Source: Press Of Atlantic City/The Conversation
PART ONE
In 2008, three social scientists posed the same question to men and women: “What counts as sex?” Only 41% of the men in existing relationships said that oral contact with someone else’s genitals would count as sex. But 65% of the men said that if their partner had oral contact, it would count as sex.
You might think that this reveals the usual sexual double standard, in which women are evaluated more harshly than men for the same conduct. However, only around one-third of women – 36% – said that if they had oral contact with someone else, it would count as sex, which is about the same as what men said. Meanwhile, 62% of women said that if their partner had oral contact with someone else, it would count as sex.
These findings reveal a previously unexplored sexual double standard – not between men and women as groups, but rather between standards people hold for themselves versus their partners: the “me-versus-thee” double standard.
If people hold sexual double standards about what counts as sex – not sex if I have contact with others, but definitely sex if you do – it’s easy to see how this quirky rationalization can lead to conflict in relationships:
1) It’s OK for me to kiss someone else; it doesn’t really mean anything, and besides, it’s not really sex. But you’d better not.
2) It’s OK for me to receive a bit of oral pleasure when you’re out of town because it’s not really sex. But if you do, it’s infidelity with a capital “I.”
It turns out that just as women are equal participants in the me-versus-thee double standard, they also help perpetuate the traditional male-versus-female double standard.
For example, the research team of conducted a series of studies and found that women are somewhat more likely than men to condemn cheating and casual sex. However, women in many cultures are significantly harsher on other women than men are on other men. They’re also more likely to spread gossip that other women can’t stay loyal to one partner. And although women don’t admire promiscuous or adulterous men, they express less moral condemnation toward men who cheat or sleep around than they do toward women who do the same.
It all comes back to the fact that women’s sexual psychology, like that of men’s, evolved in the brutal and amoral furnace of sexual and reproductive competition. Women’s fundamental competitors have always been other women, and sullying the sexual reputations of their rivals is a key strategy in the serious game of procreative success.
When it comes to sexual double standards, perhaps we’re all moral hypocrites.
By: Dr. David R. Buss, author of When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault.