Litmus Tests

I thought I'd return to this comment by Z man since I felt it dealt with an issue which needs to be addressed on the Right.

The defect with the Alt-Lite is the same problem the Buckley Conservatives had a generation ago. They have no antibodies to resist entryism, because they lack a timeless definition of what it means to be Alt-Lite. Western Civilization, after all, includes Karl Marx and Hitler. Nazism is just as much a part of the West as John Locke. In fact, Hitler currently casts a longer shadow than any of the men of the Enlightenment. On what grounds can the Alt-Lite reject Hitler, but embrace the slave owning Jefferson?

I feel it addresses one of the fundamental issues affecting the Right at the moment; What does the Right actually stand for? From what I can see, the only commonality that unites all the Right factions is the belief in nationalism, everything else seems to be up for grabs. Some factions are OK with homosexuality, others are not. Some seem to be happy with sexual promiscuity as long its for white people only, others are happy for a nationalistic socialism, others want nationalistic capitalism. From what I can see, in the new Alt-Right, Paganism, Atheism and Christianity can rub shoulders together with Gay socialists, as long as they embrace nationalism. Who said that the Right wasn't liberal.

While we are all united on the subject of nationalism and are united in our opposition to the Left the fact of the matter is that on many other issues some members of the Alt Right are in agreement with some of the ideas of the Left. The Natsocs seem pretty cool with sexual degeneracy and socialism, ideas which were never part of the Right stable. The fact of the matter is that there are huge points of disagreement between the different factions of the Alt-Right with nationalism cannot paper over. Unfortunately nationalism is not going to be enough and its pretty obvious that the at some point the various factions of the Alt Right are going to chew each other up over these not insubstantial differences, going to be a pretty hollow victory when in the moment of triumph we destroy it all by slashing at each other over the other points of disagreement. 

It's this blogs contention that what it means to be Right is more to be is much more than nationalism or ethnic identity. Rightness, in the end, is living in accordance with the Truth.

The concept of Truth is an important one, and why an understanding of the subject is important in any consideration of "Rightness". The other day I saw floating somewhere on the internet a comment which ran to the affect of, "If you want to offend someone on the Right tell a lie, if you want to offend someone on the Left, tell the Truth", which I though was pretty close to a practical definition of what it means to be of the Right. Solzhenitsyn, on of the unrecognized prophets of the Twentieth Century understood the significance of this and realised that the fundamental task of man was to live not by lies.

Living the in the Truth involves four fundamental principles as I can see.

The First Principle is the acceptance of the the idea that there is a Truth, in other words there is a reality.
The Second Principle is that we know reality through the empirical experience of it.
The Third Principle is that there is a duty of obedience to it.
The Fourth Principle is that there is a commitment to the free expression of it.
The Fifth Principle is that correct action can only come about through acting within the Truth.

Truth is the foundational pillar of the Right, and any ideological outgrowth which deliberate violates its commitment to it is automatically excommunicated. How the Right differs from Conservatism is that Conservatism prefers old lies to innovative Truth.

However things aren't that simple. Real world application of the these principles is predicated on their being a common understanding of the concepts of Truth, Reality, Empirical experience and moral character. Change these fundamental definitions and the nature of the principles change as well. Hence the importance of metaphysics, since it imputes the semantic content to these words.

Which brings us to religion.

Now, when I use the term religion I'm using it in its most expansive sense. At its core, a religion can be thought of a set of metaphysical propositions; statements describing the nature of being and reality, mechanisms of causation, ontology, etc. Relgions are definitional understandings. Taking this approach, Atheistic Positivism is just as much of a religion as any pagan sect. Atheism affirms the denial of any existence outside the empirically experienced. Christianity affirms the there are modes of existence which are beyond perception by normal biological means. The point here is not about the competing claims, rather,  how you understand reality is going to influence how you understand the concept of Truth and  what it means to be Right. Therefore a "Right" Atheist or Pagan is going to understand those five principles differently than a "Right" Christian.

The other thing about metaphysical systems differing Religions is that each system's metaphysical propositions end up defining what constitutes good and evil. However, the metaphysical system that is Positivism/Atheism is flawed because it cannot generate values and ends up silent on the subject. Refer to Hume's Guillotine before debating this matter further.  A Right that lays its foundation on Atheism can be as accepting of homosexuality as transgenderism  just as much as it can of genocide. This makes Right litmus tests administered from a Positivistic perspective seriously limited. A Positivistic right is going to be far more "inclusive" simply because it can't make for distinctions of moral value. Ideological systems which cross moral lines are not excluded.

For the Christian Right, Marx and Hitler are both outside the camp since they espoused principles which are wrong and have no room for them in their house. The litmus test of Christian Rightism is conformity to Christian reality.  The Test for Rightism under Christian rules is far more restrictive.

This is why any understanding of the right has to take into account metaphysical principles, i.e. religion. It is this blog's contention that this is the main issue affecting the West today. The shift from the Christian world view to the Atheist undercut the foundations of Western society and set forth a series of cultural transformations which are eating it up from the inside. The problem isn't Right and Left, the problem is Right and Wrong.  Fascism is just as much of a lie as socialism though of a different political polarity.

Solzhenitsyn spent a lot of time trying to understand where the 20th Century went wrong, especially as it pertained to Russia.

Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. 

 

A Post Worth Mentioning.

 Permissive attitudes towards morally questionable behaviour pave the way for destruction of your culture, people, and society. 

The were several good posts written last year which I hoped to comment on. One, in particularly, was by Esoterictrad: It's the Degeneracy Stupid.  It's a well written post which pretty much aligns with this blog's philosophical position.  It also think it's one of the most important posts of the year since it succinctly illustrates the mindware contamination of NRx that has come about through Alt-Right entryism. This has been the most depressing development of 2015 but unfortunately, given the rise of the dissident Right, to be expected.

This seemingly obvious truth is in fact denied by what seems like increasingly large numbers of people who use the term ‘Alt-Right’ to describe themselves. Over the course of the last few years as the ‘Alt-Right’ has grown in popularity it has attracted more and more white men disaffected with how things are going. In such a liberal age many of these men are still largely sit within the Overton Window on many issues, it is only on a few where they have directly experienced the horrors of modernity that they branch out and explore.

and 

Some of those men end up going further and head towards Truth, but the vast majority are more likely to end up making a truce towards the rest of the liberal attitudes. The Reddit subreddit “The Red Pill” which is a Game/sexual strategy forum explicitly forbids discussion of morality. There is a mod post announcing people must keep their morals to themselves.

As Esoterictrad points out, there seems to be this notion that everything will be OK if you fix up an isolated act of degeneracy whilst wallowing in an ocean of it. Let me illustrate what I mean. For years I struggled to understand why fornication was wrong. Why should God be so opposed to the private act of affection between two consenting adults, especially if no harm was done by it? It's taken me years to realise my formulation of the question was based upon a failure to understand the "extrapersonal" dimension of the sexual act. Sex is not simply an act that can be isolated to two people, but its an act with much wider sociological implications. Compartmentalising it is simply a poor way of thinking about it.

Family stability is partly a function of the prevailing sexual mores.  Acceptable promiscuity facilitates family dissolution, it facilitates abortion, it facilitates the alpha harem and alpha widowhood with the subsequent negative effects of long term pair bonding. It disincentivises socially productive beta behaviour and promotes the dark triad of traits which undermine society. It moves the locus of control of sexuality towards the female instead of the male, undermining the intended sexual dynamic between sexes. Fornication, considered from a simply personal perspective, is probably not that bad, but when considered from a global one, it is a lethal poison. Getting people to grasp the global picture is very hard. Telling people to keep "your morals to yourself" keeps the focus on the local and not the global.

