One Night Stands in Youth = Infidelity in Marriage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is and it totally I’m sure there’s people with a high body count that are not unfaithful.

But many people with high body count are bipolar, victims of sexual abuse, have complex PTSD, are sex addicts, etc.

So yes, there’s gonna be a correlation between high body count and infidelity, but it’s because of the underlying condition not because they were a ho.

This is such total and utter horseshit that I am left speechless.

No, it isn’t. If you look at the rate of infidelity for people who are bipolar it’s like 80%.. if you look at infidelity for people who are sex addicts it’s in the 90s.

If you look at infidelity in general, most people have some sort of mental disorder.

Keep making shit up. It's highly entertaining yet no one will ever take you seriously.

There is in fact research showing that promiscuous people have lower relationship Satisfaction rates in marriage


https://spark.bethel.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=psychology-students#:~:text=Adults%20who%20are%20more%20promiscuous%20are%20more,trust%20in%20their%20partner%2C%20and%20shorter%20marriages.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231913405_Promiscuity_in_an_evolved_pair-bonding_system_Mating_within_and_outside_the_Pleistocene_box

And several evolutionary studies that correlate fidelity particular female to pair bonding and departure from promiscuity

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382477/


What’s not proven however is the causation: is pair bonding affected by promiscuity or the individuals are incapable of pair bonding due to some personality traits .

I double majored in evolutionary biology and behavior science, and minored in biological anthropology. Did you actually read your citations?

Your first citation is a student poster project for a Psychology 202 class at a Christian university, not a peer-reviewed journal article. More importantly, it doesn't even measure what it's claiming to measure. The title mentions "marital satisfaction," but what they actually looked at was:

1. Sexual partners vs. trust in partner
2. Cohabitation vs. marriage length
3. Sexual partners vs. marriage length, filtered by religious importance

They never directly measured marital satisfaction as its own thing.

Additionally, the association between number of sexual partners and length of marriage has obvious confounds. If you compare two 40-year-olds - one married at 20, one at 30 - the first person will show both fewer lifetime partners (only had 20 years to date before marriage vs. 30 years) AND a longer current marriage (20 years vs. 10 years). This correlation exists purely because of when they got married, not because having fewer partners caused the marriage to last longer.

Your second citation is a theoretical commentary proposing an evolutionary framework, not an empirical study of relationships or marriage outcomes. It has zero data on sexual partners, zero measures of marital satisfaction, and zero analysis of relationship outcomes. Using it as evidence about marriage or bonding is a total misapplication.

In fact, it argues the opposite of what you're claiming. Look at the diagram on page 4 - it shows dating and sexual exploration as normal parts of how pair bonding works:

1. First comes attraction and sexual motivation
2. Then partner preference develops through romantic/sexual interaction (eg, "pre-marital sex" or "promiscuity")
3. Only after this do attachment and long-term pair-bond form

The model treats multiple partners as part of a bonding-oriented system, NOT as behaviors that damage or bypass bonding mechanisms. If anything, it supports the opposite: that sexual and romantic exploration precede and facilitate attachment rather than prevent it.

Your third citation is also not an empirical study and does not show any real-world correlation between female fidelity, promiscuity, or pair-bonding outcomes. It's a mathematical model about how populations might evolve from promiscuous mating to pair bonding.

The model actually *starts* with a promiscuous population and explains how pair bonding can emerge from that state. So it does not support the idea that promiscuity is incompatible with bonding; it models bonding as something that can emerge out of promiscuity, not in opposition to it.

And even if we accept that female fidelity helped pair bonding evolve at the population level historically, that doesn't tell us whether individuals who have explored sexually can't form pair bonds. That topic is not addressed in this paper at all.

Your error in logic is:

1. The model shows pair bonding could evolve when females stayed faithful within established pair bonds (at a population level, over evolutionary time)
2. Humans did evolve pair bonding
3. Therefore, you're concluding that individual females today shouldn't engage in sexual exploration before establishing a long-term pair bond

You're misreading what fidelity means here. The model is about staying with an established partner (not leaving them for other mates once paired). It's not about avoiding all sexual activity before pair bonding happens in the first place. Those are completely different things.

And I'm not even touching the fact that people are jumping from marital infidelity, to marriage satisfaction, to pair bonding, as if they’re the same. They aren’t. You can cheat and still be bonded. You can be bonded and unhappy. You can be faithful and emotionally detached.

As a general rule, it's a good idea to stay away from any evolutionary claims about how people "should" behave sexually or that men are X, women are Y. As was demonstrated here, most of these people do not know how to read a scientific paper, or even vet for what is a peer-reviewed paper.

Humans evolved flexible mating strategies that adapt based on environment, culture, and individual circumstances. While there may be *average* sex differences, the overlap between men and women is enormous.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate. Evolutionary biology explains why certain traits exist and how they might have been useful in our ancestral past. It does NOT tell us whether specific behaviors are healthy, moral, or predictive of relationship success today. And in fact, behavior is meant to be quite flexible so that individuals can adapt quickly.

What's actually useful isn't prescribing behavior based on theoretical models; it's looking at ourselves as individuals and figuring out what brings us relationship satisfaction.

Funny, the research regarding what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships reaches the same conclusions as the initially posted research.

You want things to be a certain way, but they aren’t.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate.

Correct! Guess what, rape is “natural”, as is slavery. But I bet you won’t post pages of pseudoscience screeds defending these behaviors. Why not?

PP here. Happy to look at your sources for your assertion on what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships. Peer-reviewed and relevant, please.

But what you're doing right now is pivoting from evidence to moral outrage and strawman arguments (unfortunately, a classic move when one cannot defend their position with evidence).

You're now arguing morality, not biology, and pretending this is about defending behavior rather than critiquing evidence and correcting claims about what the evidence presented by you actually shows.

