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    Promiscuity isn't causing the low self-esteem, it's being caused by it.

Yes - that's what I meant, albeit I put it clumsily.

Though I think it's fair to say that in some cases you get into a vicious cycle where the promiscuity (due to the type of partners it attracts, and the societal response to promiscuity) tends to further perpetuate the low self-esteem.

> wisdom is a bit irrelevant in the cleanest and safest places

Fair enough: I don't know how old you are, but I grew up in the 1980s (in terms of when we learnt about sex) very much under the shadow of AIDS. For Gen Xers like me, the link between indiscriminate and unsafe sex, and illness and death, was forged during our formative years.

It isn't something I consciously think of or worry about these days, certainly HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence. But it's still part of the sexuality background that we all grew up with, and I guess I can never regard it as a non-factor, even in "the intelligent part of the first world".