People seem to have a real problem grasping the "big picture" and instead focus on small issues all the will oblivious the larger problem which brings us to the Alt-Right. Esoterictrad on the subject:

The other area where people might run into the obvious lies of the left establishment is of course demographics and race. A great many people ‘wake up’ to the reality of race but never ‘wake up’ to anything else. They are essentially what should be known as the ‘Alt-Left’ – where everything is acceptable as long as it is a whites only society. Homosexuals of course have greatly appreciated this, because it means they do not have to face up to their sins. Here is a group of people willing to accept them because they shout about Niggers and Kikes just like them, but won’t actually suggest they change their behaviour.

Bingo. These people simply can't grasp the fact that a whites only society can also implode. They're so focused on "white oppression" that they miss the bigger picture. They're essentially social justice warriors for white people only. I would urge my readers to have a look a Richard Spencer's Political Theology and tell me how his "myths" differ from the "myths' of social justice warriors.  The common thread of both parties is a believe in the power of myth over truth; oppression by whites in the case of the Left SJW's and oppression by others in the case of the Right SJW's both parties are ambivalent when it comes to the matter of truth. Indeed, as Spencer so eloquently points out.

Indeed, knowing too much truth can be a problem.

The reason why the West is in such deep shit is because it doesn't realise just how bad things are.  It doesn't help that people are openly advocating closing their eyes to the facts. Commentators are worrying about the position of the deck chairs, ignoring the hole in the Titanic's side.  No one sees the bigger picture. The problem is one of faith and morals. In other words, it's the degeneracy, stupid.

WTF?

I knew this was going to happen. What's with the flame war between Neoreaction and the PUA's, huh? This is a completely regrettable development.

I've been blogging for almost 8 years and one of the most satisfying things to see happen during this period is the rise of the manosphere. One of the great things about the manosphere is that it is a broad church, where people from a variety of persuasions were able to talk to each other about a wide variety of shit which pertained to men. Particularly with regard to sex. Lot of pissing contests there but after a while most guys put down their cudgels.

Most people credit Moldbug with the rise of Neo-reaction. I say bullshit. Effective Neo-reaction -the thing that's gaining cultural traction-- is an offshoot of the manosphere. You can theorise all you want but unless you put your words into action none of it matters. The manosphere was a forum where men could go to find effective practical advice with regard to changing their lives. Nothing most primed men to the notion of Neoreaction than taking the "Red Pill". The men most responsible for this state of affairs were PUA's; particularly Roissy and Roosh.

The other person who set the tone for the Manosphere was Ferdinand Bardamu, (Matt Forney). In Mala Fide was where Manosphere reached criticality. Ferdi's "broad church" policy meant that any idiot could spout out whatever he liked unless he was completely batshit insane. It was a great blog and it is sadly missed. Many offshoot bloggers continued with this approach and ensured that there was no "orthodoxy" in the sphere. It was a Darwinian battlefield of ideas. Over time several ideas which are staple to the Neoreactionary canon gained traction; Game, HBD, anti-liberalism, mass stupidity and so on.

But buying into the manosphere did not mean buying into everyone of its ideas, and there is still a fair variety of opinion on certain matters. But it would be a mistake to say that just because people have differring opinions all of those opinions are of equal validity.

Now, I disagree with quite a lot of what Roissy and Roosh have to say. As a flawed Catholic their lifestyle is not an option for me. However, when it comes to the subject of women, I give them a lot of credence. In order to bed lots of women you have to know something about them and, therefore, they have authority on this subject: They have "Wet Dick" authority.  You can theorise all you want about female sexuality but unless you've gotten a woman into bed it's just that, a theory.

On the other hand, the PUA types are liable to engage in the Wet Dick Fallacy (Hat tip. Bryce) where they feel that their notch count gives them authority to speak on matters outside their expertise. Now this creates a problem for the Christian members of the manosphere, who, because of the religious beliefs, can't screw around. In debates, PUA's are liable to "pull rank" on them by virtue of their notch count, and to a degree they are justified, but only when it comes to the subject of getting women into bed. When they start pulling rank on other issues, they've exceeded their authority.  Roosh measures his long term relationships in terms of months. I've been married for over 20 years, in a very, very good marriage: both physically and emotionally. When the PUA's diss marriage, I kind of tune out. When it comes to long term relationships, Dave from Hawaii, Dalrock and I can pull rank on this issue.

I honestly have a great deal of time for PUA's when it comes to insights on female sexuality. They have had a positive impact on my personal life and professional practice. Because of patient confidentiality I cannot relate some of my cases (both male and female) where their lives have been positively changed by the practical application of Game. Game is Good. The important thing here is that we can learn from each other.

At it's core, Neoreaction is the truth asserting itself against error.  For example, the pushback against Democracy is not based upon some monarchist or aristocratic sentiment , rather, the realisation that the underlying principals of democracy don't align with reality.  Likewise, Game is Neoreactioary insofar as it is a corrective to the misconceptions of female sexuality. It (is) should be part of the Canon.

Like most Neoreactionaries, I'm concerned with saving Western Civilisation. Screwing around does not help this one iota on a whole variety of levels. Consequently, the Gamer's get a lot of heat from the Trads on this issue. I must admit it doesn't bother me as much because I think hedonism is a natural weakness, feminism is an unnatural disease. The other reason I don't give them so much heat is because of the underling sexual dynamics at play in a sexual free market. In the West, it is the women who control sexuality and if the place resembles a brothel is because women want it to be that way. The PUA's are simply taking advantage of the situation: they are a second order phenomenon. The primary pathogen is female promiscuity.

PUA's are not like Jedi Masters, able to exert some some irresistible mind control over women. To think so is to deny women moral agency. No PUA advocates rape, despite feminist attempts to smear them with this charge. For every successful notch there has to be a woman who has willingly spread her legs. A while ago, Roosh tweeted about his failed attempt to seduce a young Croatian girl who was studying to become a nun.  (See here re correction) You can't run a brothel without whores.

All I'm saying that this flame war is hugely counterproductive. Traddish types need to remember that the PUA's are taking advantage of the situation they are not the cause of it. Looking at the degree of ruin about us, all I can say is when it comes to PUA's, "Man, I can understand why you want to lounge poolside".  But for some of us life is more than just sex.  We don't want our God-like reason to "fust in us unused". We are patriarchs who will be held to account for our time on earth. We have a duty to our families, communities, friends and even you. For some of us, not screwing around is not because we can't but because we won't. I love your insights but when it comes to manhood, yours is not the sole metric.

Men are always going to engage in pissing contests with each other, that's to be expected. But stop for a second and look at the bigger picture lest everything our fathers built fall in ruins amongst us. A shit fight amongst the manosphere is to no one's benefit.

Peace.

The Failure of Conservatism.

An objective analysis of socio-political history would have to conclude that, in the battle between conservatism and liberalism, liberalism has been the winner. Even today's modern "conservatism" is not the conservatism of 1900. It, too, has been heavily influenced by liberal thought. The dividing line between the two ideologies seems more economic rather than social and on socially corrosive issues like divorce, promiscuity, multiculturalism and moral relativism  there appears to little in practice to separate the two mainstream political actors. From this vantage point in time one has to conclude that Conservatism in the 20th Century has failed. In fact, on every issue that Conservatism has taken a position liberalism has trumped it. Some might disagree and argue that conservatives won on economic issues, to which I reply, "Gold standard, anyone?"