Saying “there’s no single natural mating system for humans” is a descriptive biological statement about variability in evolved behavior. It has nothing to do with endorsing anything, just like saying “aggression exists in humans” isn’t an argument that violence is acceptable.

Rape and slavery aren’t comparable here at all. Those are acts of coercion and harm. We were talking about consensual sexual behavior and relationship patterns. Collapsing those into the same category is a false equivalence and doesn’t strengthen your argument, it just changes the subject.

So no, this isn’t about me wanting things to be a certain way. It’s about not turning weak or irrelevant evidence into sweeping claims about bonding ability and moral character, and not treating evolutionary models as if they’re relationship outcome studies.

If you want to argue about values, that’s a different conversation. But that’s not what those papers were about, and that’s not what you originally claimed they showed.

[Anonymous]

No.

This is a ridiculous question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is and it totally I’m sure there’s people with a high body count that are not unfaithful.

But many people with high body count are bipolar, victims of sexual abuse, have complex PTSD, are sex addicts, etc.

So yes, there’s gonna be a correlation between high body count and infidelity, but it’s because of the underlying condition not because they were a ho.

This is such total and utter horseshit that I am left speechless.

No, it isn’t. If you look at the rate of infidelity for people who are bipolar it’s like 80%.. if you look at infidelity for people who are sex addicts it’s in the 90s.

If you look at infidelity in general, most people have some sort of mental disorder.

Keep making shit up. It's highly entertaining yet no one will ever take you seriously.

There is in fact research showing that promiscuous people have lower relationship Satisfaction rates in marriage


https://spark.bethel.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=psychology-students#:~:text=Adults%20who%20are%20more%20promiscuous%20are%20more,trust%20in%20their%20partner%2C%20and%20shorter%20marriages.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231913405_Promiscuity_in_an_evolved_pair-bonding_system_Mating_within_and_outside_the_Pleistocene_box

And several evolutionary studies that correlate fidelity particular female to pair bonding and departure from promiscuity

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382477/


What’s not proven however is the causation: is pair bonding affected by promiscuity or the individuals are incapable of pair bonding due to some personality traits .

I double majored in evolutionary biology and behavior science, and minored in biological anthropology. Did you actually read your citations?

Your first citation is a student poster project for a Psychology 202 class at a Christian university, not a peer-reviewed journal article. More importantly, it doesn't even measure what it's claiming to measure. The title mentions "marital satisfaction," but what they actually looked at was:

1. Sexual partners vs. trust in partner
2. Cohabitation vs. marriage length
3. Sexual partners vs. marriage length, filtered by religious importance

They never directly measured marital satisfaction as its own thing.

Additionally, the association between number of sexual partners and length of marriage has obvious confounds. If you compare two 40-year-olds - one married at 20, one at 30 - the first person will show both fewer lifetime partners (only had 20 years to date before marriage vs. 30 years) AND a longer current marriage (20 years vs. 10 years). This correlation exists purely because of when they got married, not because having fewer partners caused the marriage to last longer.

Your second citation is a theoretical commentary proposing an evolutionary framework, not an empirical study of relationships or marriage outcomes. It has zero data on sexual partners, zero measures of marital satisfaction, and zero analysis of relationship outcomes. Using it as evidence about marriage or bonding is a total misapplication.

In fact, it argues the opposite of what you're claiming. Look at the diagram on page 4 - it shows dating and sexual exploration as normal parts of how pair bonding works:

1. First comes attraction and sexual motivation
2. Then partner preference develops through romantic/sexual interaction (eg, "pre-marital sex" or "promiscuity")
3. Only after this do attachment and long-term pair-bond form

The model treats multiple partners as part of a bonding-oriented system, NOT as behaviors that damage or bypass bonding mechanisms. If anything, it supports the opposite: that sexual and romantic exploration precede and facilitate attachment rather than prevent it.

Your third citation is also not an empirical study and does not show any real-world correlation between female fidelity, promiscuity, or pair-bonding outcomes. It's a mathematical model about how populations might evolve from promiscuous mating to pair bonding.

The model actually *starts* with a promiscuous population and explains how pair bonding can emerge from that state. So it does not support the idea that promiscuity is incompatible with bonding; it models bonding as something that can emerge out of promiscuity, not in opposition to it.

And even if we accept that female fidelity helped pair bonding evolve at the population level historically, that doesn't tell us whether individuals who have explored sexually can't form pair bonds. That topic is not addressed in this paper at all.

Your error in logic is:

1. The model shows pair bonding could evolve when females stayed faithful within established pair bonds (at a population level, over evolutionary time)
2. Humans did evolve pair bonding
3. Therefore, you're concluding that individual females today shouldn't engage in sexual exploration before establishing a long-term pair bond

You're misreading what fidelity means here. The model is about staying with an established partner (not leaving them for other mates once paired). It's not about avoiding all sexual activity before pair bonding happens in the first place. Those are completely different things.

And I'm not even touching the fact that people are jumping from marital infidelity, to marriage satisfaction, to pair bonding, as if they’re the same. They aren’t. You can cheat and still be bonded. You can be bonded and unhappy. You can be faithful and emotionally detached.

As a general rule, it's a good idea to stay away from any evolutionary claims about how people "should" behave sexually or that men are X, women are Y. As was demonstrated here, most of these people do not know how to read a scientific paper, or even vet for what is a peer-reviewed paper.

Humans evolved flexible mating strategies that adapt based on environment, culture, and individual circumstances. While there may be *average* sex differences, the overlap between men and women is enormous.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate. Evolutionary biology explains why certain traits exist and how they might have been useful in our ancestral past. It does NOT tell us whether specific behaviors are healthy, moral, or predictive of relationship success today. And in fact, behavior is meant to be quite flexible so that individuals can adapt quickly.

What's actually useful isn't prescribing behavior based on theoretical models; it's looking at ourselves as individuals and figuring out what brings us relationship satisfaction.

