robert harley gordon mohr wrote definitional nit to pick you ve redefined promiscuity above as total or average activity i think it s clear that i m talking about averages so i m not sure why that nit needs to be picked it was clear you were talking about averages but it should be equally clear that that isn t what people mean when they use the word promiscuity which seems to rob it of its common meaning activity above some specific threshold usually one in that case promiscous is a vacuous term in modern western societies but we knew that where people average NUMBER partners or so in their adult lives not at all there are still people who only have one partner there are many more whoe only have one partner over long periods of time so it is far from vacuous to describe some people as promiscuous and others as not promiscuous especially over a set period he was promiscuous in college he is no longer promiscuous the word has a clear meaning despite your continuing tendency to gloss that meaning over with population averages consider a population of NUMBER males and NUMBER females so in this contrived population females are more promiscuous than males so NUMBER girl gets NUMBER guy NUMBER girls get NUMBER guys NUMBER guys get NUMBER girl NUMBER guy gets NUMBER girls sounds like six of one versus half a dozen of the other to me ok then consider a population of NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER men each pair off with NUMBER NUMBER women then NUMBER man let s call him wilt also has sex with the other NUMBER NUMBER women NUMBER NUMBER women have had more than one partner NUMBER NUMBER men have only had one partner it is now perfectly obvious that in the common meaning of the term among this contrived population that women are more promiscuous than men even though the single most promiscuous person wilt is a man promiscuity is not exactly perfectly identical between males and females except under a degenerate custom definition of promiscuity unless promiscuity is defined uselessly ain t nothin useless about averages averages are useful sure but much more so if called by their actual name rather than conflated with another concept gordon 