The problem with Conservatism is that it has swallowed much of the liberal Kool-Aid and whilst there may be particular factions which espouse a particular truth quite forcefully, for nearly every faction that espouses one conservative truth it does it with an admixture of other liberal errors.  Modern American and British Conservatism seem to bee prime examples of this admixture. In fact, it's my opinion that American conservatism could quite easily slide into some form of South American (Not German) Fascism if it is not too careful, so bad is the mixture.

If God were not on our side then I would consider Conservatism a hopeless cause. Surveying the field I see liberalism triumphant in every corner, the persecution of Christians, it's final development, is begining and hard times are about to be on us. Still, God has matched us with this hour and, presumably, thought us up to task. Therefore, our duty is to get our arse into gear and start rebuilding the temple. The question is, where to begin?

I suppose the first task is to work out where we went wrong, where the movement failed, if for no other reason to stop making the same mistakes. An audit of Conservatism is in order.

It's my view that the Conservative movement has made several fundamental errors which are contributing to its destruction. Some of which are due to historical circumstances and some of which are due to poor thinking on core ideology, particularly, with regard to human nature. If I were to issue a Syllabus of modern Conservative Errors I suppose I would want to include the following in the list.

1) The embrace of universal democracy. i.e. One man, one vote. In principle, this is a noble ideal but in practice is toxic to good governance. The average man is a moron, albeit a good natured one who simply lacks the cognitive expertise (or inclination) to contribute meaningfully to good management of society. He is also the soft underbelly of society, whom the Cathedral relies on to implement it social policies.  The whole aim of Cathedral ops is to condition not convince Joe Average into acting in accordance with their wishes. Since the stupid and gullible outnumber the wise and prudent it's a no-brainer to see who will win this contest in a universal democracy.  When you make the world safe for universal democracy you're making the world safe for liberalism.

Note, this isn't an argument for or against monarchy or oligarchy. Political power should be invested into those who have skin in the game and into those who have the capacity to exercise it wisely.  The idea that every man is wise and prudent is a falsehood. T

2) Moral relativism. What this does is making Conservatism  a "value lite" form of political governance. The values being filled in by liberalism. Divorce, for instance, is not just a religious question but one with societal and therefore political consequences. A Conservatism which fails to make some value judgements is conservatism that cannot govern properly. It also opens the door to all sorts of other evils. How do you stop multiculturalism when emasculate yourself by refusing to assert the superiority of your own culture?

3) High Anglicanism. Modern conservatism is strongly influenced by English thought and habit. Front loaded into this cultural heritage is the concept of "niceness" or agreeableness. As people like Malcolm Muggeridge have noted, the High English custom is to prefer good mannered evil to coarse mannered good. Anglo-Conservatives tend to be extraordinarily nice people. The problem is that a man needs to be good before he is nice.  Sometimes you just have to offend.

4) Tradition. Tradition, in my mind has been both the blessing and bane of Conservatism. The mindless worshiping of it has stymied Conservatism's ability to deal with new realities and allowed the Left to outflank it when it comes to "solving" novel problems. The industrialisation of the West, which bought about brand new social realities,  blindsided the Conservative movement and enabled the liberal establishment to become established. Agrarianism, which seems to find a home in conservatism, is one such school of thought which seem to prefer that industrialism went away. The problem is, so do the  material conditions of modern life.  You need an industrial society to produce MRI machines.

Now tradition is good, insofar as it gives us an accurate understanding of reality. Where tradition is evil is where it proposes something that is contrary to reality.  The problem with traditionalists is that they can't make that distinction and this is a real problem, especially given the history of the conservative movement, where the traditionalists have been the ones who have done most of the heavy lifting.

It's got to be admitted that the traditionalists were the only ones keeping the "light on" during the very dark days of the conservative movement in the later half of the 20th Century. This has given them a certain amount of moral authority but the fact remains that the movement slid during their watch. Men like Kirk, Oakshott, Babbit and Buckly did the yeoman work of the time and need to be acknowledged but, ultimately, their strategy failed. The problem with ensconcing these individuals to quasi mythical status is that their take on conservatism becomes the offical line. When some new upstart with ideas proposes something contrary to their vision, their immediately labelled unconservative by being untraditional and categorically trown into the liberal camp. Cue Roissy.

But there does seem to be some flickering of life at least in that old bastion of reactionary conservatism, Catholicism. In a speech heavily critiqued by Anarchopapist, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez stated:

The Second Vatican Council was the main event in the Church in the 20^th Century. In principle, it meant an end to the hostilities between the Church and modernism, which was condemned in the First Vatican Council. On the contrary: neither the world is the realm of evil and sin –these are conclusions clearly achieved in Vatican II—nor is the Church the sole refuge of good and virtue. Modernism was, most of the time, a reaction against injustices and abuses that disparaged the dignity and the rights of the person.

This is exactly the same line of thought as taken by the giant of American Conservatism in the 20th Century, Whittaker Chambers. He seemed to be the only one doing the deep thinking. The old world had serious problems, which were amped by industrialisation and which the conservative institutions of society were not able to provide any solutions to. The vacuum was filled by modernism which provided even worse solutions. This theme, of rigid old and stupid new, was picked up by another guy who gets a lot of heat from the Traditionalist Right, Pope Francis. (I wonder if he reads this blog)

In this meditation by Pope Francis, which did not get much press in the mainstream media he says;

There are two temptations to face at this moment in the Church’s history: drawing back[Ed:Traditionalism], because we are afraid of the freedom that comes from the law “enacted in the Holy Spirit”; and giving in to an “adolescent progressivism”, namely, the inclination to follow the most captivating values presented by prevailing culture.

That's Whittaker Chambers talking.

We have been so fixated by the overt assault by liberal modernism that we've not noticed the covert enemy within.

The PIll and Divorce.

Roissy recently put up an interesting post on the link between contraception and divorce. Unlike Roissy--and a lot of others--I'm not that convinced that the Pill is a solvent of modernity. While the link between pill use and sexual immorality would appear to be intuitively obvious, in my experience, I have found that what is intuitively obvious is sometimes not how things are in reality. Inuitively, we all know that easy availability should result in a decrease in out of wedlock births.

Sometimes intuition is wrong.

I don't try to complicate things for the sake of complication or try to find complex explanations where simple ones will do, however, the whole "pregnancy as a deterrent to promiscuity" argument has never really appealed to me. From the earliest days of my medical training, it always surprised me just how many women who were sexually active weren't on the Pill. Whilst it's true that the Pill markedly reduces the risk of pregnancy, it takes nothing away from the fact of promiscuity.

One of the problems with men writing about women's issues is that they think like men and not like women. Women are far more social creatures than men are, and when they act, their moral calculus always involves a consideration of how their act will be viewed by others. Shame and social ostracism have their powerful effect on women because of this, and in her mind,  the social consequences are just as important as any benefits accrued through any specific act. In societies where promiscuity is viewed negatively, you can make a woman infertile but you can't make her slut.

It needs to be understood that pre 60's society regarded out of wedlock pregnancy as a big deal.  But is also needs to be recognised that promiscuity was also a big deal in itself, regardless of the natal consequences. No one wanted to go sloppy seconds. Being the town bike, yet without children, was no mark of distinction. Cultural opprobrium rather than fear of pregnancy kept most women in check.