Funny, the research regarding what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships reaches the same conclusions as the initially posted research.

You want things to be a certain way, but they aren’t.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate.

Correct! Guess what, rape is “natural”, as is slavery. But I bet you won’t post pages of pseudoscience screeds defending these behaviors. Why not?

Do you understand the concept of consent?

Do you?

The consent model has been around for maybe 50 years of human history.

You claim to be a social scientist but apparently are unfamiliar with the concept of recency bias.

Comparing consensual sexual encounters today with rape and slavery is pure lunacy. Especially in the context in which this dumb post was started in the first place. I didn’t claim to be anything. Lots of people are commenting on your dumb posts. Recency bias? 😂😂😂 I live today, not 500 years ago.

One would expect that someone who is boasting about their credentials in evolutionary biology and behavior science, and biological anthropology could discuss these topics fluently. Or at least support their assertion that “ There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate.”

Apparently not the case with you.

I'm the evolutionary biologist. The previous response was not me.

I did just post in response to one of your previous responses. But to address specifically the rape and slavery argument (which is a strawman argument, where someone changes the argument into a moral outrage or more extreme version, then attacks that instead of what was actually said).

I said: The research you presented doesn’t support your claims that promiscuity damages bonding ability.

You responded: So you’re saying all behavior is fine and we should justify rape and slavery.

I never said that. You built a fake version of my position (the "strawman") then knocked it down instead of responding to my actual points.

From my earlier post: Saying “there’s no single natural mating system for humans” is a descriptive biological statement about variability in evolved behavior. It has nothing to do with endorsing anything, just like saying “aggression exists in humans” isn’t an argument that violence is acceptable.

Again, if you would like to:

1. Address my actual analysis of the evidence you presented (which will require you to actually read the papers), or
2. Present evidence in defense of your claim that promiscuity damages pair-bonding ability or leads to less satisfying marriages,

Happy to read those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this every time this idiotic topic comes up. I will never discuss my numbers with anyone and if a man insists on knowing my number, he can just move to the next woman who will lie to him instead of refusing to answer.

If he cares, ones refusing to answer are actually basically saying, "Too many to admit.".

I don’t give a shit what he thinks at that point. He is not someone I want to waste my time on. He has unresolved issues that I don’t care to fix.

BS.

Men aren't asking for your number on the first, third, or fifth date. They ask when you've become an exclusive couple and he's wondering if you are a woman he wants to spend his life with, start a family with, etc. You don't get to that stage without proving he is a person you willingly 'spend time' on. I can promise you this- the likelihood he stays interested is much higher if your response is "Four men that I dated for 3 months or more and six guys on a wild summer I spent volunteering in New Orleans."

Rational dudes can understand that. Rational dudes do not understand refusing to answer or answering with.... "31 guys."

This is wildly incorrect. The red pill incels are asking this before even *meeting* women on the apps. It's very easy to see why they get no matches.

OMG seriously? And we’re having a giant societal discussion about the loneliness of young men when this is how they behave? Jesus.
- one of the long-married PPs who’s never been on the apps

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is and it totally I’m sure there’s people with a high body count that are not unfaithful.

But many people with high body count are bipolar, victims of sexual abuse, have complex PTSD, are sex addicts, etc.

So yes, there’s gonna be a correlation between high body count and infidelity, but it’s because of the underlying condition not because they were a ho.

This is such total and utter horseshit that I am left speechless.

No, it isn’t. If you look at the rate of infidelity for people who are bipolar it’s like 80%.. if you look at infidelity for people who are sex addicts it’s in the 90s.

If you look at infidelity in general, most people have some sort of mental disorder.

Good lord, grandma, having a few one night stands doesn’t mean you’re bipolar or a sex addict.

No, but it does highly correlate with poor judgment and weak character.

Of course it does ! If the woman is having ONS despite, knowing it’s a risky and potentially dangerous behavior.

Look I'm sure that internalized misogyny has gotten you far in life, but do eff off.

Recognizing that women face higher risks of personal harm or STDs than men (when dating casually ) is not misogyny. It takes a certain disregard to her own safety to meet a random guy at a bar and follow him in a hotel room

Are you under the impression that every ONS is as you described? Not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is and it totally I’m sure there’s people with a high body count that are not unfaithful.

But many people with high body count are bipolar, victims of sexual abuse, have complex PTSD, are sex addicts, etc.

So yes, there’s gonna be a correlation between high body count and infidelity, but it’s because of the underlying condition not because they were a ho.

This is such total and utter horseshit that I am left speechless.

No, it isn’t. If you look at the rate of infidelity for people who are bipolar it’s like 80%.. if you look at infidelity for people who are sex addicts it’s in the 90s.

If you look at infidelity in general, most people have some sort of mental disorder.

Keep making shit up. It's highly entertaining yet no one will ever take you seriously.

There is in fact research showing that promiscuous people have lower relationship Satisfaction rates in marriage


https://spark.bethel.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=psychology-students#:~:text=Adults%20who%20are%20more%20promiscuous%20are%20more,trust%20in%20their%20partner%2C%20and%20shorter%20marriages.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231913405_Promiscuity_in_an_evolved_pair-bonding_system_Mating_within_and_outside_the_Pleistocene_box

And several evolutionary studies that correlate fidelity particular female to pair bonding and departure from promiscuity

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382477/


What’s not proven however is the causation: is pair bonding affected by promiscuity or the individuals are incapable of pair bonding due to some personality traits .

I double majored in evolutionary biology and behavior science, and minored in biological anthropology. Did you actually read your citations?

Your first citation is a student poster project for a Psychology 202 class at a Christian university, not a peer-reviewed journal article. More importantly, it doesn't even measure what it's claiming to measure. The title mentions "marital satisfaction," but what they actually looked at was:

1. Sexual partners vs. trust in partner
2. Cohabitation vs. marriage length
3. Sexual partners vs. marriage length, filtered by religious importance

They never directly measured marital satisfaction as its own thing.

