page_title: Female promiscuity
section_title: Modern
hierarchical_section_title: Female promiscuity / Society and culture / Modern
caption_attribution_description: Портрет великой княгини Екатерины Алексеевны Холст, масло. 58,5 х 47,5 На подрамнике наклейки с надписями чернилами: 283. Князя Лобанова-Ростовского; № 81 500 р. Оц. Негри и красная сургучная печать судебного пристава; карандашом: № 1033; штамп: Г. Р. М. инв. № 433 (номер зачеркнут) Поступила: 1897 из собрания князя А. Б. Лобанова-Ростовского (Санкт-Петербург) Ж-5320 Изображена с орденом святой Екатерины Большого креста (лента и звезда). Технологическое исследование, прове¬денное в ГРМ в 1979, выявило, что лента и звезда переписаны (первоначально была голубая андреевская лента).
context_page_description: Promiscuity tends to be frowned upon by many societies, expecting most members to have committed, long-term relationships with single partners.
  Most societies have historically been more critical of women's promiscuity than of heterosexual men's. Among women, as well as men, inclination for sex outside committed relationships is correlated with a high libido, but evolutionary biology as well as social and cultural factors have also been observed to influence sexual behavior and opinion.
context_section_description: Many cultures have historically laid much restriction on sexuality, most emphatically against immoderate expression of sexuality by women. In contrast, some recent ethical philosophies—both secular (coming from individualism and sex-positive feminism) and religious (e.g., Wicca, Thelema, LaVeyan Satanism)—either tolerate it or outright celebrate it.
  We believe that it is fundamentally a radical political act to deprivatize sex. So much oppression in our culture is based on shame about sex: the oppression of women, of cultural minorities, oppression in the name of the (presumably asexual) family, oppression of sexual minorities. We are all oppressed. We have all been taught, one way or another, that our desires, our bodies, our sexualities, are shameful. What better way to defeat oppression than to get together in communities and celebrate the wonders of sex?
  — Dossie Easton, Catherine Liszt, The Ethical Slut. Chapter XXII: Group Sex, Public Sex, Orgies…
  Public opinion has fluctuated over the centuries, with such downturns as New England Puritanism (1630—1660) and the Victorian era (1837—1901), when hypersexuality was often treated as an exclusively female disorder, diagnosed on the grounds of as little as masturbation alone (see here). Up until the late 20th century, women could be incarcerated for promiscuous behavior in so-called Magdalene asylums, the last of which was closed in Ireland in 1996. From 1897 to 1958, Ontario used the Female Refuges Act to incarcerate women felt to be "incorrigible".
  Following the Industrial Revolution (1760~1840), as Western countries underwent industrialization and urbanization, education and employment opportunities were increasing for women. This environment gave rise in the late 19th century to the feminist ideal called "the New Woman"—a personification of female economic, sexual and other autonomy—which had a profound influence on feminism well into the 20th century. It wasn't until the Married Women's Property Act 1882 that female British citizens were no longer legally compelled, upon marriage, to transfer all their property to their husbands. The Women's Movement was closely allied with the free love movement, whose advocates had a strong belief that a woman ought to be herself sovereign over her body.
  Laws against adultery [were] based upon the idea that woman is a chattel, so that to make love to a married woman is to deprive the husband of her services. It is the frankest and most crass statement of a slave-situation. To us, every woman ... has ...  an absolute right to travel in her own orbit. There is no reason why she should not be the ideal hausfrau, if that chance to be her will. But society has no right to insist upon that standard. It was, for practical reasons, almost necessary to set up such taboos in small communities, savage tribes, where the wife was nothing but a general servant, where the safety of the people depended upon a high birth-rate. But to-day woman is economically independent, becomes more so every year. The result is that she instantly asserts her right to have as many or as few men or babies as she wants or can get; and she defies the world to interfere with her. More power to her!
  — Aleister Crowley, The Law is for All, the New Comment 1:41
  The Roaring Twenties have been described as "a time when gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession." Popular at that time was a female subculture called "flappers", who flouted social and sexual norms and were considered a significant challenge to Victorian gender roles. But these sentiments were then overshadowed by the Great Depression.
  Despite this, the 1925 silent film The Red Kimono, sympathetic toward its promiscuous protagonist, was subject to severe censorship, and led to a landmark legal case, Melvin v. Reid.
  The 1950s in America is stereotyped to have been sexually repressed, though not as severely as the Victorian era. Female promiscuity in particular became substantially more accepted in Western culture after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which resonated with the hippie movement. 
caption: Empress Catherine the Great, a crucial figure at the time of the Enlightenment, is popularly remembered for her sexual promiscuity.
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