But perhaps I'm wrong and lets see what science says about the matter.

While I'm a bit dubious with regard to the methodology, Divorce and the Birth Control Pill by Miriam Marcem shows only a very small increase in divorce with availability of the Pill.


As you can see, in States where there was an availability of the Pill there is only a small increase in the divorce rate compared to the states where the Pill was less available. (It interesting to note that the difference still exists before the introduction of Enovid. i.e. The Pill)

Zuppan, in a different paper also tried to estimate the effect of the Pill on marital stability. He concluded that women who were married prior to the availability of the Pill had a higher risk of divorce than those who were married after the Pill became available, though the effect was small.

In fact, women who got married after the pill was made available had slightly longer marriages on average. i.e. It exerted a small protective effect against divorce.

This is also in keeping with the latest research on female mate selection whilst on the Pill. Much has been said about the females in estrus preferring cads to dads but when you have a look at the actual data you can see that the preference for cads, whilst significant, is still quite small.

The point is that the Pill's effect on marital stability is small and may in fact be positive. 

The take home summary is that the Pill's effect on marriage is very small. So what then drove the change and the sudden epidemic of divorce?

No fault divorce laws?

Once again, another obvious explanation but one which, on further scrutiny, fails the test.

In a very interesting paper, Does Culture Affect Divorce Decisions, by Furtado et al, the authors set about trying to see how influential culture was on divorce. Their methodology was as follows:

To separate the effect of culture from institutions on an individual’s probability of divorce, we examine divorce patterns of immigrants from Europe who arrived in the US at or under the age of 5. Immigrants in our sample have lived under the laws, institutions, and markets of the United States. However, since their preferences are likely to reflect the attitudes of their parents and ethnic communities, differences in their divorce rates by country of origin may be interpreted as evidence of the importance of culture. For example, if divorce laws were the only explanation for why Italy has a
lower divorce rate than Russia, then when we remove differences in laws by examining Russians
and Italians living in the same city in the US, all Russian-Italian divorce differentials should be
eliminated.


Quite a simple and commonsense approach, though it has some problems. First generation immigrants, whilst strongly being influenced by parental culture, will still become acculturated (to  varying degrees) by the prevailing environment. Still the data is interesting.

It's appears that divorce rates are almost divisible along an North West/South East axis. It's quite possible that the variation in divorce rates may be due to local institutional factors. But when people from these countries move to the U.S. (and the effect of institutional variability is diminished) we get the following data.

What's interesting about this study is that the protective effect was more pronounced in regions where there was a large community of similar people i.e ghettos. The other interesting finding from this study was that the cultural protective affect seem to apply to women more than men, in other words, women adopted their behaviour to group norms more than men. *


These findings were also demonstrated in a very good Australian study, which showed that being of a Mediterranean background was very protective with regard to divorce. The  Meditteranian effect dwarfs all other typical sociological considerations with the exception of maternal employment.

*Just a brief word about maternal employment.  Female employment is highly correlated with divorce but the Australian authors (quite rightly) seem more circumspect with regard to its relationship when compared to American ones. Anecdotally, I grew up in a large Mediterranean immigrant community. In my little bit of the world, the Italian mothers hardly ever worked outside the home, the Croatian mothers nearly all worked in factories and the Greek mothers were 50/50. Divorce in all communities was rare.  I also didn't know what people used for contraception but most families had only two kids.

Now if the Pill, no-fault laws and maternal employment were all causative factors with regard to divorce why do people from Mediterranean cultures seems so powerfully resistant to these corrosive effects when exposed to them?

Briefly, Mediterranean cultures are far less individualistic and see the individual as not only having rights but as also having obligations, especially when it comes to family.  Divorce, even when easily available, is not an option they will choose.

On the other hand, people from  North Western European cultures will take the option when it is available.

I personally don't think that the 60's were a period of cultural revolution, rather it was period of institutional revolution.  The culture had changed well before then and it was a time when the institutions of the land finally caught up with the popular will of the people.  The reason why the whole traditional edifice came tumbling down so rapidly once the floodgates were open is because its foundations were rotten.  The people had already given up on traditional morality and its guise was only maintained by the coercion of the state.  The fact that the Pill made its appearance at the same time is a classic case of correlation rather than causation. It was culture, not the Pill, which drove the divorce epidemic.

*In another interesting paper, aptly titled Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Unless Everyone Else is Doing it Too: Social Network Effects on Divorce in a Longitudinal Sample Followed for 32 Years shows just how pernicious peer group norms are at promoting particular behaviours.

More Promiscuity Data.

Back in 2010 Anthony Paik published a study which received widespread media attention at the time. The findings were "spun" in such a way to show that casual hookups could lead to successful long term relationships. Susan Walsh had a look at it and found that the media reporting was quite biased, but this is to be expected, as selective reading of the findings were supportive of the liberal social script.

He did manage to get another study published in 2011, however, the findings in this one could not be spun so easily and hence the media gave it only a nominal amount of  coverage.

Titled, Adolescent Sexuality and The Risk of Marital Dissolution, the study attempted to find out whether adolescent sex was a risk factor working against long term marital stability, and if it was, whether the effect was causal or selective. The paper is available from here. (You can get the .pdf at the site)

The science of Slutology is still in its infant stages and Paik acknowledges that there have been very few studies done.  He lists the previous work in the area and some of the mentioned papers have been presented on this blog previously.

Only four nationally representative studies have examined whether premarital sexual experiences are linked to divorce (Heaton, 2002; Kahn & London, 1991; Laumann et al., 1994; Teachman, 2003). Nevertheless, the core finding—the association between premarital sex and increased risks of divorce—is robust[Ed]. Teachman (2003) found that women who had sex only with their future husbands did not have higher risks of marital dissolution, which suggests that the premarital-sex effect on divorce is related primarily to having sex with multiple partners

Now the question that Paik wanted to answer is whether premarital sex made a good woman risk or whether risky women engaged in premarital sex.

Despite the many contributions of prior research, there is a need for an approach that distinguishes between selection and causation explanations and that focuses attention on whether the timing and unwantedness of adolescent sexuality are linked to divorce.

He looked at the sexual histories of approximately 3,800 women taken from the 2002 U.S. National Survey of Family Growth and crunched the numbers. You can read about the methodology in the paper but the important findings are as follows:

• Women who had unwanted first sex were at increased risk of divorce.
• Women who had sex prior to 16 years of age were at increased risk of divorce, regardless of whether the sex was wanted or not.
• Women who had sex after 16 were not at greater risk of divorce if they had only ever slept with one man. Once they had slept with more than one they were at increased risk of divorce.
• He was able to pretty much replicate Teachman's findings that the increased rate of divorce amongst co-habitors is due to their multiple partner count. Note: He also replicated guest commentator Intrepid's finding that virgin brides are the safest bet of all.
• Finally, his findings support the hypothesis that having multiple partners exerts some sort of effect on a woman that increases her risk of divorce.  Women who are prone to divorce are not born but are made that way:

My results support the argument that observed linkages between adolescent sexual debut and marital disruption is one not of selectivity but of changes in beliefs and attitudes about marriage and relationships that result directly and indirectly from these [Ed: Multiple Sexual]experiences.

and

I have argued that these formative sexual experiences directly change attitudes toward marriage and sex or lead to these changes indirectly through later life-course transitions, such as the accumulation of sexual histories or
experiencing premarital fertility.