Additionally, the association between number of sexual partners and length of marriage has obvious confounds. If you compare two 40-year-olds - one married at 20, one at 30 - the first person will show both fewer lifetime partners (only had 20 years to date before marriage vs. 30 years) AND a longer current marriage (20 years vs. 10 years). This correlation exists purely because of when they got married, not because having fewer partners caused the marriage to last longer.

Your second citation is a theoretical commentary proposing an evolutionary framework, not an empirical study of relationships or marriage outcomes. It has zero data on sexual partners, zero measures of marital satisfaction, and zero analysis of relationship outcomes. Using it as evidence about marriage or bonding is a total misapplication.

In fact, it argues the opposite of what you're claiming. Look at the diagram on page 4 - it shows dating and sexual exploration as normal parts of how pair bonding works:

1. First comes attraction and sexual motivation
2. Then partner preference develops through romantic/sexual interaction (eg, "pre-marital sex" or "promiscuity")
3. Only after this do attachment and long-term pair-bond form

The model treats multiple partners as part of a bonding-oriented system, NOT as behaviors that damage or bypass bonding mechanisms. If anything, it supports the opposite: that sexual and romantic exploration precede and facilitate attachment rather than prevent it.

Your third citation is also not an empirical study and does not show any real-world correlation between female fidelity, promiscuity, or pair-bonding outcomes. It's a mathematical model about how populations might evolve from promiscuous mating to pair bonding.

The model actually *starts* with a promiscuous population and explains how pair bonding can emerge from that state. So it does not support the idea that promiscuity is incompatible with bonding; it models bonding as something that can emerge out of promiscuity, not in opposition to it.

And even if we accept that female fidelity helped pair bonding evolve at the population level historically, that doesn't tell us whether individuals who have explored sexually can't form pair bonds. That topic is not addressed in this paper at all.

Your error in logic is:

1. The model shows pair bonding could evolve when females stayed faithful within established pair bonds (at a population level, over evolutionary time)
2. Humans did evolve pair bonding
3. Therefore, you're concluding that individual females today shouldn't engage in sexual exploration before establishing a long-term pair bond

You're misreading what fidelity means here. The model is about staying with an established partner (not leaving them for other mates once paired). It's not about avoiding all sexual activity before pair bonding happens in the first place. Those are completely different things.

And I'm not even touching the fact that people are jumping from marital infidelity, to marriage satisfaction, to pair bonding, as if they’re the same. They aren’t. You can cheat and still be bonded. You can be bonded and unhappy. You can be faithful and emotionally detached.

As a general rule, it's a good idea to stay away from any evolutionary claims about how people "should" behave sexually or that men are X, women are Y. As was demonstrated here, most of these people do not know how to read a scientific paper, or even vet for what is a peer-reviewed paper.

Humans evolved flexible mating strategies that adapt based on environment, culture, and individual circumstances. While there may be *average* sex differences, the overlap between men and women is enormous.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate. Evolutionary biology explains why certain traits exist and how they might have been useful in our ancestral past. It does NOT tell us whether specific behaviors are healthy, moral, or predictive of relationship success today. And in fact, behavior is meant to be quite flexible so that individuals can adapt quickly.

What's actually useful isn't prescribing behavior based on theoretical models; it's looking at ourselves as individuals and figuring out what brings us relationship satisfaction.

Funny, the research regarding what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships reaches the same conclusions as the initially posted research.

You want things to be a certain way, but they aren’t.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate.

Correct! Guess what, rape is “natural”, as is slavery. But I bet you won’t post pages of pseudoscience screeds defending these behaviors. Why not?

PP here. Happy to look at your sources for your assertion on what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships. Peer-reviewed and relevant, please.

But what you're doing right now is pivoting from evidence to moral outrage and strawman arguments (unfortunately, a classic move when one cannot defend their position with evidence).

You're now arguing morality, not biology, and pretending this is about defending behavior rather than critiquing evidence and correcting claims about what the evidence presented by you actually shows.

Saying “there’s no single natural mating system for humans” is a descriptive biological statement about variability in evolved behavior. It has nothing to do with endorsing anything, just like saying “aggression exists in humans” isn’t an argument that violence is acceptable.

Rape and slavery aren’t comparable here at all. Those are acts of coercion and harm. We were talking about consensual sexual behavior and relationship patterns. Collapsing those into the same category is a false equivalence and doesn’t strengthen your argument, it just changes the subject.

So no, this isn’t about me wanting things to be a certain way. It’s about not turning weak or irrelevant evidence into sweeping claims about bonding ability and moral character, and not treating evolutionary models as if they’re relationship outcome studies.

If you want to argue about values, that’s a different conversation. But that’s not what those papers were about, and that’s not what you originally claimed they showed.

You know that writing long words doesn’t make you correct right?

In case you missed it, this thread is about values. It is entirely appropriate to introduce evidence on biological differences to add information to the discussion.

Furthermore your following claim is simply wrong. Your refusal to acknowledge it reveals that you are unable develop any cogent argument in support of your argument.

“Rape and slavery aren’t comparable here at all. Those are acts of coercion and harm. We were talking about consensual sexual behavior and relationship patterns. Collapsing those into the same category is a false equivalence and doesn’t strengthen your argument, it just changes the subject.
“

For nearly all of human history, there has been only way to reproduce one’s offspring. Only one. In this activity, it is entirely irrelevant if the interest is consensual (or not).

The modern consent framework a very recent invention and the concept that women had any right to consent (or not) is also a relatively new invention which only became popularized around 1500 years ago.

As someone bragging about their evolutionary biology and anthropology credentials you really should know these basic facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is and it totally I’m sure there’s people with a high body count that are not unfaithful.

