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Authors: Linda Lemoncheck

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Page 40
flects one of many uses of the term "promiscuity." In my estimation, Elliston too handily dismisses the indiscrimination issue on the grounds that no promiscuous person is "completely indiscriminate"
29
in the ways I have mentioned. Indeed, if your goal is to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for promiscuous sex, as Elliston's is, indiscriminate sex will fail to appear in your definition at all, since faithful spouses can be careless in their choice of mate and promiscuous spouses can be discriminating in their choice of affairs. But this sexual variety is precisely what we lose when we look for a single and comprehensive definition of sexual promiscuity. Failing to notice that some promiscuous sex is indiscriminate, and that this feature is what some or even many people complain about when they talk about promiscuity, obscures an important context of its use: a context in which we may wish to draw a distinction between a careful and deliberate choice of sexual partner and one in which the primary aim is simply sexual satisfaction, not satisfaction from
this person
.
Similarly, promiscuous sex is not necessarily
casual
sex, characterized by A. Ellis as "sex between partners who have no deep or substantial relationships of which sex is a component." Anonymous sex between strangers and sex between people who are only recently acquainted are typical cases of casual sex, although Ellis (I think correctly) notes that close friends can have casual sex when "sex is no part of what makes it the relationship that it is."
30
If promiscuous sex can be committed and intimate sex, as in the case of Joan, then promiscuous sex need not be casual sex in the way described by Ellis; nor need it be "recreational'' as opposed to "serious" sex, as if sexual exclusivity were real work and promiscuity were perfunctory or immature play. If nothing else, such epithets doom monogamy to the struggle and effort to which the notion of "play" is typically opposed.
I have been arguing that if we demand a single and comprehensive definition to suit all contexts of its use, we deprive the expression "sexual promiscuity" of the kind of philosophical analysis that can help speakers understand its subtlety and variety in the language. Recognizing this variety is essential if we want to use the "view from somewhere different" to uncover the social contexts in which individuals are promiscuous, or in which they evaluate the promiscuity of others, and to identify any patriarchal climate that defines women's sexuality in men's terms. My claim has been that because the words "promiscuous" and "promiscuity" are members of a family of terms we use to talk about sex, their meaning will change depending on the speakers and the contexts in which such terms are used. When promiscuous sex is primarily identified with noncommittal sex, it is commonly identified with nonmarital and premarital sex. When promiscuous sex is identified with the failure to live up to commitments already made, it is commonly identified with adultery.
On the other hand, when promiscuous sex is identified primarily as a numbers game, where the repetitious pursuit of different sexual partners plays a central role, the otherwise loyal husband whose adultery consists of one affair or the unmarried woman whose square-dancing partner is also her exclusive sexual partner is not considered promiscuous. Promiscuous sex can be indiscriminate, although almost never completely so. It can also be, although it need not be, defined by feelings of intimacy or the strong emotional bonds of affection and support that many people regard as the sole province of sexual exclusivity. Lesbians, gay men, heterosexuals who engage in genital intercourse as well as heterosexuals who do not, can all be sexually promis-
 
Page 41
cuous. Pedophiles and others engaged in so-called perverse sex with other people can be, but need not be, promiscuous. In addition, victims of rape and sexual abuse are not promiscuous in virtue of their unwitting or unwilling participation in such activity. All such cases are of vital interest if we are to understand why people object to sexual promiscuity when they do. We are now in the requisite philosophical position to investigate some of the specific complaints that feminists have lodged against promiscuity.
Feminist Objections to Promiscuity
Feminists have argued that sexual liberation can never be
women's
liberation if the terms and conditions of sexual freedom are determined by men. Promiscuous sex with strangers, sex often associated with cruising bars and nightclubs, came under especially heavy fire by some feminists in the late 1970s as antithetical to women's true sexual needs. Such sex, along with sadomasochistic sex, cross-generational sex between adults and young children, and lesbian butch/femme sexual role-playing, was believed to constitute patriarchal relations of dominance and submission that were profoundly antifeminist and antiwoman. Women, it was claimed, value the sexual intimacy and tenderness of romance, not the emotional distance and sexual objectification of a one-night stand. From this perspective, good sex for a woman should make her feel safe about exposing her sexual vulnerability, not fearful of her sexual abuse or exploitation. Good sex should make a woman feel comfortable and cared for, not content with being one in a series of sexual romps. It was concluded, therefore, that for a woman, truly satisfying sex is monogamous sex with a single, loving, committed partner.
From this point of view, good sex for men cannot be good sex for women, since men prefer the
divorce
of eros from romance. Some feminists would refer to the feelings of loneliness, guilt, and alienation many women experienced during the postwar sexual revolution (and ever since) as confirming evidence that sex without love, tenderness, or commitment serves men's needs for unencumbered heterosexual sex, not women's. According to feminists of this perspective, the sex that men prefer is casual, performance-oriented, and objectifying. Male sex victimizes women by making them replaceable and expendable sexual objects of male fantasy and desire. Male sex is body-centered without being person-centered. The sex men prefer is power-motivated, dominating, "scoring" sex that is inherently promiscuous and profoundly unromantic.
31
While appearing to reinvigorate the 1950s stereotype of the docile, nurturing, and sexually monogamous female, which feminists of varied theoretical backgrounds have long claimed subordinates women to men,
32
some feminists see in a uniquely female sexual nature a way to celebrate and value individual women for their own sake. Alice Echols and others refer to such feminists as "cultural feminists" for their insistence on essential gender differences to discover a separable and valuable female identity. Echols also uses this specific feminist nomenclature to distinguish cultural feminists from other feminists who also regard a hierarchical heterosexuality as essential to patriarchal stability but who neither require sexual intimacy as insurance against women's sexual victimization nor characterize women as the sexual objects
 