Now Paik cautiously advocates that this is only a tentative conclusion and that more work needs to be done. I personally think that Paik wasn't too happy with the findings either. Throughout the work there appears to be a grudging acknowledgment of the effect of multiple sexual partners on divorce risk. Most sociology professors are liberal but he is to be commended on letting the chips fall where they may.

No one, of course, has yet been able to explain the rock solid association between premarital virginity and decreased risk of divorce.  These women, either through partner choice or personal quality have "something" which protects them against life's vicissitudes. No "scientific" explanation is yet forthcoming. Yet for the non-virginal, the bulk of data available seems to indicate a positive correlation between partner count and divorce. I can't but help but think of GBFM, and wonder if promiscuity is a mechanism of desoulment . It's a good an explanation as any.

Note. I can hear the bleating of Left already.

I know that correlation is not causation but the whole point of looking for correlations is that there is a likelihood of finding causation as well. For years the risk of smoking was only correlated to the risk of lung cancer. Tobacco companies for years denied the link and it was only in the late 1990's that a direct mechanism was demonstrated.  Feminists and Leftists will, with same logic of tobacco company lawyers, attempt to do the same. I am not attempting to convince them. Logic and empirical evidence are no use to people who practice cognitive dissonance as a voluntary habit.

Brendan, Dalrock and Sluts. (NSFW)

Commentator Brendan is one of the more thoughtful commentators on the internet and I have a great deal of respect for him.  Over at Dalrock's, there has been a discussion going on with regard to what constitutes sluthood and Brendan chimed in with his thoughts on the matter:

On the “what is a slut” issue, the question really isn’t about a numerical cutoff, which is why that’s generally an unfruitful way of looking at the question. A slut is someone who has an instrumental view of sexuality — that is, one who views sex in a hedonistic way for the most part. A person with this mentality towards sex will not link sex with marriage exclusively, because the view of sex is distorted and based on hedonic elements which we all know can well occur outside of marriage as well. That is, sex is about two (or more) human beings collaborating physically to bring each other sexual pleasure, and this is a “good” in and of itself as long as ‘enthusiastic consent’ is present. That is an instrumental/hedonist view of sexuality, and is the sine qua non of being a slut.

While I personally agree with a lot of Brendan's views, I disagree with his reasoning on this one. Now, I do think the number of previous partners does matter, and to be fair to Brendan, he does counsel that men avoid women who have high numbers, but the executive summary of his view seems to be that number does not mater as much as "women who think sex can occur justifiably outside of marriage". I think that this is good practical advice but the problem occurs when we get to the woman who's view of sex has changed and the the real problem is how to deal with the "reformed slut". It's a bit like the reformed alcoholic or drug addict, despite their protestations how do we know they aren't going to lapse into their former ways? Real life experience shows that many do.

The whole "my previous number doesn't matter" argument frequently touted by feminists is premised on the assumption that sexual continence is easy and its just a matter of being a simple choice.

It isn't.

The pleasures of the flesh, like the bottle, are source of temptation to many people. Lot's of good Christian people, who live in fear of the Lord, go to Church regularly and believe that sex is exclusively reserved for marriage, have been caught up in affairs. It's a stock staple for atheists to snicker when some Christian Pastor is caught In flagrante delicto, and attribute to hypocrisy what is in reality an act of weakness.   When it comes to the practice of virtue, philosophy is less important than habit.

This is what I think is the weak point in Brendan's argument, sluthood becomes a philosophical position instead of moniker of actual promiscuity. I mean, take the example of feminist who has only ever slept with one man. Is she is a slut? Her view of sex may be instrumental but common sense would say no. The other problem with Brendan's approach is that is that it tends to de-emphasis the importance of the actual number count, which this blog has shown before to be a far better predictor of both divorce and infidelity.

Now, it is a well known fact that co-habiting couples have higher rates of both infidelity and divorce  should they eventually decided to marry. For years the conventional wisdom was that this fact was attributable to the more liberal philosophy of the co-habitors.  A study done by Teachman, which I have linked to previously, dispelled that theory;

The results presented in this article replicate findings from previous research: Women who cohabit prior to marriage or who have premarital sex have an increased likelihood of marital disruption. Considering the joint effects of premarital cohabitation and premarital sex, as well as histories of premarital relationships, extends previous research. The most salient finding from this analysis is that women whose intimate premarital relationships are limited to their husbands—either premarital sex alone or premarital cohabitation—do not experience an increased risk of divorce. It is only women who have more than one intimate premarital relationship who have an elevated risk of marital disruption. This effect is strongest for women who have multiple premarital coresidental unions. These findings are consistent with the notion that premarital sex and cohabitation have become part of the normal courtship pattern in the United States. They do not indicate selectivity on characteristics linked to the risk of divorce and do not provide couples with experiences that lessen the stability of marriage.

In other words, the risk of divorce did not depend on a person's sexual philosophy, rather, what mattered is the actual number of partners they had. Teachman showed that liberal women who were not slutty were good bets.

Now, common sense would dictate that a woman who embraces a hedonistic philosophy is probably going to be a bad bet compared to woman with a more overtly Christian approach. But this graph below will show you just how little comfort you can take from that line of reasoning.

The data was taken from this paper, The Benefits of Religious Worship, by the Marriage and Religion Research Institute. They didn't do a breakdown of the different denominations in this paper, and so I imagine the conservative Christians are lumped together with the liberal ones. Frankly, I'm surprised that 4.33 is the average for weekly attenders as I thought it would be much less (I imagine the pious divorcees distort the figure). But there you go. Viva La Sexual Revolution!

Having a Christian philosophy helps but it is no guarantee against carousel riding, and even your apparently averagely pious Christian girl has gone for a quick spin. But what is evident though, is the more seriously she takes the faith the lower the partner count.  But Philosophy doesn't matter nearly as much as practice, because the greater the number of partners the greater the risk of divorce. All the studies show that a zero previous partner count is the safest bet. N matters.

The other problem with the "philosophical approach" to the definition of a slut is that it supports the bad theology of what commentator at Darock's blog called "sloppy seconds agape." The idea here is that once a woman professes her love for Jesus and repudiates her wicked past she suddenly becomes a good catch. The "theology" can be briefly summed up as "Because Jesus forgave sinners you should marry them even if they don't appeal to you". Any quite prudent reservations with regard to her marriage worthiness are dismissed as a lack of charity or too much judgement(with all the negative Christian connotations that it brings). The philosophy of Sloppy Seconds Agape conflates forgiveness with imprudence and thrives in the church's where goodness is equated with niceness. The well meaning but naive Christian young man is a sheep amongst wolves in this crowd. All forms of psychological pressure and dubious theological argument will be put on him to "man up". He will be made to feel guilty for having sensible reservations. Scripture will be quoted to make him feel bad. Appeals will be made to his chivalry.

Six years later he'll be paying alimony and seeing the kids every two weeks.

As a Christian, I do realise people change. God's grace is transformative and I don't want to write off men and women who are honestly trying to make a change. I've known many women who have had torrid pasts and did their best to try and escape it by living good lives and being stable partners. I know players who realise that the lifestyle was damaging them and have opted out. People do change. But the habit of virtue is more important than the philosophy of it.  Before a man (or woman) invests their future, and their children's future in a spouse, a degree of prudence  and common sense is required. Actions speak louder than words.

Once again, I've got the highest respect for Brendan but I disagree with him on this one.

The ideal of the Gentleman.

John Henry Newman was an academic and Church of England priest who eventually ended up being a Catholic Cardinal. His importance in today's post is in this passage from his work The Idea of a University. The passage is important because it probably best illustrates Victorian England's ideal of a gentleman. I've underlined some of the important bits.

