This is not true at all, typical historical rates are 1% or less: https://www.cell.com/pb-assets/journals/trends/ecology-evolu...
The surprising result of these new studies is that human EPP rates have stayed nearconstant at around 1% across several human societies over the past several hundred years. This poses an immediate puzzle for behavioural scientists, who estimated that without the availability of modern contraceptives the historical EPP rates should have been much higher, in the range of 10–20%, based on present behavioural measures of EPCs and observed kin investments of matri- and patrilineal family members, which are known to be inversely related to EPP [13]. Hence, it appears that people were more faithful in their relationships in the past, or – put differently – that the recent widespread adoption of modern contraceptives has sexually liberated women, resulting in a relatively greater number of extra-marital affairs, but in EPP rates that have remained as low as they were before.
My only complaint is that the method of study seems like it would not be great at differentiating paternity between relatives (i.e., cases where the affair partner is related to the husband, such as his brother or cousin) due to shared Y chromosomal DNA.
It does, at least, suggest that rates of cheating with unrelated men were likely low in most cases (outside of poor urban populations as mentioned in this paper: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)... ).
Yes? What do I care what happens to her after we break up?
I presume the reason you want to date someone with fewer partners is because you are trying to weed out partners who are unlikely to stick around. So if she doesn't stick around anyway because she wants to play the field, that means your judgement was wrong.
If you don't actually care about breakups (which is the impression your comments are giving me), I'm not sure why any of it matters. Why avoid dating someone with a long history of break-ups if you don't actually care when or why your relationships end?
For what it's worth, when I was looking for a partner, I discounted men who had more than a couple short-term relationships like that. Even if they were completely serious about all of those relationships and it was their partners who left them for a more promiscuous lifestyle, a pattern of such relationships speaks poorly of their ability to identify compatibility in a partner. I was picky about men I would date, and so I was only interested in men who were similarly picky about women they would date.
When I enter a relationship, I cannot reliably predict what her behaviour will be during or after the relationship. But I can extrapolate what her current and future behaviour will be from her previous behaviour. Of course, I can guess wrong, but at least I tried.
The number of partners must equal the number of breakups. I don't see the practical difference? I say I want a partner who's had few partners, which means I want a partner who's had few breakups. A woman who's had more partners than breakups has had one or several one-night stands, and those are automatically discarded - I do not even consider them.
Also when I said I want someone with few partners and I am only interested in long relationships I thought it was implied that I was more interested in women whose few relationships had been long.
>a pattern of such relationships speaks poorly of their ability to identify compatibility in a partner
Maybe. But that's not necessarily her fault. My soft skills are very poor so I can't ask for more :) Also she could have had very bad luck. Not a strong reason to discard someone in my book, although it's something to take into account.
>When I enter a relationship, I cannot reliably predict what her behaviour will be during or after the relationship. But I can extrapolate what her current and future behaviour will be from her previous behaviour.
This is the point I was trying to get at. Past behavior is the best predictor we have of future behavior, which is why it is valuable to date people who have a history of behavior for us to examine. It makes it easier to weed out bad matches from good matches. When people have no history of behavior (i.e., they are young and don't have a lot of life/dating experience), there is really no way to know what their future behavior will be.
My main thrust is that early-age marriage is not actually a good thing. It is better for people to marry after they are more experienced, even if that experience reveals that maybe some people shouldn't marry at all (i.e., it is better that they never marry at all than that they get married young and later realize they shouldn't have).
>The number of partners must equal the number of breakups.
Yes, they are the same (I guess outside of ongoing polyamorous relationships). I just used that wording to emphasize the breaking-up aspects of these previous relationships.
most have one life to live and they grow and adapt
This kind of thinking needs to just go away. It's silly and doesn't allow for growth and change
If you were prepared to just drop your ex-girlfriend and move on (and would rather have done so than meet the exact same person a few years and a few partners later) then this suggests not that you're against people having multiple partners ... but that you're against women having multiple sexual partners.
I am not against or for people having multiple partners. People can do whatever they want. I only care about the number of partners of women I am interested in.
Men have a preference for women who made the choice to sleep with fewer men, ruling out 80% of them. Everybody loses their minds.
I talk about women because I'm a man! Women also select men in other ways. Nothing wrong about it.
Also why can't men prefer younger women in the manner that younger women tend to prefer older established men?
I'm a woman who married her husband, and was extremely picky about marrying someone who wasn't promiscuous (low number of sexual partners).
I have two sons, and a daughter. As a mother you absolutely see the double standards in a couple ways. Women on tiktok, instagram, and other social media constantly shame men for being under 6 feet. I'm Korean, and I see Asian men being shamed from being under 5'7 in Asian!
Any male preferences get demonized, while female preferences get revered. It makes me worried for my kids. I don't want my daughter to grow up without a grasp on reality, and I don't want my sons being doormats.
Let's preface with the fact that I am a male.
What I have seen is the complete opposite. We males aren't "demonized" for being promiscuous, quite the opposite in fact. Females are outright called "sluts".
What you see on the internet is a drop in the bucket. Social media will default to exaggerated points of view, because they generate engagement. Kids will outgrow these fake trends at some point.
https://www.businessinsider.com/women-are-more-attracted-to-...
Nowhere in the article says that women prefer "promiscuous" men, but men regarded as "attractive" by other women.
It also does not justify the fact that women are regarded more negatively when they have had multiple sexual partners, compared to men.
What do women do with the men they are attracted to, generally speaking? Is there anything women could use as a informal gauge as to how attractive other women find any particular man?
> It also does not justify the fact that women are regarded more negatively when they have had multiple sexual partners, compared to men.
Oh OK, so when 5 foot tall women should stop being creepy and preferring men taller than them right? Their preferences are unbalanced and unjustified correct?
