Why the Double Standard Still Exists in Sexuality
- Gendered Socialization: Boys are often encouraged to be sexually active, while girls are taught to prioritize purity and avoid sexual activity.
- Power Dynamics: Historically, men have held more power, leading to a view of women as objects of male desire and control.
- Religious and Cultural Beliefs: Certain religious and cultural norms influence views on appropriate sexual behavior, often differently for men and women.
- Media Portrayal: Media often perpetuates stereotypes, depicting men’s sexual conquests positively and women’s as negative or shameful.
- Internalized Misogyny: Men and women can internalize these societal messages, leading to acceptance of the double standard.
- Lack of Open Communication: Open discussions about healthy sexuality and consent are needed to challenge the double standard.
- Intersectionality: The double standard intersects with other social inequalities like race, class, and sexual orientation impacting its application.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6355824/
Why is there still a double standard in sexuality?
When we talk about double standards, we refer to that mechanism whereby the same behavior is evaluated differently depending on who is enacting it. It is not only what one does that matters, but also who does it. In matters of (hetero)sexuality, it is still quite entrenched what diametrically ties reputation to the number of partners. For a guy to tell that he has slept with many girls is a way of bragging, while a girl is encouraged to maintain a certain discretion and if possible round down the number of her exes, on pain of being branded as “easy.”
Underlying this particular double standard is the preconception that wants men and boys always interested in sex (almost bordering on obsession) and that instead entrusts women and girls with the task of curbing both their base instincts and their own. And there are many others, related to expectations about what is considered appropriate or desirable depending on the social group to which one belongs. Even a wholly subjective choice such as to shave or not to shave, points out sociologist Silvia Semenzin in Virgin & Martyr, can be evaluated according to a double standard: a man who shaves is unmanly, a woman who decides not to do so becomes someone who neglects herself.
Double standards
The word prejudice is most often associated with a negative meaning, namely that of a bias that causes injustice and inequality. But in themselves, prejudices are merely. a way of simplifying reality and make it more understandable, even at the cost of being wrong. These are the opinions we form from hearsay, the ones we believe until proven otherwise.
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This is why it is easy to keep applying double standards until we realize the resulting biases and distortions. As a study published in 2019 in Frontiers in Psychology reports, it is important to determine whether preconceptions such as these have a spillover effect on sexual well-being, or the ability to freely express and experience one’s sexuality. For example, investigating the role they may play in victim blaming attitudes when it comes to harassment or rape, or whether or not they may increase the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and infections, or whether or not they are associated with lower sexual satisfaction.
Does a double standard still exist?
Since 1956, when sociologist Ira L. Reiss first pointed out the double standard in sexuality in the pages of Social Forces, many things have changed. Sexual liberation has helped to dilute many inequalities, but we are still far from full social equality. And the traces of the old pattern of thinking are still recognizable.
It is no mystery that the relative privilege accorded to male sexuality also has its downsides made up of performance anxiety and social pressures to conform to a model of masculinity that does not always reflect one’s own feelings and desires, as well as promoting negative if not aggressive attitudes toward women who do not conform to the ideals of femininity in their own behavior or gender expression, as painfully recounted in Nanette by stand-up comedian Hannah Gadsby.
As relatively unpopular as it has become except in conservative circles, to believe that double standards on sexuality have no hold on the younger generation is premature. Some studies have even discerned the emergence of a second double standard that penalizes male promiscuity rather than female promiscuity, or a tendency to be more forgiving of people of one’s own sex and more rigidly judgmental of those of the opposite sex. Whichever way you look at it, this cognitive bias tends to bring with it moral judgments and preconceived ideas that are hardly compatible with a society that is open and respectful of diversity.
The role of the media
Can reality, music videos, social, and pornography contribute to reinforcing double standards about sexual behavior? The authors of a Dutch research published in Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2021 wondered about this, investigating the role of the media in shaping expectations and judgments in adolescents along with that of the family and peer group. And indeed it does appear that in the Netherlands. the two strongest influences are peers and the media: regardless of what their parents think, heterosexual boys and girls tend to apply the double standard less when they attend peer groups where there is a perception that girls are as sexually active as boys.
Only in the case of boys, on the other hand, does adherence to the double standard seem to be greater when the consuming media propose role models that encourage boys to be more dominant and girls to be more submissive. But for once this is not the fault of pornography: those who consume more of it appear less convinced of this stereotype (although this does not imply that they are free of similar biases). Further research is needed to draw cause-and-effect relationships, the researchers point out, but it might be a good idea to Educating new generations about the nuances of behavior – thereby dampening unrealistic expectations promoted by a certain type of narrative-or encouraging in sex education hours discussions on topics such as slut-shaming, sexual coercion, and pressure exerted on boys and girls, in one sense or another, rather than letting them uncritically assimilate the models proposed by social, music videos and TV programs.
