Both men and women judged for sex lives: study. Is this equality? - The Globe and Mail

I posted about that topic before, now there is more evidence:

[A] survey of 19,000 students at 22 American colleges, research being presented at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Denver on Monday.[...]

In the survey, college students aged 19 to 22 were asked to respond to the statement, “If (wo)men hook up or have sex with lots of people, I respect them less.” Based on their answers, the researchers slotted the students into one of four categories: egalitarian conservative, egalitarian libertarian, traditional double standard and reverse double standard.

A breakdown of the findings:

48 per cent: “Egalitarian conservatives” who lost equal respect for men and women they believed were hooking up too much (54 per cent of women surveyed fell into this category, compared with 35 per cent of men).

27 per cent: “Egalitarian libertarians” who do not lose respect for men or women, no matter how much they sleep around.

12 per cent: “Traditional double standard” holders who lost respect for women, but not men, for hooking up too much.

13 per cent: “Reverse double standard” holders who lost respect for men, but not women, for having casual sex with too many partners.

By a slight margin (1 percent) there are more students now that lost respect for men for casual hookups than there are for women. Who would have thought....

Hijacking another feminist argument...

Well it might just be me, but often when it comes to discussion about contraceptives or more specifically the lack of a male version thereof I get the "keep it in your pants" answer (even in feminist spaces. There is no incidence at hand, but figured I could use the following if such a thing happens again. From feministe:

Trying to think of a fresh angle from which to approach the issue of slut-shaming, I remembered the last time I debated an anti-choice, anti-rights activist who wanted to see women stripped of access to family planning services. Naturally the argument he ultimately resorted to after all his others had been debunked was: “If girls don’t want to get pregnant, they shouldn’t be opening their legs to everyone.”

“Wow,” I’d chuckled to myself, “he didn’t even wait 5 minutes before falling back on old-fashioned slut-shaming. Most anti-choicers at least pretend it’s about the fetus for a little while longer.”

It is similar in a way that when you get "keep it in your pants" while discussing male contraceptive options it can be framed as slut shaming. Might be a far fetch....found it interesting. Stop judging me....darn.

Slutty studs....

Just when I thought there isn't much that could really surprise me, here comes this:

The Sexual Double Standard: Fact or Fiction? - Michael Marks; R. Fraley - 2005

In contemporary society it is widely believed that men are socially rewarded for sexual activity, whereas women are derogated for sexual activity. To determine whether a sexual double standard exists, both undergraduate (n = 144) and Internet (n = 8,080) participants evaluated experimental targets who were described as either male or female and as having a variable number of sexual partners. Targets were more likely to be derogated as the number of sexual partners increased, and this effect held for both male and female targets. These results suggest that, although people do evaluate others as a function of sexual activity, people do not necessarily hold men and women to different sexual standards.

Who would have though (certainly not me). Other research with a similar conclusion:

In contemporary Western society it is widely believed that sexual behavior is evaluated differently depending on whether a man or a woman engages in it (Milhausen & Herold, 2001). This view, known as the sexual double standard, suggests that for men, sexual behavior brings praise and respect, whereas for women, identical sexual behavior brings derogation and disrepute. Although the general public’s belief in the sexual double standard is pervasive, (Marks, 2002; Milhausen & Herold, 1999), the research literature paints a different picture. Person perception studies, which feature men and women engaged in identical levels of sexual activity, are widely used to assess how sexual behavior is evaluated depending on the sex of the person engaging in it. To date, these studies show limited empirical support for the double standard (e.g., Gentry, 1998; Jacoby & Williams, 1985; Mark & Miller, 1986; Marks & Fraley, 2005a; Oliver & Sedikides, 1992; O’Sullivan, 1995; Sprecher, 1989; Sprecher, McKinney, Walsh, & Anderson, 1988). These findings are surprising considering the preponderance of anecdotal evidence for the existence of a double standard. [...] 

Although the sexual double standard seems selfevident, person perception studies generally fail to show that people actually evaluate sexually active men and women differently. For example, Gentry (1998) conducted a person perception task in which participants evaluated male and female targets with varied levels of sexual experience. Evaluations were based on level of sexual experience and relationship type (casual or committed), but not on target gender. O’Sullivan (1995) followed a similar protocol and found that targets were rated based on the amount of sexual experience they reported, but ratings did not vary as a function of target gender. We (Marks & Fraley, 2005a) conducted a person perception study designed to rectify some methodological concerns of previous double standard studies, yet we found little evidence of a double standard.

Although some researchers have reported evidence of a double standard, comparable findings frequently fail to emerge in later studies. For instance, Sprecher, McKinney, and Orbuch (1987) conducted a person perception study and found evidence of a double standard that was conditional on age and the context (committed or casual) in which the loss of virginity occurred. However, data from other studies have failed to corroborate either the age effect (Sprecher, 1989; Sprecher et al., 1988) or the context effect (O’Sullivan, 1995). In summary, although it appears that people do evaluate others according to the amount of sexual activity they report, person perception research rarely shows that people evaluate men and women differently as a function of their sexual activity. Even when an interaction between target gender and sexual activity has been found, it is often found only in highly circumscribed situations (see Crawford & Popp, 2003, for a review). If the sexual double standard is as pervasive and powerful as many people believe, empirical evidence for its role in person evaluation should be less elusive. - from here 

There is more to that. Apparently, part of the reason many people believe in that double standard is confirmation bias.

In contemporary Western societies it is widely believed that there is a sexual double standard such that men are rewarded for sexual activity, whereas women are derogated for sexual activity. This pervasive belief may result in a confirmation bias such that people tend to notice information that confirms the double standard and fail to notice information that refutes it. Two studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In both studies, participants read vignettes about a target man or a woman that contained an equal number of positive and negative comments regarding the target’s sexuality. Participants recalled more information consistent with the double standard than inconsistent with it. - from here

And there goes another well believed factoid. (found via reddit btw)