I strongly disagree with this. I’ve dated ~ 10 people in my life. I have also been sexually assaulted (not by someone in the community). I would quickly and without hesitation take a trade to experience 1 rape like the one I experienced (non-violent) in return to keep any of my happy relationships I’ve had in my life (about half of which I think wouldn’t have formed absent what the author is calling “sleeping around”). For my best relationship (which initially formed via “sleeping around” and I don’t think could easily have done so otherwise, and is now the love of my life), I would trade dozens of rape, easily, for the joy and love my partner brings me.
For sexual harassment, the ratio is even more skewed (obviously). Maybe I’m unusual, but this doesn’t feel personally like a hard trade at all on the current margin.
tbh I suspect that “stuck in a long term abusive relationship” is a more important tail risk than sexual assault and “sleeping around” helps people defend against it (by developing reasonable expectations of what relationships should be like)
Great point about tail risks. I’m unsure if “sleeping around” is a good antidote. Maybe?
Against: According to the point you’re making, people’s first (or earliest) relationships are the most risky because of not yet having developed reasonable expectations of what relationships should be like. Casual norms (and greater tolerance of dating across asymmetric power dynamics) encourage less careful selection, which makes it more likely the partner is a bad match?(As many commenters point out, casual can turn into serious/long-term unexpectedly, so it’s not like casual means you don’t run the risk of ending up in a bad long-term bond.)
In favor: I find it hard to articulate why, but I think you still have a point. Maybe there’s something about how casual norms lead to more discussions about sex and relationships? If so, maybe it’s less about what you end up doing (actually “sleeping around”) and more about seeking out advice from others around you, discussing difficult topics openly, etc.? (Sure, firsthand relationship experience is invaluable, but if the first one is bad for you and you have the sort of personality to “get stuck” – seems like you’re in danger in environments with both types of norms?)
Either way, I don’t think this is the sort of thing that one can (or should) easily engineer from the top down. Feels kind of dystopian if the rules are too restricting. (I do think it’s good to have rules for things that can often go really badly and are somewhat easy to work around if some people really want to date each other – e.g., about power dynamics.)
i meant mostly about how you can get a larger sample size of what possible relationships can look like before (say) committing to monogamy. (I suspect polyamory is even better in this respect). and especially when you’re young you might not have a good sense of how to select people in the first place and love can be pretty dumb about these things.
although more relaxed social norms about talking about such things also helps and has positive externalities for the people more inclined to be ~prudish
but anecdotally given there’s a tail of people who keep getting into these relationships again and again, i think the relationship-expectation thing is really important
I strongly disagree with this. I’ve dated ~ 10 people in my life. I have also been sexually assaulted (not by someone in the community). I would quickly and without hesitation take a trade to experience 1 rape like the one I experienced (non-violent) in return to keep any of my happy relationships I’ve had in my life (about half of which I think wouldn’t have formed absent what the author is calling “sleeping around”). For my best relationship (which initially formed via “sleeping around” and I don’t think could easily have done so otherwise, and is now the love of my life), I would trade dozens of rape, easily, for the joy and love my partner brings me.
For sexual harassment, the ratio is even more skewed (obviously). Maybe I’m unusual, but this doesn’t feel personally like a hard trade at all on the current margin.
tbh I suspect that “stuck in a long term abusive relationship” is a more important tail risk than sexual assault and “sleeping around” helps people defend against it (by developing reasonable expectations of what relationships should be like)
Great point about tail risks. I’m unsure if “sleeping around” is a good antidote. Maybe?
Against: According to the point you’re making, people’s first (or earliest) relationships are the most risky because of not yet having developed reasonable expectations of what relationships should be like. Casual norms (and greater tolerance of dating across asymmetric power dynamics) encourage less careful selection, which makes it more likely the partner is a bad match?(As many commenters point out, casual can turn into serious/long-term unexpectedly, so it’s not like casual means you don’t run the risk of ending up in a bad long-term bond.)
In favor: I find it hard to articulate why, but I think you still have a point. Maybe there’s something about how casual norms lead to more discussions about sex and relationships? If so, maybe it’s less about what you end up doing (actually “sleeping around”) and more about seeking out advice from others around you, discussing difficult topics openly, etc.? (Sure, firsthand relationship experience is invaluable, but if the first one is bad for you and you have the sort of personality to “get stuck” – seems like you’re in danger in environments with both types of norms?)
Either way, I don’t think this is the sort of thing that one can (or should) easily engineer from the top down. Feels kind of dystopian if the rules are too restricting. (I do think it’s good to have rules for things that can often go really badly and are somewhat easy to work around if some people really want to date each other – e.g., about power dynamics.)
i meant mostly about how you can get a larger sample size of what possible relationships can look like before (say) committing to monogamy. (I suspect polyamory is even better in this respect).
and especially when you’re young you might not have a good sense of how to select people in the first place and love can be pretty dumb about these things.
although more relaxed social norms about talking about such things also helps and has positive externalities for the people more inclined to be ~prudish
but anecdotally given there’s a tail of people who keep getting into these relationships again and again, i think the relationship-expectation thing is really important