4 ms·

Premarital sex: An economic model of its rise and de-stigmatisation

42 points by daniel-cussen 17y ago

daniel-cussen 17y ago
> For example, 69% of all criminal cases in New Haven between 1710 and 1750 were for premarital sex. Once upon a time, making love to a woman meant spinning the pregnancy wheel. In this metaphor, you get a 10% chance of a baby if you have sex with a maiden fair (it can go as high as 1 in 3 if both parties are very fertile, i.e. teenagers), times the 70% failure rate, times her chances of establishing you were the father (depends on her status, your status, and if your looks are distinctive; call it %50), times 50% because you are only giving it half of its genes. So, overall, you are getting a ~1.75% increase in presence just by having sex. You stood an equal chance of ruining her life, of course. Right now we are probably going to see people like sex less and less as time goes on, because the payout in pleasure does not match the new equation, which takes abortions, contraceptives (but also DNA tests), into account. Now it looks more like this: - odds she can become pregnant (10%) - odds she can prove you're the dad (0-100%, 0 if she's married and in on the con, 100% if she has the means and determination for a DNA test. Depends on the situation, but can be determined beforehand.) - odds the pregnancy fails or is prevented (70-100%, again depends on whether protection is used, she is pro-life, or pro-choice, or whatever. Possible to determine beforehand.) - genetic contribution (50%) We get to 0-5%, but the main difference is that now a lot of factors can be determined beforehand. An affair with a married woman gets you a %5 increase in presence a time, topping out at 50% per child who, again, you won't be responsible for. We're essentially talking free points here. On the other hand, a college student you met at an abortion rally is probably not going have that baby. Over time, the first scenario is going to be more desirable than the second, but this will become harder with time as married men demand DNA tests of their children. Eventually, sex will become about cuddling and intimacy, rather than the sufficient condition for reproduction for men.
- dhume 17y ago
  You stood an equal chance of ruining her life, of course. I would say you'd have had a greater chance of ruining her life than of ruining your own -- while the father may remain unidentified, the mother generally cannot >_>
  - sp332 17y ago
    "Mama's baby, Daddy's maybe"
- theBobMcCormick 17y ago
  I'm not sure I'm following the tortured logic here. Are you saying people will "like sex less and less as time goes on" because they're less likely to have an unintentional pregnancy? That makes no sense at all! It seems to me that the article linked to in the post makes a fairly compelling economic case that sexual promiscuity will continue to increase in the future. IMHO, that's a good thing. :-)
  - daniel-cussen 17y ago
    Are you saying people will "like sex less and less as time goes on" because they're less likely to have an unintentional pregnancy? Yes. It's the Red Queen effect here; your mind works with incentives that one must not be able to permanently conquer. If happiness is too easily attained with fake thrills, you end up with contented humans who don't reproduce as much as the ones who find it harder to be happy and therefore work harder to make more babies. I agree the free love thing is great, and it will remain vestigially for a long time, but it isn't going to be driving reproduction like it was before the twentieth century. I agree the logic is a little tortured, but that's evolutionary biology for you.
    - Eliezer 17y ago
      But evolution doesn't know its being cheated. There has to be some way for people who like sex less to end up with more children.
      - orangecat 17y ago
        There has to be some way for people who like sex less to end up with more children. It's somewhat plausible. Individuals and couples who like sex more than average may be more likely to forgo having children to avoid negatively impacting their sex lives.
    - btilly 17y ago
      The logic of evolutionary biology can get tortured, particularly when someone missing something obvious is torturing it. The obvious point that you're missing is that evolutionary status and social status are pretty much unrelated things. Evolutionary status is how many descendants you have in the far future. Social status is what society thinks of you. In our evolutionary past the cost of being "ruined" was access to fewer resources, which lead to a decreased survival rate for you and your kids, and decreased prospects for future children. Today the result of out of wedlock pregnancies is more descendants since we all have sufficient resources for basic survival. The result is an evolutionary pressure towards avoiding the effective use of contraception, and for enjoying sex. This happy state is, of course, unlikely to remain for an evolutionarily significant time. The simple reason for that is that the continuation of this state will result in exponential growth in human population, leading to resource exhaustion and a Malthusian nightmare. (Current projections appear to show a halt to exponential growth due to economic and societal pressures. But that won't last more than a few generations as birth control creates a very strong evolutionary pressure for avoiding the effective use of birth control. Even modest success at that will reignite exponential growth.)
zokier 17y ago
The article seems to ignore completely steady couples that have chosen not to get married for some reason, but still have babies.
- petercooper 17y ago
  Related to that (and I can't believe Marie Claire is the best citation I can quickly finding), the head of a British "relationship charity" claims: "In a new analysis using census data, I found that 60% of families remain intact until their children are 15. Of these, 97% are married." Source: http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/439351/marriage-holds-the-key-to-keeping-families-together.html http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/439351/marriage-holds-the-...
johnl 17y ago
Reliable female birth control started in the 60s so the green graph should be normalize for that fact and you might get a better correlation.
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
sex being more freely available is negative for females hoping to trade their sexuality for financial security. when supply increases and demand stays the same price must decrease. in chaste victorian times a woman could expect to "buy" herself a decent husband with her virginity. (I realize its more complex than this)
- noarchy 17y ago
  Status and money can still be very important for a man, in terms of getting sex. It's just that these days, you're not necessarily buying marriage.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    which makes sense, because marriage was something of a guarantee in times when divorce was extremely stigmatized. it isn't really anything of the sort now, though I suppose there is alimony and child support.
    - dbz 17y ago
      You clearly aren't religious =p . In a very very large part of the world (a large amount of non-first-world-countries [if not all]) divorce is not ever going to happen. Arranged marriages happen. If a woman is raped, she will have to marry that man because religion may dictate it. These views aren't worldly at all. We should keep that in mind.
Enlightenment 17y ago
Poll - Best way to describe Sarah Palin? http://poll.pollcode.com/ZwY http://poll.pollcode.com/ZwY
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
Anyone else find figure 2 shocking? the basic conclusion seems to be that availablity of somewhat effective contraceptives lulls people into a false sense of security.

