Here’s a loaded question: Is casual sex immoral?

From Hester Prynne to Hobby Lobby, from our dorm-mates to our politicians, it’s an issue that’s sparked more than its fair share of fiery public debate (after all, we Americans are a judge-y people). A recent study done by researchers at Cornell and New York University summed it up this way: Casual sex is psychologically good for you if you if think it’s acceptable, but not if you don’t.

So the answer, clearly, depends on who’s being asked—but odds are that either way, they won’t feel tepid about it.

Your answer may depend, at least in part, on where your money comes from (if you’re a woman) or where it goes (if you’re a man). At least, that’s the argument of a paper recently published in The Archives of Sexual Behavior, which found that promiscuity—by both men and women—is more likely to be considered a moral violation in places where women are economically dependent on men.

Rumraket wrote:I honestly don't care about "other people's sex lives" other than in the sense that, with some certain people, I want to participate.

Besides that I don't care and never did.

Arnold Layne wrote:

Rumraket wrote:I honestly don't care about "other people's sex lives" other than in the sense that, with some certain people, I want to participate.

Besides that I don't care and never did.

The participants, all Americans ...

“Through moralizing,” the researchers wrote, “individuals can promote behavior which serves their own personal and coalitional interests.” Back in the day, judgment was a form of defense.

A third of Americans told Gallup last month that they don’t believe in premarital sex—even though, as Emma Green recently noted, 95 percent of Americans were doing it as of 2006.

So, again: Is casual sex immoral? The answer may change with place and time, but judging other people’s sex lives remains an act as innately human as sex itself.