How Do They Infuriate YOU? Promiscuity and Compulsive Sexting
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2021-03-25

Sexual promiscuity is often coupled with what I call “life promiscuity”: throwing away one’s life (not only one’s body) as if it were meaningless, worthless, and disposable. Cleckley called it “a rejection of life”, Seinfeld (the psychoanalyst): “a life unlived”. 

This dual promiscuity is a common feature of psychopathy. The psychopath casts away himself, his prospects, accomplishments, future, and “nearest and dearest” like so much trash. 

Hallmarks of life promiscuity:

The psychopath may be educated, but he is DUMB, NOT intelligent. His decisions are not merely extremely self-defeating, but inane and utterly random, lacking any organizing principle.

He has:

No insight of any kind into his motivations (actual and pseudo-stupidity).

Flat affect: even when he rages, it is instrumental and goal-oriented. Otherwise, he expresses and experiences no emotions whatsoever. 

A dumbfounding lack of self-awareness coupled with counterfactual reframing and outright self-deception and denial. The evasiveness is infuriating because it closely mimics passive-aggressive gaslighting.

No boundaries whatsoever and no respect or recognition of others’ boundaries.

Zero self-respect: incapable of shame, guilt, or remorse.

He is prone to substance abuse: he is typically both a junkie and an alcoholic.

The psychopath resembles an animal, possessed of only the most basic reflexes and drives. Sex. Eat. Drink. Nothing sublime or transcendental. Constantly bored and in search of stimulation and excitement. 

No higher functions. No intellectual life. No interests or hobbies. No conversation (“flat speech”): dismissive one-liners with no depth or background. As dull as drying paint.

Most psychopaths know that they have little else to offer, so that’s why they head straight to sex, their only alleged endowment. If borderlines traits are present, they confuse sex with relatedness, belonging, and being loved or appreciated.

Cleckley described psychopathy as the “Mask of Sanity”. It is even more profound - or shallower - than this: only the mask exists. The psychopath is a 3D glitchy simulation of a human being gone awry, the ultimate corrupted simulacrum.

The psychopath tends to see life and interactions with people as zero sum, winner takes all conflicts.

Consequently, he is hypervigilant. He scores points, he wins, he loses, constantly alert as to who is having the upper hand.

The psychopath never feels shame or remorse when he MISBEHAVES - only when he is caught red-handed or shows a weakness or a vulnerability to the “adversary”.

The psychopathic borderline is not INTENTIONALLY evil. She IS evil. Like a virus or a tigress: she kills not because she is malicious - but because she IS. Never mind her kind intentions and solemn promises - she can’t help it, it is not up to her.

Once promiscuous – always promiscuous? The short answer is: yes, but intermittently.

Promiscuity is having sex with multiple partners, mostly total strangers, indiscriminately and impulsively. It is a compulsive reaction intended to ameliorate to stress, anxiety, and perceived rejection. It is a form of reckless self-trashing that sometimes involves practices such as group sex, and adverse outcomes such as rape and recurrent sexual assault.

Many promiscuous individuals apparently settle into a more or less sublimatory (socially acceptable) functional lifestyle, replete with jobs and families. But the trait never goes away: it is there, lurking. Given the right adverse circumstances, acting out leads to flareups and relapses: bouts of uncontrolled sex, flagrant infidelity, and self-endangerment.

Promiscuity is highly correlated with many mental health disorders, among them Borderline Personality Disorder and psychopathy.

Indiscriminate sexting with virtual strangers (but not with friends or intimate partners) is highly correlated with mental health issues such as a dysregulated sense of self-worth, low self-esteem, alcoholism, mood lability, emotional dysregulation, erotomanic delusions, cluster B personality disorders, reactance (defiance), recklessness, issues with power and control, depression, decompensation, acting out, object impermanence, lack of impulse control, eating disorders, sleep deprivation, body dysmorphia, among others. Such behavior is indicative of self-trashing which is a self-defeating or even self-destructive behavior.

The partner’s cheating and promiscuity legitimizes the sexlessness of the schizoid cerebral narcissist in 2 ways:

1. The partner is dirty, corrupted, sick, revolting and, therefore, it is her fault that she is sexually undesirable; and

2. She does not regard the narcissist as special to her or unique. He is merely a statistic, just one of many. It negates his grandiosity and provokes legitimized aggression expressed via sex withdrawal.

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