文章探讨了性纯洁禁忌的起源，并推测其可能是为了防止性病传播而演化而来。作者列举了几个常见的性纯洁禁忌，例如妻子与他人发生性关系，丈夫应该感到愤怒；最好娶处女为妻；如果不能娶处女，娶寡妇是可以接受的，但娶妓女或性生活混乱的人则不可接受。这些禁忌都与防止性病传播有关，因为妻子与他人发生性关系可能感染性病并传染给丈夫；非处女可能已经感染性病；寡妇可能只与一个已知的人发生过性关系，而妓女或性生活混乱的人则可能与多个未知的人发生过性关系，因此感染性病的可能性更高。

🤔 **性纯洁禁忌与性病传播之间的关系:** 文章探讨了性纯洁禁忌的起源，并推测其可能是为了防止性病传播而演化而来。性病在过去比大多数人想象的要普遍，尤其是梅毒的流行，导致英国在18世纪至20世纪初的城市梅毒感染率高达8-10%。考虑到梅毒的严重性，人们会倾向于采取措施防止其传播，而性纯洁禁忌可能是其中一种。

👫 **性纯洁禁忌的具体表现:** 文章列举了几个常见的性纯洁禁忌，例如：妻子与他人发生性关系，丈夫应该感到愤怒；最好娶处女为妻；如果不能娶处女，娶寡妇是可以接受的，但娶妓女或性生活混乱的人则不可接受。这些禁忌都与防止性病传播有关，因为妻子与他人发生性关系可能感染性病并传染给丈夫；非处女可能已经感染性病；寡妇可能只与一个已知的人发生过性关系，而妓女或性生活混乱的人则可能与多个未知的人发生过性关系，因此感染性病的可能性更高。

🧬 **性纯洁禁忌的演化:** 文章认为，性纯洁禁忌可能是为了防止性病传播而演化而来。性病在过去是一种致命的疾病，因此人们会采取各种措施来防止其传播，包括性纯洁禁忌。随着医疗技术的进步，性病的治疗方法也得到了改善，性纯洁禁忌的必要性也随之降低。然而，一些文化仍然保留着性纯洁禁忌，这可能是因为这些禁忌已经成为一种传统，或者是因为人们仍然担心性病的传播。

🧐 **性纯洁禁忌的文化差异:** 文章指出，性纯洁禁忌并非所有文化都存在，而且有些文化甚至完全相反。这表明性纯洁禁忌的演化受到文化的影响，不同的文化可能会根据自己的实际情况发展出不同的性纯洁禁忌。

🤔 **性纯洁禁忌的未来:** 随着科学技术的发展，性病的治疗方法越来越有效，性纯洁禁忌的必要性也越来越低。然而，一些文化仍然保留着性纯洁禁忌，这可能是因为这些禁忌已经成为一种传统，或者是因为人们仍然担心性病的传播。未来，性纯洁禁忌可能会逐渐消失，但它也可能会以新的形式出现，例如，随着性传播疾病的不断出现，可能会出现新的性纯洁禁忌。

I.

Did cultural evolution create sexual purity taboos to prevent the spread of STIs? A few weeks ago, I wrote a post assuming this was obviously true; after getting some pushback, so I want to look into it in more depth.

STIs were a bigger problem in the past than most people think. Things got especially bad after the rise of syphilis: British studies find an urban syphilis rate of 8-10% from the 1700s to the early 1900s. At the time the condition was incurable, and progressed to insanity and death in about a quarter of patients. If you’ve got a 10% local syphilis rate, you are going to want some major sexual purity taboos. It’s less clear how bad they were in truly ancient times, but given how easily the extent of syphilis has slipped out of our cultural memory, I’m not ruling out “pretty bad”.

Here are some things I think of as basic parts of sexual purity taboos. All of these are cross-cultural – which isn’t to say they’re in every culture, or that some cultures aren’t exactly the opposite, just to say that they seem to pop up pretty often. I’m writing this from the male perspective because most of the cultures I know about thought that way:

1. If your wife has sex with another man, you should be angry 2. Preferably you should marry a virgin. If you think your bride is a virgin, but she isn’t, you should be angry 3. If you’ve got to marry a non-virgin, then marrying a widow is okay, but marrying a former prostitute or somebody known for sleeping around a lot is beyond the pale.

All of these are plausible ways to prevent the spread of STIs. If your wife has sex with another man, she could catch his STI and give it to you. If your bride isn’t a virgin, she might have STIs. If someone’s a widow, they probably slept with one known person whose STI status can be guessed at; if they’re a prostitute or slept around, they slept with many unknown people and have a higher chance of having STIs.