I've been doing more watching than commenting lately on the evo-psych blogs (which is normal, really). There's been a heavy focus in the last week, heavier than usual, I mean, on female promiscuity.

I remember reading a post on the idea that sluthood was achieved when a certain number of partners was reached, and I commented that, no, there isn't a number. That I've met girls with a grand total of five partners that were sluttier than girls with a partner count in the 20s, or my "amazing" partner count in the mid-70s.

Derision followed.

So I sat there, staring at the computer, wondering why I was unable to communicate this simple idea.

Because, when it comes to sexuality, most people are very black and white.

And a person's partner count defines, of course, who they are. Like a character leveling up in a video game, achieving talents, experience points, whatever. An overarching drive to a universal idea of mega-slut that all girls end up at. That you can tell a girl's partner count, especially if it is high, just by interacting with her.

I've said this all before, in here and in comments on other blogs.

For many people, it is the behavior that defines a person.

Which I think is a dramatic demonstration of a lack of experience on their part.

I do not believe we are what we do. Which, I suppose, is very un-American of me.

I believe that what is more important than a behavior, or even a behavior pattern, is the motivations behind it. The psychology.

So when I've got some bitter evo-psych/MRA guy desperately trying to be a PUA so he can sexually validate himself in a display of anger telling me that since I have a "high" number I have poor impulse control and am doomed to failing relationships and dating the bottom of the barrel for the rest of my life, not to mention cheating on all my partners...

What a sad little view of the world.

I'm looking at motivations.

If someone has a high partner count and, for some bizarre reason that bothers me, I want to know why. I want to know if it is poor impulse control. I want to know if some tragic event happened that caused them to go on a sexual rampage for a year. I want to know if they just enjoy sex and are aware of safety and their psychological needs. Or six dozen other reasons for having a highly active sex life.

Not as excuses. I don't need excuses.

We aren't "excusing" behavior. That is saying that the behavior itself is wrong. I don't believe it is. I believe that there are healthy reasons and unhealthy reasons to engage in promiscuious behavior, but I do not believe I have the ultimate say (or any say) in letting another person know that what they are doing is Inherently Unhealthy.

I sometimes try to use myself as an example of promiscuity that was garnered due to my own psychological "needs" and "tragic" event circumstances, not as an indiciator of poor impulse control. I either get completely laughed at and called a slut (but, of course, only online... I can't think of a time in life that I've ever been called a slut) or told that I am the exception to the rule, blah blah.

The same crowds that dismiss my experiences as "an exception to the rule" also lump me in with the "sluts" and tell me that I'm "just like all the other girls".

It's quite sad.

I'm losing my need to interact with these people. I came into this scene with a desire to learn, grow, exchange ideas, expand my worldview. I thought there would be people there I could relate to, enjoy, sit around discussing the ideas of desire, of escalation, comparing sex stories, social stories, trying to be the best we could be.

Instead I mostly found a bunch of men of all ages, most of them bitter, most of them angry, most of them hanging onto this worldview they want so badly to be true so it confirms their behavior so they don't feel like losers, clinging to stereotypes for validation.

It reminds me of when I started at my college, working on my BA, so excited to be with like-minded people, with the same focus, educated, broad-minded, and I found a bunch of under-educated, unexperienced morons clinging to their upper-middle class WASP belief systems, wanting to be social workers so they could "show people how to live right".

So disappointing. So worthless.

I spent those two years with my nose in a book, writing my papers, striving towards a degree, understanding concepts that I had to sit and explain to those kids for hours because their brains could not wrap around anything but what supported their worldviews.

I don't need to spend my time around this type of people. I want to learn, I want to grow, and this, this isn't cutting it.

I'm taking my diploma and walking.