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast; — all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets every thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blunder. [From The Idea of a University, 1852]

Newman's idea of a gentleman has lost the power of self assertion, he simply rolls over when challenged and never dreams of challenging.  How does such a man respond to a challenge?

Some men are born beta by temperament, but others are educated into betahood. The cultural meme which facilitates this transformation is the Idea of the Gentleman. Victorian England, and its ideals, still exert a powerful influence on Anglo/Nordic culture, particularly the culture of the middle class. Now, by middle class, I don't mean economic middle class, but cultural middle class; the strata of society from which most of the thinking is done in the Anglo/Nordic world. In order to be admitted to this class, to be "one of us", a man has to adopt the habits and behaviours of such a gentleman in order to be classed as a full member. It's true that the modern gentleman is not as calm and effacing as perhaps Newman illustrates, but the emphasis on getting along and being non-offensive is still of pre-eminent importance.

It pretty obvious what happens when a shrieking harpie collides with a polite middle class man or woman. The shrieking harpie wins.

Always.

The problem with the cultural ideal of gentlemanly behaviour is that it is especially vulnerable to the "offended victim" attack. The attack is particularly devious in its effectiveness as it relies on a three prong psychological approach to destroy its opponent. Firstly, if he is of genuine good will, he will be horrified that he has caused offence and genuinely be contrite for his actions, self-censoring himself for the indiscretion. Effectively, though policing himself.  Secondly, the Gentleman victim of the attack is made to feel as if he has acted as in culturally inferior sort of way, marking him out as one of the declasse, especially if there is a strong "redneck like" like association with his gaffe.  His efforts to maintain social standing lead him to immediately apologise. Should the victim doubt his sincerity he will redouble his efforts just to maintain social standing. Thirdly,with most modern left wing social causes are on the nose with the proles, their support of our hapless gentleman will further prove his prole associations.  Support of the NRA does not win you approval with the SWPL crowd.

Traditionalists take note.

Now, with regard to the proles, their simplicity and lack of "gentlemanly manners" gives them a certain forthrightness which conservative commentators mistake as some form "native goodness" which it isn't. It also leads to some conservatives having suspicions of the refined and cultured life; seeing high culture as a corruption of simplistic rustic goodness. However, the conservatives with prole sympathies seem to forget that the aversion to gay perversion is not moral but aesthetic. Their psychological revulsion to homosexuality is as animalistic as their embrace of heterosexual promiscuity. Their innate morality is biologically utilitarian and their support or opposition to any cause is in proportion to its agreement with their biological desire. Joe average is not necessarily the Conservative's friend.

Promiscuity Data: Guest Post.

A while after putting up my first post of subject of promiscuity and divorce risk, I was contacted by an individual who wished to analyse the data further. That individual, whom I shall call INTREPID, was able to analyse several cycles of data from the National Survey of Family Growth with regard to the promiscuity effect on the risk of divorce.

As far as I'm aware the data that has been obtained is not available anywhere in the published literature. I'm not a statistician and cannot vouch for the veracity of the data but I believe the analysis was done truthfully and without bias. 

I want to publicly thank INTREPID for performing the task. I've had access to the findings for a while and have decided not to post them till now so that no trace could be linked to INTREPID. (The other reason was that I lost access to the account which contained the data and only recently was able to gain access to it) 

INTREPID provided a report on his findings which I reproduce in full below.

**********************************************************************************

Following up on your post regarding the Heritage Foundation Study, I thought to explore the same
National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) data and see if there’s more to the story. I think there is. Like the Heritage Foundation, I find a negative relationship between non‐marital sex and marital stability, but the relationship is more complex than the Heritage Study leads one to think. In particular, the effect of the number of pre‐marital sex partners on marital stability isn’t linear. Rather, it’s a U‐shaped relationship and invites some further exploration.

For starters, the chart below simply reproduces a finding from the Heritage Foundation study. I use the same axis definitions (as best I can tell) that the Heritage Foundation used (for the 1995 NSFG data). But I now add to it two further waves of the NSFG data (2002 and 2006/2008). The pattern is the same across study waves. An increase in the number of non‐marital lifetime sex partners is related to less marital stability. 



I should point out that my data display for 1995 is slightly different from that reported by the Heritage Foundation. I suspect the difference arises in how “sexually active” is defined. I defined it as ever having had sex. It’s not clear how the Heritage Foundation Study defined it. However, I’ve got some gripes with the above axis and definitions used by the Heritage Foundation. For example, the vertical axis showing “stable” marriages includes some marriages that I wouldn’t consider to be “stable.” Also, the horizontal axis includes some sexual relationships that, in my opinion, are unlikely to be clear  causes of marital instability but might instead be the effect of instability. Specifically…,

• Per the Heritage Foundation’s definition of “stable marriages”, second or third marriages that go on to last five or more years (at the time of the NSFG interview) would be considered “stable”. That is,  the Y‐axis could include some women who have divorced at some point and are poor representatives of “marital stability.”

• It’s likely not a big issue (nor is likely to correlate with non‐marital partner count), but marriages that ended with the death of a husband would fail to count towards the Heritage Foundation’s definition of a “stable marriage”.

• The causal direction isn’t clear. Women who have left a marriage (leaving the pool of those in “stable” marriage) may have increased their non‐marital partner count after leaving the marriage, not before the marriage or during it. A knee‐jerk interpretation of the chart, however, suggests that a high number of non‐marital partners leads to marital instability. Yet it may be that a rise in the number non‐marital lifetime partners follows marital instability. Once divorced, women might sleep around more.

• By looking at the count of non‐marital lifetime sexual partners, we count the sexual episodes of women who perhaps got married as virgin brides, then divorced and subsequently slept around before entering into a “stable” marriage (i.e., one lasting five or more years). From the viewpoint of one desiring to minimize his chances of ever experiencing divorce, looking at the number of non‐marital lifetime partners isn’t perfectly helpful. One ought to instead look at the number of pre‐marital sex partners and the rate of first marriages ending in divorce or separation. This is what Jay Teachman looked at in his paper: first marriages that ended in divorce or separation (marital dissolution)

So, for a more careful look at the effect of extra‐marital partner on marriage success, I create Chart 2 that focuses on divorce outcome (vertical axis) rather than the broader concept of a “marital stability” Specifically, Chart 2 below looks at the effect of non‐marital lifetime partner count (same horizontal axis as above) on the rate of first marriages ending in divorce at the time of the NSFG interview. In other words, and compared with Chart 1, the below excludes those women who may have been  divorced and then re‐entered back into a “stable” marriage by the time of their NSFG survey interview. The pattern looks very similar to that in Chart 1 (albeit reflected since the measure is marital divorce rather than marital stability). 
 

For an even further revelation, I create Chart 3 which improves upon the horizontal axis as well as the vertical one. The vertical axis is the same as in Chart 2 and looks at the rate of first marriages ending in divorce (same outcome measure that Teachman looked at). But the horizontal axis now groups women by their count of pre‐marital sexual partners as opposed to lifetime non‐marital sex partners:

 


This tells a different story from that in Chart 1. In my opinion, Chart 3 is more helpful than the  Heritage Foundation chart as it permits one to come closer to drawing a causal connection between partner counts marital outcomes. The most interesting element in Chart 3 is the U‐shaped relationship between pre‐marital partner count and divorce rates. This surprised me so much that I had to chart the 2002 NSFG data alongside to be  certain that the 2006/08 data wasn’t just a fluke, a sampling artifact. This chart most clearly shows that divorce rates are the lowest for those with zero pre‐marital partners. That part is unambiguous. Virgin brides are the least likely to divorce, all else equal. But why do  divorce rates rise with one or two premarital partners only to reverse and drop after two or more sexual partners? And next, why do divorce rates reverse and climb back up after the pre‐marital partner count goes into the double digits?

