Aint nothing wrong with being single and promiscuous

By Missy Scott

I grew up with an enormous amount of faith in monogamy. I maintained this totally bizarre idea that sex was an activity to be pursued exclusively with people who you’ve loved for many years (my mother would have been ecstatic if only she’d known). I’d always believed promiscuity – “sluttery” for the more seasoned readers – to be an act of low self-worth and the product of an ingrained sadness (because that’s what they do in the movies, right?)

Having moved into my early 20s I realise now how incredibly misled I was by my own ideologies – and everybody else’s. I really might as well have “DTF” tattooed on my forehead at this point. .

It’s interesting how unhesitatingly I accepted the idea that women – and we’re talking about all women, gay or straight or whatever else – drawn to promiscuity were invariably those who were unhappy with themselves or desperately trying to piss off their fathers – concepts that obviously arise from either: a) religious conservatism; or b) snide sexual competition. As an individual now engaging enthusiastically in the high practice of sluttery, I’ve discovered that my self worth is, in fact, greater than I ever previously thought possible. There are few things more satisfying to the ego in this world than a nice old fuck, quickly followed by an assertion to the girl (in my case) lingering in your bed that they must leave early “because, frankly, breakfast is my time”. 

I have now reached a point in my life where all of the romantic ideals that I had embraced after a childhood of watching far too many of those touchy Hugh Grant films have completely dissipated. 

As it turns out, meaningless sex is rather meaningful to me, mostly for the contentment that’s reaped from complete independence. 

Plus after a while your abs start to look fantastic.

Inherently judgmental ideas such as the “walk of shame” have started to seriously irk me for this reason; I would like to take a moment to officially redub that shit the “walk of game” if nobody has any particular objections. 

The notion that humans are not biologically intended for monogamy is a matter of deep contention in the world of evolutionary sciences. There is, however, a vast amount of physical and behavioural evidence for the theory. 

Also, if you’ve ever been in a relationship for over a year and happened to look around a crowded bar after three whiskey-sodas, it really doesn’t seem so illogical after all. 

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha produced a comprehensive study of the biological roots of sexuality in 2010 called Sex at Dawn, which presents a rather convincing argument that monogamous relationships are a cultural construct while the indiscriminate bumping of uglies appears to be what humans are intended for. 

The fact that we enjoy watching pornography is a fairly obvious indication of this idea; have you ever actually taken a second to consider how totally fucking weird it is that you are touching your genitals whilst observing two (or 16 or whatever you’re into) other humans rampantly screw each other? Turns out other animals really aren’t so into that. 

It’s also no coincidence that our closest genetic relatives are the sluttiest animals on this planet – Bonobo chimpanzees shake dicks instead of hands. Sex in Bonobo colonies is a standard apology, greeting and argument all rolled into one. 

If you’ve ever been in a shitty relationship this should sound awfully familiar. 

As much as monogamous relationships can be real sweet – and it is genuinely enjoyable to engage in couple-type activities like cooking pasta and midday living room sex – ultimately our society is riddled with issues associated with fidelity failures. In the straight world, divorces increase in numbers annually (almost 50,000 occurred in Australia in 2012 alone), and once same sex marriage legislation goes past, imagine how those numbers will increase. Cheating on partners is astoundingly common and even in avoiding these pitfalls, sometimes you will just go home and quickly masturbate on your sofa before your partner gets back from work because that stupidly attractive barista looked at you in a nice way. 

We all crave fulfilling sexual existences and it seems naive to believe that this could be effectively pursued with one partner for the rest of our lives. Perhaps the “hall pass” should be a very real thing. 

Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, being the excellent bohemian lovers they were in the ‘30s, had this concept of distinguishing between necessary and peripheral love – the epitome of the legendary open relationship. As much as that concept seemed infinitely impossible to me when I was younger, I think I can now understand the practicality – perhaps we should all stop being so offended by feelings that we all experience and attempt to breed healthier ideas about our sexual needs. 

Almost all of us have fiddled with another human in a context completely devoid of emotional connection, so jealousy in this sense appears irrational. I’m not suggesting that monogamy should be abolished by any means; we love love. What I’m saying is that we should quit shying away from the universal acknowledgement of our basic genital whims (shotgun The Genital Whims as my next band name!).

That being said, being single is far from the virtual wasteland of useless adults and lonely types that is perpetuated by the ubiquitous romance construct. Nobody deserves sympathy for failing to have a partner because, let’s face it, being single is balls-to-the-wall brilliant. 

And much like the collection of suspect stains on my sheets, perhaps we would be better of if the general emphasis on codependence were simply washed away.