But many people with high body count are bipolar, victims of sexual abuse, have complex PTSD, are sex addicts, etc.

So yes, there’s gonna be a correlation between high body count and infidelity, but it’s because of the underlying condition not because they were a ho.

This is such total and utter horseshit that I am left speechless.

No, it isn’t. If you look at the rate of infidelity for people who are bipolar it’s like 80%.. if you look at infidelity for people who are sex addicts it’s in the 90s.

If you look at infidelity in general, most people have some sort of mental disorder.

Keep making shit up. It's highly entertaining yet no one will ever take you seriously.

There is in fact research showing that promiscuous people have lower relationship Satisfaction rates in marriage


https://spark.bethel.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=psychology-students#:~:text=Adults%20who%20are%20more%20promiscuous%20are%20more,trust%20in%20their%20partner%2C%20and%20shorter%20marriages.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231913405_Promiscuity_in_an_evolved_pair-bonding_system_Mating_within_and_outside_the_Pleistocene_box

And several evolutionary studies that correlate fidelity particular female to pair bonding and departure from promiscuity

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382477/


What’s not proven however is the causation: is pair bonding affected by promiscuity or the individuals are incapable of pair bonding due to some personality traits .

I double majored in evolutionary biology and behavior science, and minored in biological anthropology. Did you actually read your citations?

Your first citation is a student poster project for a Psychology 202 class at a Christian university, not a peer-reviewed journal article. More importantly, it doesn't even measure what it's claiming to measure. The title mentions "marital satisfaction," but what they actually looked at was:

1. Sexual partners vs. trust in partner
2. Cohabitation vs. marriage length
3. Sexual partners vs. marriage length, filtered by religious importance

They never directly measured marital satisfaction as its own thing.

Additionally, the association between number of sexual partners and length of marriage has obvious confounds. If you compare two 40-year-olds - one married at 20, one at 30 - the first person will show both fewer lifetime partners (only had 20 years to date before marriage vs. 30 years) AND a longer current marriage (20 years vs. 10 years). This correlation exists purely because of when they got married, not because having fewer partners caused the marriage to last longer.

Your second citation is a theoretical commentary proposing an evolutionary framework, not an empirical study of relationships or marriage outcomes. It has zero data on sexual partners, zero measures of marital satisfaction, and zero analysis of relationship outcomes. Using it as evidence about marriage or bonding is a total misapplication.

In fact, it argues the opposite of what you're claiming. Look at the diagram on page 4 - it shows dating and sexual exploration as normal parts of how pair bonding works:

1. First comes attraction and sexual motivation
2. Then partner preference develops through romantic/sexual interaction (eg, "pre-marital sex" or "promiscuity")
3. Only after this do attachment and long-term pair-bond form

The model treats multiple partners as part of a bonding-oriented system, NOT as behaviors that damage or bypass bonding mechanisms. If anything, it supports the opposite: that sexual and romantic exploration precede and facilitate attachment rather than prevent it.

Your third citation is also not an empirical study and does not show any real-world correlation between female fidelity, promiscuity, or pair-bonding outcomes. It's a mathematical model about how populations might evolve from promiscuous mating to pair bonding.

The model actually *starts* with a promiscuous population and explains how pair bonding can emerge from that state. So it does not support the idea that promiscuity is incompatible with bonding; it models bonding as something that can emerge out of promiscuity, not in opposition to it.

And even if we accept that female fidelity helped pair bonding evolve at the population level historically, that doesn't tell us whether individuals who have explored sexually can't form pair bonds. That topic is not addressed in this paper at all.

Your error in logic is:

1. The model shows pair bonding could evolve when females stayed faithful within established pair bonds (at a population level, over evolutionary time)
2. Humans did evolve pair bonding
3. Therefore, you're concluding that individual females today shouldn't engage in sexual exploration before establishing a long-term pair bond

You're misreading what fidelity means here. The model is about staying with an established partner (not leaving them for other mates once paired). It's not about avoiding all sexual activity before pair bonding happens in the first place. Those are completely different things.

And I'm not even touching the fact that people are jumping from marital infidelity, to marriage satisfaction, to pair bonding, as if they’re the same. They aren’t. You can cheat and still be bonded. You can be bonded and unhappy. You can be faithful and emotionally detached.

As a general rule, it's a good idea to stay away from any evolutionary claims about how people "should" behave sexually or that men are X, women are Y. As was demonstrated here, most of these people do not know how to read a scientific paper, or even vet for what is a peer-reviewed paper.

Humans evolved flexible mating strategies that adapt based on environment, culture, and individual circumstances. While there may be *average* sex differences, the overlap between men and women is enormous.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate. Evolutionary biology explains why certain traits exist and how they might have been useful in our ancestral past. It does NOT tell us whether specific behaviors are healthy, moral, or predictive of relationship success today. And in fact, behavior is meant to be quite flexible so that individuals can adapt quickly.

What's actually useful isn't prescribing behavior based on theoretical models; it's looking at ourselves as individuals and figuring out what brings us relationship satisfaction.

Funny, the research regarding what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships reaches the same conclusions as the initially posted research.

You want things to be a certain way, but they aren’t.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate.

Correct! Guess what, rape is “natural”, as is slavery. But I bet you won’t post pages of pseudoscience screeds defending these behaviors. Why not?

Do you understand the concept of consent?

Do you?

The consent model has been around for maybe 50 years of human history.

You claim to be a social scientist but apparently are unfamiliar with the concept of recency bias.

Comparing consensual sexual encounters today with rape and slavery is pure lunacy. Especially in the context in which this dumb post was started in the first place. I didn’t claim to be anything. Lots of people are commenting on your dumb posts. Recency bias? 😂😂😂 I live today, not 500 years ago.

One would expect that someone who is boasting about their credentials in evolutionary biology and behavior science, and biological anthropology could discuss these topics fluently. Or at least support their assertion that “ There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate.”

