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Researchers found no double standards for people in long-term relationships. For short-term relationships, however, men are judged more harshly.

Contrary to popular belief: Sexually active women are not judged more harshly than men

It’s not true that women are subjected to sexual double standards, researchers say. Most people tend to be more liberal than they think other people are. But not all behaviour is OK.

Journalist
Presented by: NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Perhaps you have also subscribed to the belief that men who have multiple sexual partners are admired, while women who do the same are condemned – commonly known as the sexual double standard.

But that turns out to be a myth, according to a new survey.

“We haven’t found that women are subjected to the traditional double standards,” Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair says. He is a professor at NTNU’s Department of Psychology.

On the contrary, men are judged a little more harshly than women when it comes to short-term sexual encounters.

But the myth is tenacious, and a lot of people believe it.

Double standards are a myth

“Everyone believes that women are exposed to a greater degree of social control than men. But that’s not what we found when we asked people how they rate women’s and men’s sexual behaviour. People are far more liberal themselves than they assume society is,” Mons Bendixen says. He is also a professor in the same department.

“A lot of the previous research has likely focused only on long-term relationships and not short-term sexual encounters. This might contribute to the myth, although we didn’t find signs of double standards there either,” Kennair says.

A woman and man are on a date, talking and laughing.
Participants had to estimate how likely they were to recommend a friend to enter into a short-term or long-term sexual relationship with potential partners.

The NTNU professors collaborated with two international researchers: Andrew G. Thomas, a senior lecturer at Swansea University, and David M. Buss from the University of Texas.

“This research adds weight to the growing body of evidence that sexual double standards, while an enduring and alluring part of folk psychology, have very little basis in reality,” Andrew Thomas says.

Jealousy, infidelity, control – and masturbation too

The research group investigated how heterosexual Norwegian women and men evaluate potential partners based on their sexual history.

Unlike previous research, they were asked to evaluate them as prospective partners for their male and female friends.

The participants were told the potential partners’ number of prior sexual partners, as well as the person’s history of jealousy, infidelity, controlling behaviour, and masturbation. More than 900 people took part in the survey.

The participants were asked to rate prospective partners on behalf of friends, and to say how strongly they would recommend the partners for them.

The study was grounded in Sexual Strategies Theory, which explains the differences in how men and women approach short-term and long-term mating.

Men are judged more harshly for one-night stands

Kennair summarises the main findings as follows: “We found no double standard for long-term relationships. However, for short-term relationships, men are judged more harshly. in other words a reversed double standard.”

“And both sexes are judged more harshly for long-term relationships than for one-night stands. This is new and important knowledge,” Mons Bendixen says.

The requirements are therefore higher for entering into long-term relationships than for short-term relationships. Men are judged most harshly for short-term relationships.

People are generally judged more harshly when it comes to long-term relationships. But there is no difference between the sexes.

Many people may want to reject this finding, because it is regarded as almost an absolute truth that women who experiment sexually are judged more severely than men are. However, that does not make the belief any truer.

The criticism of people who have numerous sexual relationships is not that strong. It may be slightly frowned upon, but not much, and criticism is about the same between the sexes.

Why would men judge women?

The professors were not particularly surprised by the results.

“Why on earth would men judge women who want to have sex with them?” Kennair asks.

They were also not surprised that the opposite might actually be the case under certain conditions.

The latter – women judging men – is probably related to the fact that women are generally more sceptical of certain forms of sexual behaviour than men are.

Women are therefore slightly more sceptical than men if a potential short-term partner for a friend has had a lot of sexual relationships in their history or is very sexually active.

Men like women who masturbate

When it comes to self-stimulation, people tend to be more accepting compared to having multiple partners. Specifically, women who masturbate face less negative judgment compared to men, especially in short-term relationships.

“Men find it sexy when women masturbate,” Kennair says.

This is no surprise either, and the research supports what you likely already suspected. Overall, there is very little evidence to suggest that people have strong opinions about whether people masturbate or not. The vast majority think it’s perfectly fine.

"Men are far from judgmental towards women who masturbate. On the contrary, they are very open to it, especially in the context of short-term relationships. This is exactly what we'd expect based on evolutionary theory, which posits that men will be interested in receiving signals and cues of sexual availability," Thomas says.

Not all behaviour is acceptable, however.

Controlling behaviour and cheating are not OK

“Prospective partners with a history of infidelity, jealousy, and controlling behaviour are perceived as strongly negative for both sexes. This applies equally to male and female partners,” Bendixen says.

If you’re easily tempted to cheat or constantly accuse your partner of cheating, you risk damaging your reputation and future opportunities.

Do you check your partner’s phone? Are you jealous and want to control them? That doesn't make you very attractive.

“This view applies to both short-term and long-term sexual relationships. In particular, it relates to how participants assessed someone’s suitability for a long-term sexual relationship,” he says.

Such habits are therefore most significant when someone is considering whether the relationship is worth pursuing beyond a night or two. People do not want such partners, neither for themselves nor for someone they know.

“A history of infidelity and controlling behaviour is more problematic when people are considering partners for a long-term relationship, both for themselves and for their friends,” Kennair says.

Religion, disgust and your own openness

The research group also examined factors like religiosity, the tendency to feel sexual disgust, and personal interest in engaging in short-term sexual relationships.

“These factors are linked to whether participants would advise their friends to enter into sexual relations with partners who have an extensive sexual history,” Kennair says.

More specifically, the least religious individuals, who do not care much if someone is having sex in the next room and who themselves are more open to casual sex, are more likely to advise their friends to have sex with people who have had numerous partners, masturbate frequently, or display controlling or unfaithful behaviour.

Your own preferences and behaviours affect your assessment of partners for friends.

“Openness to short-term sexual encounters is the only individual factor that influenced these recommendations more for female friends than for male friends,” Bendixen says.

In other words: If you yourself are more open to short-term casual sex, it is more likely that you will recommend a like-minded person as a partner for a female friend.

Findings apply to people in the West and people we don’t know

Two points should be mentioned here. The first is that we tend to be stricter towards family and close relatives than we are towards strangers. We want them to find especially good partners, and this has both biological and cultural explanations.

“But most people are not closely related to us,” Kennair says.

It is also important to remember that all of these findings apply to the West, specifically Europe and North America. Researchers do not know how these issues are perceived in other parts of the world where religious and other cultural factors could influence the results – or perhaps not.

“This is the first study of sexual double standards in Norway. However, we find an emerging lack of sexual double standards in all cultures we study," Thomas says.

References:

Kennair et al. Examining the Sexual Double Standards and Hypocrisy in Partner Suitability Appraisals Within a Norwegian Sample, Evolutionary Psychology, vol. 21, 2023. DOI: 10.1177/14747049231165687

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