42 points by daniel-cussen 17y ago

> For example, 69% of all criminal cases in New Haven between 1710 and 1750 were for premarital sex. Once upon a time, making love to a woman meant spinning the pregnancy wheel. In this metaphor, you get a 10% chance of a baby if you have sex with a maiden fair (it can go as high as 1 in 3 if both parties are very fertile, i.e. teenagers), times the 70% failure rate, times her chances of establishing you were the father (depends on her status, your status, and if your looks are distinctive; call it %50), times 50% because you are only giving it half of its genes. So, overall, you are getting a ~1.75% increase in presence just by having sex. You stood an equal chance of ruining her life, of course. Right now we are probably going to see people like sex less and less as time goes on, because the payout in pleasure does not match the new equation, which takes abortions, contraceptives (but also DNA tests), into account. Now it looks more like this: - odds she can become pregnant (10%) - odds she can prove you're the dad (0-100%, 0 if she's married and in on the con, 100% if she has the means and determination for a DNA test. Depends on the situation, but can be determined beforehand.) - odds the pregnancy fails or is prevented (70-100%, again depends on whether protection is used, she is pro-life, or pro-choice, or whatever. Possible to determine beforehand.) - genetic contribution (50%) We get to 0-5%, but the main difference is that now a lot of factors can be determined beforehand. An affair with a married woman gets you a %5 increase in presence a time, topping out at 50% per child who, again, you won't be responsible for. We're essentially talking free points here. On the other hand, a college student you met at an abortion rally is probably not going have that baby. Over time, the first scenario is going to be more desirable than the second, but this will become harder with time as married men demand DNA tests of their children. Eventually, sex will become about cuddling and intimacy, rather than the sufficient condition for reproduction for men.

