What's Your Body Count?

The rules have changed - but no one seems to know how

The term “body count” refers to a person’s total tally of sexual partners, not how many people they’ve killed or seriously injured. The idea gaining currency on social media: there’s an unacceptable upper limit.

Too high a body count and you’re having issues. You ain’t no playa! There’s something wrong with you Willis.

The traditional interpretation: you lack morals. The Devil’s making you do it. Get right with God.

The modern diagnosis: you have psychological issues: fear of commitment, narcissistic personality disorder, something. See someone. Take a pill.

Regardless of the logic, there’s a growing backlash against people who ratchet-up the body count via – how else? – casual sex. I wouldn’t call it slut shaming, but I wouldn’t not call it that either.

The important thing to understand about casual sex: it isn’t about having fun. Sure, it can be fun. But sex is fun only because it serves an evolutionary purpose.

Not to put too Catholic a point on it: sex is an act of procreation. Whenever a man and a woman are having sex, they are engaging in Sperm Wars. The age old fight for resources. Gaining new resources or protecting existing ones.

The body count kerfuffle is yet another sign that human sexuality’s been knocked out of whack (to use the technical term) by reliable female contraception and erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra and Cialis.

Yes, there is that.

TikTokers’ talkin’ body count point to the pill as the propagator of promiscuity. Fair. And we’ll get to that. But ED drugs play a hugely important role in our reproductive landscape.

Make no mistake: erectile dysfunction is a big deal. About twenty-six percent of men under 40, forty percent of men over 40, and seventy percent of men over 70 experience ED.

Why so many? Simple. ED is Mother Nature’s male contraceptive, bred into men over the millennia. If you can’t get it up, you can’t get it in. If you can’t get it in, you can’t have children.

For younger men, ED is a part of their mind saying nope, not this one. Or not now. Same for older men, who may also need to protect the resources flowing to their existing children (by not having more children).

That was then, this is now. ED drugs overcome a young man’s subconscious sexual reticence and, crucially, put older men back in the game.

Men are now capable of having children later than ever before in human history (though Bible fans may disagree). At a time of life when they have more resources to raise children.

With ED drugs, the male biological clock has stopped ticking. Men can delay marriage and/or start a second family – increasing their “body count” – without worrying about time running out on their reproductive ability.

This in a population hard-wired to spread their seed widely. In a society where more women are more sexually available than ever before – thanks to destruction of guardrails that existed from the dawn of humanity.

Not the precipitous decline of religion. The introduction of the pill (on May 9, 1960). The pill is as important to our history as the atom bomb. Actually, more.

With inexpensive, available, reliable contraception, penetrative sex for women is no longer a roll of the reproductive dice. They can now do what sexually active men do: shop around.

Why not? A decision is only as good as the information it’s based on. Sexual compatibility is a mission critical component of any partnership. Connect the dots. Millions of men and women are doing just that. Naked.

At the same time, ED drugs increase women’s pool of potential partners and the quality thereof. Also elevated: the odds of catching a sexually transmitted disease, which adversely affects fertility.

Strangely, those railing against a high “body count” fail to mention the safety and health dangers. It’s framed as a psycho-social/moral issue: guys are fuck boys and bitches be crazy.

https://youtu.be/r0FFTd3bS_8

I’m not discounting any of that. I’m simply pointing out there’s something larger at play. Pharmacology is causing a fundamental shift in human sexual behavior. In human evolution.

Throw in the toxic social media feedback loop and gender identity politics and it’s no wonder people are wondering what constitutes acceptable sexual behavior.

Make that successful sexual behavior. No matter how things shake out on the societal level, the people with the best resources for the best children win. Regardless of how many people they did or didn’t have sex with to get there.