Apparently not the case with you.

I'm the evolutionary biologist. The previous response was not me.

I did just post in response to one of your previous responses. But to address specifically the rape and slavery argument (which is a strawman argument, where someone changes the argument into a moral outrage or more extreme version, then attacks that instead of what was actually said).

I said: The research you presented doesn’t support your claims that promiscuity damages bonding ability.

You responded: So you’re saying all behavior is fine and we should justify rape and slavery.

I never said that. You built a fake version of my position (the "strawman") then knocked it down instead of responding to my actual points.

From my earlier post: Saying “there’s no single natural mating system for humans” is a descriptive biological statement about variability in evolved behavior. It has nothing to do with endorsing anything, just like saying “aggression exists in humans” isn’t an argument that violence is acceptable.

Again, if you would like to:

1. Address my actual analysis of the evidence you presented (which will require you to actually read the papers), or
2. Present evidence in defense of your claim that promiscuity damages pair-bonding ability or leads to less satisfying marriages,

Happy to read those.

It seems that you struggle with reading comprehension.

You said: “there’s no single natural mating system for humans”

And I agreed with you by saying “correct”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is that why so many men cheat on their wives?

Women cheat of their husbands… Goes both ways!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is and it totally I’m sure there’s people with a high body count that are not unfaithful.

But many people with high body count are bipolar, victims of sexual abuse, have complex PTSD, are sex addicts, etc.

So yes, there’s gonna be a correlation between high body count and infidelity, but it’s because of the underlying condition not because they were a ho.

This is such total and utter horseshit that I am left speechless.

No, it isn’t. If you look at the rate of infidelity for people who are bipolar it’s like 80%.. if you look at infidelity for people who are sex addicts it’s in the 90s.

If you look at infidelity in general, most people have some sort of mental disorder.

Keep making shit up. It's highly entertaining yet no one will ever take you seriously.

There is in fact research showing that promiscuous people have lower relationship Satisfaction rates in marriage


https://spark.bethel.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=psychology-students#:~:text=Adults%20who%20are%20more%20promiscuous%20are%20more,trust%20in%20their%20partner%2C%20and%20shorter%20marriages.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231913405_Promiscuity_in_an_evolved_pair-bonding_system_Mating_within_and_outside_the_Pleistocene_box

And several evolutionary studies that correlate fidelity particular female to pair bonding and departure from promiscuity

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382477/


What’s not proven however is the causation: is pair bonding affected by promiscuity or the individuals are incapable of pair bonding due to some personality traits .

I double majored in evolutionary biology and behavior science, and minored in biological anthropology. Did you actually read your citations?

Your first citation is a student poster project for a Psychology 202 class at a Christian university, not a peer-reviewed journal article. More importantly, it doesn't even measure what it's claiming to measure. The title mentions "marital satisfaction," but what they actually looked at was:

1. Sexual partners vs. trust in partner
2. Cohabitation vs. marriage length
3. Sexual partners vs. marriage length, filtered by religious importance

They never directly measured marital satisfaction as its own thing.

Additionally, the association between number of sexual partners and length of marriage has obvious confounds. If you compare two 40-year-olds - one married at 20, one at 30 - the first person will show both fewer lifetime partners (only had 20 years to date before marriage vs. 30 years) AND a longer current marriage (20 years vs. 10 years). This correlation exists purely because of when they got married, not because having fewer partners caused the marriage to last longer.

Your second citation is a theoretical commentary proposing an evolutionary framework, not an empirical study of relationships or marriage outcomes. It has zero data on sexual partners, zero measures of marital satisfaction, and zero analysis of relationship outcomes. Using it as evidence about marriage or bonding is a total misapplication.

In fact, it argues the opposite of what you're claiming. Look at the diagram on page 4 - it shows dating and sexual exploration as normal parts of how pair bonding works:

1. First comes attraction and sexual motivation
2. Then partner preference develops through romantic/sexual interaction (eg, "pre-marital sex" or "promiscuity")
3. Only after this do attachment and long-term pair-bond form

The model treats multiple partners as part of a bonding-oriented system, NOT as behaviors that damage or bypass bonding mechanisms. If anything, it supports the opposite: that sexual and romantic exploration precede and facilitate attachment rather than prevent it.

Your third citation is also not an empirical study and does not show any real-world correlation between female fidelity, promiscuity, or pair-bonding outcomes. It's a mathematical model about how populations might evolve from promiscuous mating to pair bonding.

The model actually *starts* with a promiscuous population and explains how pair bonding can emerge from that state. So it does not support the idea that promiscuity is incompatible with bonding; it models bonding as something that can emerge out of promiscuity, not in opposition to it.

And even if we accept that female fidelity helped pair bonding evolve at the population level historically, that doesn't tell us whether individuals who have explored sexually can't form pair bonds. That topic is not addressed in this paper at all.

Your error in logic is:

1. The model shows pair bonding could evolve when females stayed faithful within established pair bonds (at a population level, over evolutionary time)
2. Humans did evolve pair bonding
3. Therefore, you're concluding that individual females today shouldn't engage in sexual exploration before establishing a long-term pair bond

You're misreading what fidelity means here. The model is about staying with an established partner (not leaving them for other mates once paired). It's not about avoiding all sexual activity before pair bonding happens in the first place. Those are completely different things.

And I'm not even touching the fact that people are jumping from marital infidelity, to marriage satisfaction, to pair bonding, as if they’re the same. They aren’t. You can cheat and still be bonded. You can be bonded and unhappy. You can be faithful and emotionally detached.

As a general rule, it's a good idea to stay away from any evolutionary claims about how people "should" behave sexually or that men are X, women are Y. As was demonstrated here, most of these people do not know how to read a scientific paper, or even vet for what is a peer-reviewed paper.

Humans evolved flexible mating strategies that adapt based on environment, culture, and individual circumstances. While there may be *average* sex differences, the overlap between men and women is enormous.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate. Evolutionary biology explains why certain traits exist and how they might have been useful in our ancestral past. It does NOT tell us whether specific behaviors are healthy, moral, or predictive of relationship success today. And in fact, behavior is meant to be quite flexible so that individuals can adapt quickly.

What's actually useful isn't prescribing behavior based on theoretical models; it's looking at ourselves as individuals and figuring out what brings us relationship satisfaction.

Funny, the research regarding what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships reaches the same conclusions as the initially posted research.

You want things to be a certain way, but they aren’t.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate.

Correct! Guess what, rape is “natural”, as is slavery. But I bet you won’t post pages of pseudoscience screeds defending these behaviors. Why not?

PP here. Happy to look at your sources for your assertion on what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships. Peer-reviewed and relevant, please.

But what you're doing right now is pivoting from evidence to moral outrage and strawman arguments (unfortunately, a classic move when one cannot defend their position with evidence).

You're now arguing morality, not biology, and pretending this is about defending behavior rather than critiquing evidence and correcting claims about what the evidence presented by you actually shows.

Saying “there’s no single natural mating system for humans” is a descriptive biological statement about variability in evolved behavior. It has nothing to do with endorsing anything, just like saying “aggression exists in humans” isn’t an argument that violence is acceptable.

Rape and slavery aren’t comparable here at all. Those are acts of coercion and harm. We were talking about consensual sexual behavior and relationship patterns. Collapsing those into the same category is a false equivalence and doesn’t strengthen your argument, it just changes the subject.

So no, this isn’t about me wanting things to be a certain way. It’s about not turning weak or irrelevant evidence into sweeping claims about bonding ability and moral character, and not treating evolutionary models as if they’re relationship outcome studies.

If you want to argue about values, that’s a different conversation. But that’s not what those papers were about, and that’s not what you originally claimed they showed.

Your own post contradicts itself.

“Rape and slavery aren’t comparable here at all. Those are acts of coercion and harm.”

“If you want to argue about values, that’s a different conversation”

From an evolutionary biology perspective, there is quite literally no difference between rape and consensual intercourse. All that matters is a sperm fertilizing an egg.

However, you are refuse to discuss rape as a form of intercourse because it is different according to our modern liberal values. Even though as the PP pointed out for most of human history women had no ability to consent as access by men with power was often assumed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this every time this idiotic topic comes up. I will never discuss my numbers with anyone and if a man insists on knowing my number, he can just move to the next woman who will lie to him instead of refusing to answer.

If he cares, ones refusing to answer are actually basically saying, "Too many to admit.".

I don’t give a shit what he thinks at that point. He is not someone I want to waste my time on. He has unresolved issues that I don’t care to fix.

BS.

Men aren't asking for your number on the first, third, or fifth date. They ask when you've become an exclusive couple and he's wondering if you are a woman he wants to spend his life with, start a family with, etc. You don't get to that stage without proving he is a person you willingly 'spend time' on. I can promise you this- the likelihood he stays interested is much higher if your response is "Four men that I dated for 3 months or more and six guys on a wild summer I spent volunteering in New Orleans."

Rational dudes can understand that. Rational dudes do not understand refusing to answer or answering with.... "31 guys."

This is wildly incorrect. The red pill incels are asking this before even *meeting* women on the apps. It's very easy to see why they get no matches.

OMG seriously? And we’re having a giant societal discussion about the loneliness of young men when this is how they behave? Jesus.
- one of the long-married PPs who’s never been on the apps

Yes. They are so disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is that why so many men cheat on their wives?

Women cheat of their husbands… Goes both ways!

Not to nearly the same extent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is that why so many men cheat on their wives?

Women cheat of their husbands… Goes both ways!

Not to nearly the same extent.

I think you’d be surprised now that women aren’t stoned to death and they can divorce safely and have their own bank account and own property that women do in fact cheat at the same rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality is and it totally I’m sure there’s people with a high body count that are not unfaithful.

But many people with high body count are bipolar, victims of sexual abuse, have complex PTSD, are sex addicts, etc.

So yes, there’s gonna be a correlation between high body count and infidelity, but it’s because of the underlying condition not because they were a ho.

This is such total and utter horseshit that I am left speechless.

No, it isn’t. If you look at the rate of infidelity for people who are bipolar it’s like 80%.. if you look at infidelity for people who are sex addicts it’s in the 90s.

If you look at infidelity in general, most people have some sort of mental disorder.

Keep making shit up. It's highly entertaining yet no one will ever take you seriously.

There is in fact research showing that promiscuous people have lower relationship Satisfaction rates in marriage


https://spark.bethel.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=psychology-students#:~:text=Adults%20who%20are%20more%20promiscuous%20are%20more,trust%20in%20their%20partner%2C%20and%20shorter%20marriages.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231913405_Promiscuity_in_an_evolved_pair-bonding_system_Mating_within_and_outside_the_Pleistocene_box

And several evolutionary studies that correlate fidelity particular female to pair bonding and departure from promiscuity

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382477/


What’s not proven however is the causation: is pair bonding affected by promiscuity or the individuals are incapable of pair bonding due to some personality traits .

I double majored in evolutionary biology and behavior science, and minored in biological anthropology. Did you actually read your citations?

Your first citation is a student poster project for a Psychology 202 class at a Christian university, not a peer-reviewed journal article. More importantly, it doesn't even measure what it's claiming to measure. The title mentions "marital satisfaction," but what they actually looked at was:

1. Sexual partners vs. trust in partner
2. Cohabitation vs. marriage length
3. Sexual partners vs. marriage length, filtered by religious importance

They never directly measured marital satisfaction as its own thing.