This is a very interesting finding that neither the Heritage Foundation Study nor Jay Teachman’s hazard model analysis examine. I’m not even sure they’re aware the relationship exists. I’m anxious to hear reader opinions on the drivers here. My own hypothesis is that a higher partner count (up to 5‐9 or so partners) is correlated with age and maturity in dating experience. Older women, and women with more dating experience, are more likely to have learned which personal qualities will work best for them in a marriage partner. As a result, such women choose more wisely and tend to experience lower divorce rates. Now, it also happens to be the case that older women have had more time and occasion for pre‐marital sex! Specifically, I suspect it’s not the 5‐9 pre‐marital sex partner count per se that drives the relative drop in the divorce rates, but rather it’s the maturity and experience that women have acquired while they’ve dated more men.

It’s too bad the NSFG doesn’t have a variable for something along the lines of “pre‐marital dating experience” or something similar to tease this out. I don’t believe that it does. The NSFG does, however, collect age and education data which I’ll look at in a future analysis. Indeed, my own quick look (not charted here) reveals that the age is positively correlated with partner count, offering some support of a dating maturity hypothesis. But it warrants some additional charts and analysis. …But this idea of partner count as a proxy for dating maturity doesn’t hold forever. On the right‐hand side of Chart 3, I suspect that some women with a high double‐digit pre‐marital partner count begin to make poor marriage candidates due to yet other personality traits. I suspect that some women who have had 21+ marital partners may also have a high need for variety‐seeking across mates such that marriage or settling down with one man might be considered boring. A resulting marriage, if it happens, is less likely to last.

To further understand partner count on divorce outcome, I need to show yet one more data result. The question I have is: does the divorce rate for women change if her pre‐marital sex partner becomes, in fact, her later husband? If one sleeps with one’s (otherwise virgin) female fiancé prior to the wedding, what’s the effect?

The table below contains the answer. I build this from the 2006/08 data (the 2002 data show a similar result). One can see that the divorce rate is nearly 50% for women who had only one pre‐marital partner and if that partner did not develop into her husband. The divorce rate falls to half the above rate (25.6%) if a woman later marries her first and only pre‐marital sex partner. However, both these divorce rates are higher than the divorce rate for virgin brides. Pre‐marital sexual experience with one’s future spouse does not beat out having no pre‐marital sex at all.

 

Distilling all the above, the practical advice for a single woman seeking to lower the risk of her first marriage ending in divorce is to remain a virgin bride. If she sleeps with even one person, her risk of divorce increases, at the very least, by roughly 10% (from 14.9% to a value of 25.6%). …And it could easily go higher. Indeed, her overall divorce risk could jump to 50%—which is higher than any value shown in Chart 3—if she doesn’t marry her first partner (and assuming she doesn’t go on to sleep with other pre‐marital partners). And moving on to sleeping with two or more pre‐marital partners doesn’t ameliorate her likely divorce rate over that of her having zero pre‐marital partners. The best option for a women seeking to lower her divorce risk is to remain a virgin bride (all else equal).

The practical advice from the man’s perspective is only a little less clear. A man never truly knows if  his dating partner is a virgin or not unless he sleeps with her—at which point he would only know that she’s not a virgin. (Sleeping with someone to determine their virginity is a destructive test!) But by definition, a man’s own risk of divorce is connected to his wife’s risk of divorce. Therefore, if he  suspects the woman he’s dating is a virgin, his risk of divorce (just like his wife’s) is lower if he  doesn’t have premarital sex with her and she remains a virgin bride. The question is what to do if he strongly suspects (or if she admits) that he wouldn’t be her first pre‐marital sexual partner. If she’s had just one pre‐marital sexual partner, then Chart 3 suggests that her risk of divorcing him is lower if he becomes her second pre‐marital partner (a roughly 40% divorce risk) than if she has sex with just one pre‐marital partner who isn’t her eventual husband (a 50% divorce risk as found from the Table). One could perhaps extend this logic to the case of a man considering a potential wife who’s had two, three, or even more pre‐marital sexual partners. However, the NSFG doesn’t collect the data needed to  extend the Table above and confirm. Besides, this train of thought related to a male’s pre‐marital sex  strategy sounds like an unfolding “tragedy of the commons” type problem. (The strategy that might be  optimum from a personal standpoint is sub‐optimal once everyone tries to pursue it. ) …In addition, we don’t yet know the effect of the husband’s pre‐marital sexual history on divorce outcomes. That  could have a bearing. These male data on divorce and pre‐marital sex are in the 2002 and 2006/08 NSFG and I’ll be looking at those data in the future.

********************************************************************************

Some comments:

The first thing that strikes me about this report is the confirmation that no premarital sexual experience powerfully and significantly lowers the risk of subsequent divorce. Whether or not you agree with the sexual revolution, I don't care, rather, it's that repeated analysis of the data confirms what common wisdom has always asserted; marrying a girl who has not slept around before is the best long term bet from a divorce-avoidance point of view.

Secondly, some of INTREPID's findings seem to contradict. In the last table, INTREPID  indicates that should a woman sleep with one pre-marital partner who later does not become her husband, her risk of divorce increases to near 50%, ye,t the 1 previous partner divorce risk, in chart 3, is listed at somewhere near 35%. If INTREPID can provide an explanation I can be contacted through the usual channels.

Thirdly, the Heritage Study is vindicated. Women who sleep around are far less likely to be in stable relationships.

Fourthly, The U Shaped graph is interesting:

• I would go with the 2006/8 Figures more than previous ones. I understand that it was only in this cycle that ACASI interviewing was used. Here a computer prompts the questions and the responder enters the data into it. This way there is very limited face to face contact with the questioner and hence, the responder gains a greater degree of anonymity. Previous research has shown that women are prone to give "socially acceptable" responses when interviewed by a real life interviewer as opposed to answering anonymously.
•  The graph is not controlled for age of marriage.  Girls who marry early will have less sexual experience than girls who marry much later. Age at marriage is a big predictor of divorce and  I imagine that the one to two non-marital partners category is inflated because of this effect.  It would be interesting to see what the age at divorce would be in this  group.

Other reader comments are invited.

Once again, a sincere thanks to INTREPID for all his/her work.

Sexual History Divorce Risk II: Addendum

I just wanted to put up some more data from the previously mentioned Scientific paper in response to a comment by TDOM.

There may be other factors than attractiveness involved in why older women have fewer partners. They may be busy putting working in order to put children through college, or just taking care of children may scare the men away, they may find men their age less attractive, or perhaps their sex drive declines, menopause, or their marriage may have put them off men. But being less attractive does sound good as an explanation.

The first thing that we notice from the data is that having children at home seems to only marginally decrease the odds of having two or more partners in the last twelve months. Secondly, compared to the never married, we notice that divorcee's are over twice as likely to be riding the carousel, and more than five times more likely than the cohabiting; divorcee's seem sexually willing.

