Are "Promiscuous" People More Likely to Cheat on Their Partners? Research Explains.
Two new studies are being misrepresented online. Let's explore them.
The first girl I ever had sex with cheated on me.
Even worse, she cheated on me two days after we started dating. I remember that horrible feeling like my stomach was tied up in knots—it hurt a lot.
Before that awful moment, I felt like I was just starting to wake up to a new life. I was just beginning to transition from the asexuality of boyhood into adolescence. And then, it was all shattered.
She cheated on me with one of my best friends, which tends to happen when you’re young and access to potential partners is limited to your nearby circle. Even worse, we were at a party together when it happened. It killed me inside. I was so ashamed, so embarrassed.
I wished I could just undo it all.
Dr. Justin Lehmiller, social psychologist, a sex researcher at the Kinsey Institute, and author, recently discussed infidelity on his blog.
He says:
Infidelity is common. Saying exactly how many people have ever cheated is a little dicey, though, because the numbers vary a lot depending on how you ask the question (e.g., sexual vs. emotional infidelity, online vs. in-person infidelity, etc.). However, if you look specifically at sexual infidelity in marital relationships, the number is pretty reliably around 1 in 4 or 1 in 5; by contrast, if you look at young adults in dating relationships, it’s more likely 1 in 2 or 1 in 3.
He goes on to say what we all know but try not to think about—infidelity is a major cause of breakups, heartaches, and divorce.
The Romance Question
Being cheated on so young characterized much of my sexual outlook as my life progressed. No matter who you are, if you’ve come into contact with any Western media, you’ve come into contact with the monolithic beast of romance culture.
Romance culture is a cultural relic left over from the Elizabethan through the Victorian eras of Western civilization—the 400 years from roughly 1500 to 1900.
Romance culture is a meme that tells us that securing a relationship that leads to marriage—and an unfailing long-term monogamous commitment—isn’t just a point in our lives where we pivot from single to settled. It’s a collection of media and mythology that tells us that this is the most important part of our lives.
We imbibe a collection of messages that tell us that you can’t be happy without a perfect long-term relationship.
Romance, Yes. Expectations, No.
Let me be perfectly clear: there’s nothing wrong with romance itself. It’s a wonderful feeling. It’s wonderful to be so absolutely mesmerized by someone who’s truly in love with you and captivated by your presence.
The problem is the romantic ideal as presented to us in romance culture is a fantasy.
After centuries of unrealistic portrayals, people have adopted unrealistic expectations about relationships. When I got cheated on as a young teenager, I had unrealistic expectations of forever.
I had no idea what relationships were really like and all I’d seen—thanks to Disney and popular culture—had shown me that once you find someone, it’s effortlessly happily ever after. It’s complete bullshit.
I was totally unprepared for what was about to happen and how other relationships would unfold over the rest of my life.
Fortunately, I didn’t turn into one of those bitter, cynical people who spend the rest of their lives mourning the loss of the idealistic fantasy of romance. I think a lot of people are so upset when this highly unrealistic fantasy is finally shattered they angrily swear off relationships for life.
You can’t help but wonder if we’re going about our relationship expectations all wrong.
What the New Research Really Says
Recently, two studies were published in the Journal of Sex Research. The goal was to use machine learning to analyze personal and relationship traits to see if infidelity was predictable.
Until now, science has shown that it's not "promiscuity" that predicts infidelity so much as whether or not the partners are happy or unhappy with their relationship.
For the two studies, 891 adults and 202 mixed-sex couples were surveyed on their experiences with in-person and online sexual infidelity. The researchers compiled a broad range of data, including details of sexual habits, relationship dynamics, life backgrounds, and personality types.
When the results were in, a number of traits predicted infidelity, including relationship dissatisfaction, sexual dissatisfaction, and feeling less love. The latter of these has been observed by researchers for a long time.
Surprisingly, being a man didn’t rank on the list of infidelity predictors. In one study, it predicted a greater likelihood of an internet fling, an emotional cheating episode over the internet, but not a full-blown marital affair or sneak-off-to-a-motel cheating.
Renata Gomez first brought this new research to my attention. We discussed the male phobia of infidelity in an interview for her YouTube channel (some of the material will be published here on The Science of Sex as well).
She came across it when a bunch of red-pilled right-wing men kept telling her to go check it out, saying that promiscuity was a major predictor of infidelity.
Predictably, this pair of studies has been used by such men to argue that “promiscuous” women are less trustworthy and more likely to cheat, and thus men should return to the old standard of purity. Not only do I firmly disagree, but their interpretation of the research isn’t what the research actually says (I’ve read it).
They’re reading into the research what they want to believe about women to maintain their sexist views.
The big takeaway from the research is that infidelity is extremely complex. It’s usually not one single factor that causes someone to cheat but several of these major factors coming together in unison to produce infidelity. It’s usually sociosexuality and relationship dissatisfaction (or sexual boredom, etc.).
Sociosexuality =/= Promiscuity
It’s true high sociosexuality was a positive predictor of infidelity in both studies. This much is true. But sociosexuality is much deeper than being “promiscuous” before the relationship.
The Sociosexual Inventory is a questionnaire that tells researchers how someone feels about sexuality and how open they are to sexual experiences. It asks whether people believe sex without love is possible, enjoyable, or morally acceptable.
In other words, just because someone scores high on sociosexuality doesn’t mean they’ve had a lot of partners! Someone can think sex without love or sex without marriage is perfectly okay and not have sex with many people.
Conversely, someone can swear to your face that sex outside of marriage is morally wrong or “unholy” and still sleep with everyone in town.
Manosphere, red-pill interpretations conflate the two when they say promiscuity is a predictor of infidelity.
If you’re really interested in the decades of research that have gone into our understanding of infidelity, I’ve covered what I call “the four horsemen” of infidelity here.
Infidelity is an Unfortunate Fact of Life When You’re Young
The total number of participants who’d practiced infidelity was likely striking to most people. Over the decades of research, whenever we’ve asked people about infidelity, anywhere from 20%-25% admitted that they’d cheated on their current partner.
If you only included young people, that number skyrockets to around 40%-50%, as Dr. Lehmiller pointed out in his blog post. That’s huge.
This means that cheating is an unfortunate fact of life for young people getting into budding relationships. It’s what happened to me, and it shaped my outlook on relationships from that day forward. Millions of people feel the same.
All of this makes me wonder—should we be forcing the idea of lifelong romance and monogamy down kids’ throats from the time they’re toddlers? I can’t help but wonder what a more realistic appraisal of human relationships would look like.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with romance just like there’s nothing wrong with monogamy (or their opposites), but there’s zero doubt in my mind that we’re setting kids up for heartbreak and disappointment later on when we pretend it doesn’t happen.
Personally, I’m glad that spell was broken and that illusion shattered for me early on in life. It helped me come to the correct conclusions I needed in order to accept the fact that devout, lifelong monogamy is a colossal thing to ask from someone. We never talk about it and never even think about it.
Seriously—commitment…for life.
It's a lot of responsibility, especially for someone who's 18 years old.
All in all, to me, this shows that we could be doing a whole lot better by being honest about the fact that instances of non-monogamy occur, both ethical and unethical. And I think we’d all do well to tune our expectations back down to reality.
For more of my work on the science of infidelity, check out this article.