking about promiscuity. They never get to what's behind the issue. The issue becomes trivialised into some kind of moralistic or feminist thing, which with better understanding we can see that it's not.

My outlook:

Yes, casual sex is normal. No it's not "supposed to be" normal. Yes, people should screw around if they want to. No you shouldn't celebrate that they do. Yes, casual sex is not unhealthy in itself. No it's not an expression of health.

Human sexuality:

The human animal more than any other is dependant on a stable family to grow up in (properly), and that requires well-attached parents. Human sexuality is an intense part of that attachment.

-We all know this, though politicised scientists might always "prove" something else.

If casual sex is so natural, why then are people so universally devastated when their partners cheat on them? Why have we been biologically programmed with this response? And if a stable family is not what a child needs after all, then why are kids traumatised by a broken home? And if we are not supposed to attach in sex, then why does the attachment process (in normal conditions) occur, as well described by people such as Desmond Morris? And most significantly, as a species we never evolved with contraception. So it would seem strange that sex should be casual by nature when the consequences of the act (children) have, historically, always demanded attachment.

Nope. Casual, promiscuous sex is not normal normal. It's now common and culturally normalised, but not normal in the human meaning of the word.

So where does casual sex come from?

It comes mainly from the effect of deprivation. A child that does not attach to its parents will not attach to anyone as an adult (in a real way), because the function of attachment has been locked out of consciousness (repressed). People like this can easily engage in casual sex because, basically, they hardly have sex at all. As a subjective process they literally can't have 'normal' sex.

Another possibility is peer pressure. This is ugly and no-one should tolerate it. Having a mass of neurotic children who can and do screw whoever/whenever is one thing, forcing other young people to be pressured by them is another.

And another possibility still is with schools providing bizarre forms of sex education that serve to "normalise the abnormal", and at an age when children can't know any better.

-How about some real sex education? Why not teach the impact of child abuse and infantile damage on human sexuality, and also the pervasiveness of that damage? And throw in a special module on incest too, as it represents the most extreme way to destroy someones sexuality.

Conclusion:

Let people do whatever they want with their bodies - just so long as it's sincerely mutual, they don't get pregnant in a messed-up state, nor spread too many diseases. If people are promiscuous then the damage has already been done, so there's no point in crying over spilt milk.

But don't celebrate promiscuity. See it for what it is. It is still an expression of a more serious problem relating to deep damage within early childhood. And the latter is what our society needs to be talking about - not this moralistic trivia.