What we also see is a drop off in the partner count as women get older.  Now, it's true that this may be due to female factors independent of attractiveness, and I imagine dating burnout is a factor, but menopause is not an issue, since most women enter menopause in their late 40's and the data suggests that child caring is only a small component of this decline.

But the common lament amongst the femmentariat is that men don't want to commit, or in other words, there are suitable males who want women for sex but not marriage. This implies that women are pursuing men with the "if I give him sex he will marry me" strategy. Therefore, it is not female choosiness that is limiting sexual activity but male choice.

I imagine that there are two factors at play. Firstly, amongst the pool of men that are unmarried, they can be divided into the sexually attractive and unattractive. Secondly, as the sexually unattractive males are "invisible" to women seeking a mate, this means that divorcee's must compete with remaining pool of attractive males. The relative scarcity of attractive men and the surfeit of divorced women mean that it is men who exercise mating choice. The older women are getting less hit upon.

What I find most interesting however is the data listing the odds of having five or more partners by age group. Most of the women who've clocked up five or more notches have done it by their late 20's. Does having so many when they are young destroy some ability to bond. We all know that the children from divorcees have a higher divorce rate, but perhaps promiscuity, too, somehow destroys the commitment capability.

Sexual History Divorce Risk II

A scientific paper that may be of interest to men who frequent this corner of the blogosphere is  Divorce and Sexual Risk Among U.S. Women: Findings from the National Survey of Family Growth. Published in the Journal of Women's Health, in November 2011, the statistical findings were based on the 2002 cycle of National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) involving 5800 women.

The authors of the study set out to fill a gap in the the literature with regard to the sexual behaviour of divorces and single adult women for the purposes of disease prevention. i.e the authors did not have some religious or social policy axe to grind. The paper is very interesting because it seems to be the first scientific paper to acknowledge a clear correlation between the risk of divorce and sexual risk.

Our study has several limitations. The data are cross-sectional and thus only correlative. We cannot conclude that divorce causes increased sexual risk any more than we can suggest that sexual risk causes divorce. The relationship exists, and further studies should focus on causal relationships between the two.

I think that the authors are being modest.

The study first cites other research which gives the rate of marital dissolution in the U.S to be 20% at 5 years,  33% at 10 years and 43% at 15 years. This "baseline" divorce rate is important in understanding subsequent findings. Secondly, they also cite research which shows that the probability of a divorce woman remarrying is 54%, this too, is important. Also important that the mean age of marriage for women is 25.3 years.

Now the authors divided women firstly into two groups. Those who had five or more partners and those who had four or less. (n=4 being the average number of partners a U.S. woman had at the time of NSFG study)


Then they divided the women according to their marital status. Separating women into four groups. Those who were never married, those who were co-habitating,  those who were currently divorced, and those who were currently married (including those who remarried).

What I've done here is plot the "natural divorce rate" against the statistical findings of the "5 or more lifetime partner group".

The first thing we see that if a woman has five or more life time partners, she is more more likely to be never married,  cohabiting or  divorced  than married. Now remember, the married group includes women who have remarried. So the actual number of women who have never been divorced is actually smaller than what is indicated on the graph.

Secondly, the NSFG obtained data from women who were between 25-44 years of age The authors of the paper did not list the average length of marriage in the group, but since the mean age of marriage is 25 years of age, it would be safe to expect (using the worst case figures)that 43% of marriages should have dissolved at the based upon the 'background" divorce rate.  Now, if promiscuity is not related in any way to divorce there should be no significant variation from the natural divorce rate, and yet, what we see  in the "five or more group" only 37% of women married (and this includes the remarriages) instead of 57%. (Based upon a rough "back of envelope" calculation, I estimate that roughly 20% of the "five or more" group have never been divorced) Something quite real is going on here.

It gets worse.

When you look at all the married women (i.e including those with four or less partners) women with five or more partners were 70% less likely to be married.

The study authors noted that the two groups of women did not appear to differ in any other meaningful way apart from partner count. Regardless of what anyone's position on social issues is there is a real phenomenon going on here. Number count does seem to matter. That's not to say that a woman who has had five or more lovers is unable to form a stable marriage, approximately 20-30% do, it's just how do you pick? Is it worth the risk? Do you want to put your kids through it? Now presumably, in a significant portion of marriages it was the men who instituted the divorce, but that does not explain  the huge variation in divorce rates based on partner count.

Finally, the authors were able to extract another interesting piece of data which I will call the "carousel index".

It's a quantitative measure in the decline of sexual market value. The near exponential decline in attractiveness is quantifiable.

Whittaker Chambers: Epilogue.

Whittaker Chambers died in 1961, never completing his epilogue to Witness. After his death, his wife and his friend Duncan Norton-Taylor,  rummaged through his correspondence and papers and collated some of them into the book Cold Friday, which I imagine was their attempt to finish what Chambers eventually meant to do. The book received some moderate praise from the right but overall it received a lukewarm reception, and like Chambers, was quickly forgotten.

The rejection of Chambers on the Left is easy to understand, as the Left's ideological position is based on the rejection of God. Of course there are many Christian Leftists, but that is simply to acknowledge that there are many stupid Christians who are unable to follow a train of thought to its logical conclusion. The real worry is why Chambers is effectively ignored by the Right.

It's my opinion that Chambers failure to gain traction on the right stems from the fact that Chambers was preaching a message no one wanted to hear: The West was dying because it turned it's back on God. This of course is an incomprehensible and in fact repugnant message to the majority of men, of both Left and Right, who view the world through the twin lenses of Positivism and moral relativism(i.e uncritical tolerance).  The sad fact of the matter is that the majority of the Right is just as Positivist as the Left, where they differ is on how best to implement their vision of a better society.

Lip service is given to the religious "fundies" of the right, but essentially every social reform that has weakened Western society, divorce, promiscuity, abortion, sexual license, militant feminism, multiculturalism etc, have not been checked, even when Conservatives have achieved power. The fact of the matter is that for many conservatives these things don't matter. All that matters is the economy (materialism) the rest is window dressing. Religious invocations for most Righties are practically irrelevant if not repugnant. The modern Right is part of the disease.

The thrust of Chambers message is that there will be no revival of the West until men turn back to God and Chambers's value lays in showing why this is so. However a  return to traditionalism will not suffice since its inability to react to the technological and social changes of the late 19th and Early 20th Centuries was intrinsic to the turning away from God in those times and in the embracement of ultimately ruinous ideologies.

Whilst Chambers felt that he left Communism to join "the losing side" it appears that he did not loose all hope.  Amongst his papers was found what is presumed to be the forward to the book he never wrote:

Spring has come to us again-a spring that I scarcely expected to see. Twice at night the wild geese have passed over. There may have been three such flights, since one night I dreamed that I saw hundreds flying overhead, so in the way we bear so much without ever quite waking to its meaning, I may have heard these wild geese honking without waking. The first flight, the venturesome, was small and the cries so faint that I was scarcely certain at first that I heard even them. The second flight was much bigger and so loud that I roused up, and I saw my wife already standing, listening, in the moonlight at the window. I said: "You hear the wild geese?" and fell asleep again. So my wife and I learned that, somewhat unaccountably, we had lived into another spring.

I began this book deliberately with spring as the point of resurging life because this is a book, in general, about death-the death of an age and the death of a man and what relationship, if any, the experiences bear to each other.

Chambers felt that the West could survive, but only if it returned to its religious roots, and he was under no illusion of how impossible the task seemed. He certainly offered no solutions or plan. The task then of the modern conservative is then to rebuild the temple which he must first do within himself. As the Master said:

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.