Additionally, the association between number of sexual partners and length of marriage has obvious confounds. If you compare two 40-year-olds - one married at 20, one at 30 - the first person will show both fewer lifetime partners (only had 20 years to date before marriage vs. 30 years) AND a longer current marriage (20 years vs. 10 years). This correlation exists purely because of when they got married, not because having fewer partners caused the marriage to last longer.

Your second citation is a theoretical commentary proposing an evolutionary framework, not an empirical study of relationships or marriage outcomes. It has zero data on sexual partners, zero measures of marital satisfaction, and zero analysis of relationship outcomes. Using it as evidence about marriage or bonding is a total misapplication.

In fact, it argues the opposite of what you're claiming. Look at the diagram on page 4 - it shows dating and sexual exploration as normal parts of how pair bonding works:

1. First comes attraction and sexual motivation
2. Then partner preference develops through romantic/sexual interaction (eg, "pre-marital sex" or "promiscuity")
3. Only after this do attachment and long-term pair-bond form

The model treats multiple partners as part of a bonding-oriented system, NOT as behaviors that damage or bypass bonding mechanisms. If anything, it supports the opposite: that sexual and romantic exploration precede and facilitate attachment rather than prevent it.

Your third citation is also not an empirical study and does not show any real-world correlation between female fidelity, promiscuity, or pair-bonding outcomes. It's a mathematical model about how populations might evolve from promiscuous mating to pair bonding.

The model actually *starts* with a promiscuous population and explains how pair bonding can emerge from that state. So it does not support the idea that promiscuity is incompatible with bonding; it models bonding as something that can emerge out of promiscuity, not in opposition to it.

And even if we accept that female fidelity helped pair bonding evolve at the population level historically, that doesn't tell us whether individuals who have explored sexually can't form pair bonds. That topic is not addressed in this paper at all.

Your error in logic is:

1. The model shows pair bonding could evolve when females stayed faithful within established pair bonds (at a population level, over evolutionary time)
2. Humans did evolve pair bonding
3. Therefore, you're concluding that individual females today shouldn't engage in sexual exploration before establishing a long-term pair bond

You're misreading what fidelity means here. The model is about staying with an established partner (not leaving them for other mates once paired). It's not about avoiding all sexual activity before pair bonding happens in the first place. Those are completely different things.

And I'm not even touching the fact that people are jumping from marital infidelity, to marriage satisfaction, to pair bonding, as if they’re the same. They aren’t. You can cheat and still be bonded. You can be bonded and unhappy. You can be faithful and emotionally detached.

As a general rule, it's a good idea to stay away from any evolutionary claims about how people "should" behave sexually or that men are X, women are Y. As was demonstrated here, most of these people do not know how to read a scientific paper, or even vet for what is a peer-reviewed paper.

Humans evolved flexible mating strategies that adapt based on environment, culture, and individual circumstances. While there may be *average* sex differences, the overlap between men and women is enormous.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate. Evolutionary biology explains why certain traits exist and how they might have been useful in our ancestral past. It does NOT tell us whether specific behaviors are healthy, moral, or predictive of relationship success today. And in fact, behavior is meant to be quite flexible so that individuals can adapt quickly.

What's actually useful isn't prescribing behavior based on theoretical models; it's looking at ourselves as individuals and figuring out what brings us relationship satisfaction.

Funny, the research regarding what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships reaches the same conclusions as the initially posted research.

You want things to be a certain way, but they aren’t.

There's no single "natural" way humans are supposed to mate.

Correct! Guess what, rape is “natural”, as is slavery. But I bet you won’t post pages of pseudoscience screeds defending these behaviors. Why not?

PP here. Happy to look at your sources for your assertion on what brings people satisfaction in life and relationships. Peer-reviewed and relevant, please.

But what you're doing right now is pivoting from evidence to moral outrage and strawman arguments (unfortunately, a classic move when one cannot defend their position with evidence).

You're now arguing morality, not biology, and pretending this is about defending behavior rather than critiquing evidence and correcting claims about what the evidence presented by you actually shows.

Saying “there’s no single natural mating system for humans” is a descriptive biological statement about variability in evolved behavior. It has nothing to do with endorsing anything, just like saying “aggression exists in humans” isn’t an argument that violence is acceptable.

Rape and slavery aren’t comparable here at all. Those are acts of coercion and harm. We were talking about consensual sexual behavior and relationship patterns. Collapsing those into the same category is a false equivalence and doesn’t strengthen your argument, it just changes the subject.

So no, this isn’t about me wanting things to be a certain way. It’s about not turning weak or irrelevant evidence into sweeping claims about bonding ability and moral character, and not treating evolutionary models as if they’re relationship outcome studies.

If you want to argue about values, that’s a different conversation. But that’s not what those papers were about, and that’s not what you originally claimed they showed.

Your own post contradicts itself.

“Rape and slavery aren’t comparable here at all. Those are acts of coercion and harm.”

“If you want to argue about values, that’s a different conversation”

From an evolutionary biology perspective, there is quite literally no difference between rape and consensual intercourse. All that matters is a sperm fertilizing an egg.

However, you are refuse to discuss rape as a form of intercourse because it is different according to our modern liberal values. Even though as the PP pointed out for most of human history women had no ability to consent as access by men with power was often assumed.

Got em

[Anonymous]

people who do ONS have lower barriers for sex. The casual sex is a normal activity to them. I would think such a person would have also lower barriers for extra marital behaviors particular if they are not fully sexually satisfied

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is that why so many men cheat on their wives?

Women cheat of their husbands… Goes both ways!

Not to nearly the same extent.

I think you’d be surprised now that women aren’t stoned to death and they can divorce safely and have their own bank account and own property that women do in fact cheat at the same rates.

The stats disagree with you. Come back to reality please.

You also contradict yourself. Now that women can divorce safely and have their own bank account and own property, they don't need to cheat, because they don't need to stay with a man for any of those things. They just - as you say - divorce safely.