Page 42
of male subordination in the absence of such intimacy.
33
While many cultural feminists prefer women as sexual partners, most would advocate the rejection of contemporary male-identified sexual values and not the rejection of heterosexual eroticism per se. Adrienne Rich has argued that the "woman-identified woman" is on what she calls a "lesbian continuum" that can accommodate heterosexual and homosexual women alike.
34
On the other hand, self-styled sex radical feminists, often referred to as "sexual libertarian feminists" or as "sexual liberals" by their critics, see cultural feminism as a reaction to the pleasure, variety, self-expression, and adventure that sex radicals believe are women's right as sexually autonomous beings. Such feminists claim that by confining women to an essentialist stereotype, cultural feminism misrepresents the plurality of women's erotic needs and reinforces the oppression of alternative sexual preferences. For a sex radical, the role of feminism is to identify patriarchal stereotypes of women in order to transcend them and move toward a new vision of women's sexuality constructed by individual women to suit their individual erotic needs. For sex radical feminists, the sexual intimacy required by cultural feminists is only one of many ways a woman can discover what good sex means to her. According to this view, under conditions of mutual consent, individual women can explore with their partners the breadth and depth of their erotic preferences, whether tame or taboo. Sex radical feminists contend that to regard sex as completely determined by gender is to play right into the hands of patriarchy by reaffirming the feminine archetype definitive of women's oppression. From a sex radical's perspective, feminism's role is to show women not only how gender informs sex but how sex can inform gender.
Cultural feminists respond that women continue to be sexually victimized by a patriarchy that defines women's sexual lives in men's terms. From this view, women must separately identify our own sexual needs
as women
in order to discover those needs, cherish them, and pursue them. Cultural feminists remind us that too many women are dissatisfied with a promiscuous sex life whose casual nature quickly becomes perfunctory, shallow, and boring. Sex lacking in intimacy leaves many women feeling empty and alone. According to cultural feminists, this dissatisfaction is because women are seeking sexual pleasure that is male-defined, not female-defined. From this view, women who say they find butch/femme sex or sadomasochistic sex to be erotic have been coopted by a patriarchal sexual value system that encourages the degradation of women as the sexual slaves of men. At the very least, according to a cultural feminist, women must equalize the heterosexual power dynamics conducive to patriarchy in order to realize our sexual potential as women. For a cultural feminist, citing mutual consent is no guarantee of mutual respect for each sexual partner in a society that continues to deprive women of access to real sexual alternatives by labeling women "frigid" or "slut" when we do not live up to the male sexual ideal. Furthermore, it is argued that the so-called adventure that sex radicals advocate can lead to unwanted pregnancy, sexual violence, disease, and death.
35
Ignoring these facts about women's sexual lives only reinforces women's invisibility as sexually autonomous beings with our own sexual agenda. According to cultural feminism, unless we put the spiritual and personal elements back into sex, women will continue to lead lives of sexual fear, frustration, and dissatisfaction.
 
Page 43
The controversy between cultural and sex radical feminists outlined here took shape in the aftermath of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s. While it is too generalized a description of the debate to capture some of the more subtle distinctions among various radical factions, it nevertheless captures some of the deeper rifts that continue to divide feminist approaches to women's sexuality as we enter the twenty-first century: does identifying male heterosexual sex as essentially dehumanizing to women liberate women to demand our own sexual needs, or does it reinforce women's identity as the sexual victims of men? Just how important is the oppression of
women
to women's sexuality, and how important is the oppression of
sexuality
to women's sexuality? Can women define sexuality in our own terms when what we have learned about our sexuality is itself a function of its social location under patriarchy?
36
Suppose we could show that promiscuous "cruising" sex
could be
, although it need not be, the kind of intimate, caring, and emotionally satisfying sex that a cultural feminist values. If we can loosen sexual exclusivity's stranglehold on care and respect in sex, then the promiscuity option that sex radical feminists want can satisfy the cultural feminist's requirement that good sex for women be sex that treats women as the subjects, not the objects, of our sexual experience. We would then have satisfied the desire of both groups that women's sex be defined in women's terms. In so doing, we can lay the foundation for a sexual ethic from the "view from somewhere different," an ethic that would encourage a sex radical's pursuit of sexual exploration without mirroring the heterosexual subordination of women by men that cultural feminism's demand for sexual intimacy is meant to preclude. Such an ethic could thus unify, not divide, the feminist vision of women as the agents and self-defining subjects of our sexual lives.
When cultural feminists say they value sexual intimacy, they seem to have at least three values in mind: (1) the
private
nature of the sex; (2) the
personal
nature of the sex; and (3) the
comfort through trust
in one's sexual partner. Can promiscuous "cruising" sex be any or all of these things? The conceptual analysis of promiscuity in the previous section can help us explore this question.
A cultural feminist is not accusing men of having all of their sex
in public
. What she is looking for in the privacy of sexual intimacy is to share with her lover what she would not wish to share or be shared with anyone else. A single act of premarital sex or fornication (with the appropriate caring attitudes) is no problem for a cultural feminist in search of a private relationship, since such sex is monogamous sex. On the other hand, single acts of adultery and the repetitious pursuit of different sexual partners are troublesome precisely because a promiscuous lover characterized in these ways is in a position to give both physical and emotional access to several partners. In the previous section, however, I argued that to require a limit to the sexual
quantity
in a relationship was unnecessary to provide that relationship with good
quality
sex.
Furthermore, I argued that the demand for sexual scarcity was very often detrimental to healthy, long-term sexual relationships. Both women and men often become jealously possessive of partners with whom they have shared sexual secrets that they believe no one else should know. Simone de Beauvoir points out that women who do not feel free to experiment under the restriction of sexual scarcity but whose
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