Establishing a social circle for a promiscuous character [closed]
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I am developing a college-age female character and think that there may be a contradiction.
This is an important secondary character, a good-natured girl, who is unfortunately quite promiscuous. This is mostly because she is "happy-go-lucky", but the alcohol also plays some role. I am thinking that plot development between her and male characters is already laid out rather well, but I just realized that her relationship with female friends may be lacking and even contradictory.
Would "regular" college age girls shun out their friend if she is overly promiscuous for their circle? For my story, I still would like her to be surrounded by friends, who would give her at least a grudging level of support.
P.S. This is not about the sexual violence. This girl would be much more upset about her inability to establish long term relationship. I just can't avoid thinking that she would be inevitably crossing paths with some of her friends' boyfriends.
P.P.S. I feel that I need to expand on how I planned the "romantic arc" of my story. There are two friends, "traditional" college-age guys, who normally keep up with the same "traditional" crowd of boys and girls, where steady relationships are appreciated. On one of the "traditional" parties (meaning rather modest than wild), they meet one sweet girl, who shows no outside indication of being into one night stands. The two guys start to pursue this girl, independently from each other, and things are going well beyond their expectations. Then it becomes clear that neither of them can "claim" the girl - while the girl herself likes them both and just can not decide. Her friends, belatedly, explain to the guys that this is not the first time such thing happens to the girl. The guys go to major conflict between each other, while still trying to win girl's heart.
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3 answers
In my personal experience, there is a night-and-day difference in a friend who sleeps around, and a friend who sleeps with your boyfriend.
Since everyone is college-age they will have ingrained opinions that don't align with their actions, and liberal platitudes can change abruptly when an issue effects them personally. Experience, and reactions, will not be evenly distributed.
Give the characters the depth to have an opinion that they later need to unpack and examine. If you are debating something as a writer put the debate into the mouths of characters, but also stir it up by sometimes making the characters think differently from how they behave. Characters are fallible, and not everyone gets a satisfying character arc where they fix their emotional baggage.
I'll end with an anecdote. I had an always-around friend who made a play for my boyfriend, who was flattered and interested. I was hurt, but (reverse psychology) I told him that if he preferred her he should go be with her and that ended it.
But from that day on, my best friend called her no other name than "Boyfriend Stealer" no matter who was around or what the conversation, that woman's name was "Boyfriend Stealer". That wasn't how I felt since she hadn't actually stolen my boyfriend – it was emotionally complicated and I distanced myself from her – but it was amusing that my best friend had such a strong reaction. Like it was the only important thing to know about that woman. It became her name.
Month's later, the same woman stole my roommate's boyfriend.
We had 3 different reactions. My best friend heard about it and was immediately sounding the alarm, shouting it to everyone she knew. I thought I was liberal-minded about open and extended sexual relationships, but when it happened to me I didn't care for it at all. I wasn't exactly wounded, but I had to accept that in practice my boundaries were a lot different than in theory. Meanwhile, my roommate had heard the literal warning calls, saw it (almost) happen to me, and still kept the woman in a very intimate circle, going on 3-way movie and dinner dates. She was completely surprised when it happened to her.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38717. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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I think you are making a mistake in justifying this woman's promiscuity by her consumption of alcohol, and making a mistake by assuming her promiscuity is a result of lack of control on her part, instead of her making conscious and rational choices to engage in casual sex. I say the latter because you think she cannot control herself around her friends boyfriends.
Would you treat a male character the same way? That the only reason he sleeps with many women is because he gets drunk and loses control of himself, and that he cannot hdo not regard her behavior as elp but seduce the girlfriends of his friends, and those girls cannot help but fall into bed with him?
The easy way to fix your problem is to ditch these excuses, and write a girl that truly enjoys sex, a girl that orgasms easily, enjoys flirting and dating and making out and naked foreplay and copulation. Then she craves the next episode.do not regard her behavior as
But that doesn't mean she lacks self control or is drugged, just like her male partners don't have to lack self control or be drugged to participate in this hobby with her and enjoy it: It is not impossible for a woman to enjoy sex because it is fun and thrilling just as much as her partners do.
This hobby can be a rational choice on her part, an entertainment she engages in. She doesn't even have to be interested in a romantic relationship, she can be focused on her career in college. She may be interested in romance in the future, but in college she is not, and casual sex is her pressure relief valve; an effective and quick way to avoid burn out in her studies and stay focused on her life goals, that at the moment don't include falling in love, getting married, or having kids. As part of that same dynamic, to avoid forming attachments, she also enjoys variety and doesn't mind telling her partners the sex is just for fun, a game between friends, and if they want more they shouldn't expect it from her, she's going to finish law school (or medicine or whatever) and start an independent and single career working 80 hours a week.
Her friends will embrace her because they understand her, and if she doesn't get drunk or lose control, and if despite her promiscuity they know she chooses her partners carefully, they won't be worried about her seducing their boyfriends or "giving in" to their drunken demands because these boys make the same mistaken assumptions about her inability to resist any man. Her girlfriends will trust her, even if they don't trust their boyfriends.
That isn't impossible, just like sexual orientation, people can be born with different levels of sex drive, and a higher sexual urgency in the 16-24 cohort, both male and female, is just how our biology works. Nature wants us to get on with the reproduction.
Edit: Some stats to consider to ground you in reality.
These are from "Sex and Youth" by professor Bob Altemeyer, actual sex surveys of college students.
Although there are conservative and judgmental girls, I think there are plenty of regular girls in college that won't shun a promiscuous girl just for being impulsive; as long as she has the self-control to not damage other relationships.
The average age of lost virginity (for girls in America) is 16.3; and few college girls are still with their HS sweetheart. The exact % is not reported, but a large % of female students having sex have had more than one partner.
Only 37% of women think "hooking up" (having sex with somebody they just met) is a big sin. Also 37% of women have done it at least once; in the survey with from 1 to 15 different partners; their median number of partners was 2. The typical "repeats" (having sex with the same guy again) was zero.
For "Friends with Benefits", 29% of female college students said they had at least one such friend, with the number of such friends ranging from 1 to 12, and the median being 2. For Friends WB, the women had intercourse an average of 11 times with their friend.
20% of female college students report they achieve orgasm "easily".
15% of female college students consider themselves "oversexed" and their stats prove it; in how early they have had various sexual experiences, and how often they have intercourse (twice as often as the average).
All in all, I don't think a promiscuous girl will have much difficulty finding a group of friends that will accept her for who she is. Of course not everybody is a good candidate for friend, but that is the case with everybody. We make friends with those that don't consider us awful people; and she will have plenty of company. And also in Altemeyer's study, on average women report that while their close friends do know some details of their sex life, they do not share every detail or occurrence of sex with them; answering the question "how much does your best friend know about your sex life", on a scale of 0 to 7, the average answer is 4. I'd guess it's lower for a group of friends; and your girl may just not share that much, or report every hook up she has.
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The answer to your questions depends entirely on how you characterise the girl's friends. Are they prudish snobs? Then yes, they would shun her. Otherwise, no reason why they should. If they disagree with how she acts, they might say something, but there's a great difference from this to actually pushing her away. I find it more realistic that a friend would express their concern for the girl's safety (getting drunk with unfamiliar guys...), maybe come with her to make sure nothing bad happens.
If you want the character not to be shunned by her friends, you'd need to make her friends the kind of people who would be accepting, if not approving.
As for crossing paths with friends' boyfriends, that's again down to you, and how you characterise the girl. Would this girl go to bed with anyone, or would she refuse a guy who she knows is a friend's boyfriend? Or anyone's boyfriend? There's no shortage of boys in a college - plenty of single guys around.
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