I was thinking more of a Scarlet Letter than a Purple Circle. I should have gone with my first thought which was: You make it sound like a bad thing... It's a word that implies a highly negative moral judgement. People who don't find it morally wrong just tend to think of it as 'getting laid a lot.' Or, for many of us, 'college.'
So when people use it to describe others it's a disparagement, not a simple description.
It has to do - strictly - with the number of partners, not the frequency of the act. A monogamous couple could >-bleeped-< like bunnies all day and all of the night and never be promiscuous so long as they only had sex with each other. It really has to do with the casual - which is a hip term, a better world would be indiscriminate - nature of the relationships.
Same too with type/kind of sex. If that monogamous couple is into all sorts of kinky stuff, that does not make them promiscuous. It makes them kinky to some, open-minded and adventurous to others (or at least GGG), or it might get them called perverts and deviants by those that do not approve of a little over-the-knee spanking, or mommy/daddy role playing games, or getin' off bein' juked with a baby octopus / and spewed upon with creamed corn... an' my girlfriend, she digs it with a hot Yoo-hoo bottle while somebody's screamin'... - in fact those types tend to disapprove of any sex outside of missionary position for the purpose of having progeny.
So we're just talking about the number of partners. That's it, that's all, stay in the definition, and if you are unsure look it up, the dictionary is your friend.
And, to be sure, every time I've ever heard the world applied there is an underlying tone of bitterness, and that whole vibe of 'let's ban what we can't do'. And it seems to me that the most promiscuous people I know very social people (you have to be social, you're not going to hook up with lots of hot babes or hunky guys sitting in your basement, you have to go out and be out) with high level social skills. They are - as I said - 'popular' in the basic sense of the word, which in the Latin origin means 'being well liked.' (People tend not to sex up people they don't like.) And you can bet that unpopular people spend a lot more time worrying about the popular ones then the popular ones spend thinking about those that are not - sour grapes. And such moral condemnations (at least in America) have a deep tap root in Puritanism, which I've always defined as people who spend their lives in desperate fear that someone, somewhere, might be having a good time.
And, it really tends to be a self-solving problem. Though some might carry that through their entire life, for most it's just a phase, because among the things you discover is that there are a hella lot of people who aren't very good at sex, or its' not the road to the sex you want (see footnote), or they find someone who is worth committing to. But largely the first. You stop being promiscuous when you find out that in order to get really good partners you do have to have a high degree of discrimination.
* - oddly enough (or not), most promiscuous sex is very basic - meat and potatoes / vanilla - true kink stuff takes time to develop, and it also takes lots, and lots, and lots of trust, which casual couples don't have.