Have you even read the article you yourself posted?
> Oh OK, so when 5 foot tall women should stop being creepy and preferring men taller than them right? Their preferences are unbalanced and unjustified correct?
I honestly cannot believe I would have to explain this to a seemingly functional adult.
We are talking about the imbalance in how sexual activity is regarded depending on gender.
Preferring taller or shorter partners is not "creepy", same as in choosing between blondes or brunettes. No one, outside the constant noise that is social media, is going to chastise you for choosing one or another.
Asking about "body count" before dating someone is creepy, because our society regards this as a private matter. Even worse, as I said, men get a pass on this, and women do not.
It blows my mind that anyone would be trying to compare one to another, and even tried to spin it into "promiscuous men are more preferable among women anyway". What the hell?
> our society regards this as a private matter.
Why is that? We haven't reach the objective bedrock that opinion is based on yet, we are still in feelings land.
I wonder if you yourself have started any date by saying "I have fucked this many people". After all, it seems only natural that you would lead by example. How has that worked for you so far?
Hey man, men rejecting women like that just leaves more for you right? Nobody is stopping you from having a former sex worker as a wife, it's just I and many people like me don't feel lifelong commitment with such a person is worthwhile or desirable.
Maybe this is the reason I don't get this kind of reactionaryism: I left for college ~25 years ago, and didn't go back to the small town I grew in.
And I'm glad. I could have turned into the same kind of guy who still believes that men can aspire to be players, and women should not.
For centuries, the vast majority of women didn’t have the luxury of choosing. To this day, most men still discriminate on the basis on religion, race, or politics when looking for partners.
What are these men complaining about?
> Political views are about the only "good filter", but you're just putting a huge target on your back anyway.
Yes, most women wouldn’t fuck conservatives because they despise their ideals. Perhaps the issue here is the lack of self awareness among conservatives, then.
I see it less about victims and more about empathy. You can understand the historical burden minorities and women have had and also still sympathize with modern dating scene, for men and women alike.
Your right to subjective preferences doesn't invalidate people’s subjective view of those preferences.
The answer is a definitive yes, from an emotional standpoint.
When you are young, you make partner choices based on primal, raw desire. As you "age out" of your youth, start a career, etc, you make more practical partner choices based on provisioning capacity, conscientiousness, agreeableness, etc. Particularly when you are the sexual selector.
The problem is that that primal desire never goes away, even though people get better at making practical choices. If you're #1, you have the emotional security of knowing that your partner loves you at a deep, primal, biological level.
If you're #23, that emotional security is gone. You've been selected because you earn $X, you're stable, you're capable, and you get along well. And maybe that makes for a great partnership, in the sense that you could have a great partnership with your co-founder. But you still know, in the back of your mind, that your partner doesn't love you in a deep biological sense. You're a practical, rational choice. And your partner's body will never crave you like it does others.
And in a world of no-fault divorce, it's a trivial matter for your partner to give in to just a taste of the old days.
The word "insecurity" gets thrown around a lot here as some sort of pejorative. And it's true that #23 often has "insecurity issues", but those "issues" are not unfounded. Insecurity is often an emotional response to a genuine lack of security that actually exists in interpersonal relationships.
Is that a bad thing over "oh she thinks I'm hot"? Like you said, youth is fleeting and I can't be hot forever (in this alternate timeline where I'm considered attractive).
Besides, these aren't mutually exclusive. Are you just worried your spouse will cheat on you with a 20 year old? That has bigger red flags for you and the spouse than any rational choice.
Hopefully, as you age, you choose partners based on many factors, the most important being both your abilties to understand yourselves; see others in a sophisticated, mature, and especially non-objectifying way; feel love; and form deep, healthy, emotional bonds.
It's the non-objectifying factors that count. Sex object, money-producing object - that is all the same misunderstanding of other humans. If that's what someone wants, they should hire someone and not marry them.
Would you be luckier to be her 1st, knowing that it would be short-lived and 22 others would follow after you?
All experienced people start off inexperienced. At least with experienced people, they are more likely to know what they want.
I am a woman the same age as you. I am only interested in long-term monogamy. As such, I have a lot of sexual and relationship experience due to my age, but all if it is with just 3 people. Not only that, but all of my experience is with who, themselves, had never previously had casual sex experience.
The first 2 were young and inexperienced like me, and they initially thought they wanted the same thing that I want. But as time went on, they realized that they felt confined by long-term monogamy and actually wanted more experiences with more people. After we broke up, they proceeded to have a series of flings and casual sex. They did have some attempts at long-term polyamorous relationships, but nothing that lasted more than a year or two.
By the time I met my 3rd partner (who I have been with a long time now), I was pretty gun shy about dating men. My experience was that men talk a big game about wanting a stable partner for the long haul, but get bored and break your heart.
What helped me give my new partner a chance was that we were both older by this point and more settled into our lives. He had plenty of relationship experience by that point, and his history demonstrated that he stayed dedicated in long-term monogamous relationships and that he was not interested in casual sex, despite plenty of opportunities for it.
If I were advising someone whose goal was to only ever have one partner in their life, my advice would be to only date people with a lot of life experience. Inexperienced people are a wild card. You can't manipulate them into only ever wanting you. Maybe back in the day, you could lock them into marriage, but modern DNA evidence suggests that a huge percentage of children back then (some estimates as high as 25%) were not genetically related to their fathers, so I'm not so sure that marriage was actually what you imagine it was.
If you want to date women who are fully dedicated to long-term monogamy, then date people with a demonstrated history of exactly that. (However, be aware that this only works if you yourself have such a history. You can't expect to date women with high standards if you don't actually live up to those standards.)