dhume 17y ago
You stood an equal chance of ruining her life, of course. I would say you'd have had a greater chance of ruining her life than of ruining your own -- while the father may remain unidentified, the mother generally cannot >_>
- sp332 17y ago
  "Mama's baby, Daddy's maybe"
theBobMcCormick 17y ago
I'm not sure I'm following the tortured logic here. Are you saying people will "like sex less and less as time goes on" because they're less likely to have an unintentional pregnancy? That makes no sense at all! It seems to me that the article linked to in the post makes a fairly compelling economic case that sexual promiscuity will continue to increase in the future. IMHO, that's a good thing. :-)
- daniel-cussen 17y ago
  Are you saying people will "like sex less and less as time goes on" because they're less likely to have an unintentional pregnancy? Yes. It's the Red Queen effect here; your mind works with incentives that one must not be able to permanently conquer. If happiness is too easily attained with fake thrills, you end up with contented humans who don't reproduce as much as the ones who find it harder to be happy and therefore work harder to make more babies. I agree the free love thing is great, and it will remain vestigially for a long time, but it isn't going to be driving reproduction like it was before the twentieth century. I agree the logic is a little tortured, but that's evolutionary biology for you.
  - Eliezer 17y ago
    But evolution doesn't know its being cheated. There has to be some way for people who like sex less to end up with more children.
    - orangecat 17y ago
      There has to be some way for people who like sex less to end up with more children. It's somewhat plausible. Individuals and couples who like sex more than average may be more likely to forgo having children to avoid negatively impacting their sex lives.
  - btilly 17y ago
    The logic of evolutionary biology can get tortured, particularly when someone missing something obvious is torturing it. The obvious point that you're missing is that evolutionary status and social status are pretty much unrelated things. Evolutionary status is how many descendants you have in the far future. Social status is what society thinks of you. In our evolutionary past the cost of being "ruined" was access to fewer resources, which lead to a decreased survival rate for you and your kids, and decreased prospects for future children. Today the result of out of wedlock pregnancies is more descendants since we all have sufficient resources for basic survival. The result is an evolutionary pressure towards avoiding the effective use of contraception, and for enjoying sex. This happy state is, of course, unlikely to remain for an evolutionarily significant time. The simple reason for that is that the continuation of this state will result in exponential growth in human population, leading to resource exhaustion and a Malthusian nightmare. (Current projections appear to show a halt to exponential growth due to economic and societal pressures. But that won't last more than a few generations as birth control creates a very strong evolutionary pressure for avoiding the effective use of birth control. Even modest success at that will reignite exponential growth.)

zokier 17y ago

The article seems to ignore completely steady couples that have chosen not to get married for some reason, but still have babies.

petercooper 17y ago
Related to that (and I can't believe Marie Claire is the best citation I can quickly finding), the head of a British "relationship charity" claims: "In a new analysis using census data, I found that 60% of families remain intact until their children are 15. Of these, 97% are married." Source: http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/439351/marriage-holds-the-key-to-keeping-families-together.html http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/439351/marriage-holds-the-...

johnl 17y ago

Reliable female birth control started in the 60s so the green graph should be normalize for that fact and you might get a better correlation.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

sex being more freely available is negative for females hoping to trade their sexuality for financial security. when supply increases and demand stays the same price must decrease. in chaste victorian times a woman could expect to "buy" herself a decent husband with her virginity. (I realize its more complex than this)

noarchy 17y ago
Status and money can still be very important for a man, in terms of getting sex. It's just that these days, you're not necessarily buying marriage.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  which makes sense, because marriage was something of a guarantee in times when divorce was extremely stigmatized. it isn't really anything of the sort now, though I suppose there is alimony and child support.
  - dbz 17y ago
    You clearly aren't religious =p . In a very very large part of the world (a large amount of non-first-world-countries [if not all]) divorce is not ever going to happen. Arranged marriages happen. If a woman is raped, she will have to marry that man because religion may dictate it. These views aren't worldly at all. We should keep that in mind.

Enlightenment 17y ago

Poll - Best way to describe Sarah Palin? http://poll.pollcode.com/ZwY http://poll.pollcode.com/ZwY

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

Anyone else find figure 2 shocking? the basic conclusion seems to be that availablity of somewhat effective contraceptives lulls people into a false sense of security.