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Sex Wars: Sluts vs. Losers
When it comes to sex, who’s got it tougher: the woman who’s called a slut for having too much casual sex? Or the guy who’s branded a loser for not having enough? A provocative new study has launched a Daily Beast debate between sexperts Susannah Breslin and Grant Stoddard.
When it comes to sexual latitude, men and women confront different rules and expectations. Who has it worse? A recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality found that, despite the popular belief that women face more societal chastising than men do, men actually reported more instances of feeling constrained by social norms. The Daily Beast asked two sexperts, Susannah Breslin and Grant Stoddard, to debate in on the conclusions.
Susannah Breslin: Women Have It Worse
The author of the blog Reverse Cowgirl and noted sex writer says promiscuous women still suffer from the classic sexual double-standard more than men who can’t get laid.
For years, it’s been widely held that women have been accorded far less freedom of sexual expression than men. If a woman is too sexually adventurous, too promiscuous, too “freaky” in the sack, she gets labeled a slut. In contrast, men have been lauded for their sexual prowess, “high-fived for wantonness,” accorded “player” status for acting like studs ... MORE >>
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Grant Stoddard: Men Have It Worse
The author of Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert says men who can’t get laid suffer more from the classic sexual double-standard more than promiscuous women.
It’s taken the participation of 104 undergrads in a University of Saskatchewan study to determine something I’ve known for quite some time: While I’m supposed to honor requests to slap, restrain, throttle, and enable any Sapphic whim a woman may wish to actualize, a libidinous digression from me means putting an already tattered reputation on the line. Technically speaking I’m a man, and as such, I’m obligated to keep it simple. ... MORE >>
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Susannah Breslin is a freelance journalist and blogger. Currently, she is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
The Great American Freak Show
Susannah Breslin is a freelance journalist and blogger. Currently, she is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
Women Have It Worse
Susannah Breslin is a freelance journalist and blogger. Currently, she is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
Grant Stoddard: Men Have It Worse
At 21, ungainly wallflower Grant Stoddard came to the United States from England in pursuit of true love. After eighteen months of couch-surfing and heartbreak, he stumbled into a job at Nerve.com as New York's most intrepid sex columnist, despite having little experience in either sex or writing. His memoir, Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert (Harper Perennial) has been optioned by Paramount Vantage. He currently resides in British Columbia, Canada.
This study is bogus because it is based on an unrepresentative sample (college student - who are not close to the majority of kids that age) which was far too small.
No conclusions should be drawn from it, but they will be anyway since the media loves to hype these kinds of stories and knows next to nothing about what constitutes good quality research.
To be realistic about the assumption that sex is "cool" for men and "slutty" for women ,we have to consider that as a male we are endowed with a appendage like a hand and often consider sex nothing more than a hand shake. If Men Had to take something into their body to have sex ,they would have a whole different outlook and perspective on sex.
I'm not a writer ....thats just my thought .
Every study I have read over the past 40 years is BOGUS. Women have ALWAYS made the reules, Men have ALWAYS tried to please women. You cannot fight human nature and women are fully aware of their power.
Men have always been intimidated by women in that they do not want to offend a woman or they loose their chance at her pleasures. Woman are finally deciding thay can ask for and receive whatever they want, exercising the power they have had all along. NOTHING has changed, never will.
Look - for centuries, men have controlled women's sexuality and every expression of it. Sociological/historical fact. Along comes several levels of social revolution and now it is ok for women to do what men have always done, which is whatever the heck they want.
I understand the waffling here. On the one hand, I believe that all consenting, mentally competent (as defined by the law, if you please) adults should be able to engage in any form of sexuality they please that does not result in authentic need for medical care. I mean adults, emotionally, physically, legally and financially able to deal with any unintended consequence of their choices.
On the other hand, I am disturbed by the casualness of sex and sexuality present in contemporary culture. We use sex to seel everything from wrenches to automobiles to mouthwash. We sexualize younger and younger girls. We support the proliferation of websites like "Girls Gone WIld", which feature largely underage young women engaging in outrageous attempts to shock and titilate. We encourage young and younger girls to posture, pose and provoke sexually but we do not encourage the same behavior of our young men. Indeed, while the young man stacking up bedpost notches is ubiquitious in our society, he is largely a buffoon, made fun of, and fit only for playiang the butt of endless jokes. While there is some endeavor to demonstrate the simply humanity of these men, they are largely caricatures.
So we encourage women to perform and men to laugh. Interesting.
But if there is gossip about a person of a sexual nature, the odds are greater for it to be negative about a woman before it is negative abotu a man. A man with multiple partners, cheating on a relationship, dating a siginificantly younger woman, can and will be forgiven as soon as he appears to conform to local mores. A woman doing the same will have gossip and judgementalism follow her as long as she stays in that community. The man will be treated as a hero. The woman will be treated as a pariah. The interesting thing is that the man's partner will not receive the same approbation as the 'other woman'.
So the double standard is alive and well. And as usual, men do have a slightly better position. They are just required to have better manners than they did a hundred years ago. There is still no colloquial term for a man equivilant to 'slut'.
Women Have It Worse
Men love sluts! But women despise losers. How does that make it worse for women?
SEX....what's that? I've been married for 30 yeras so I have only vague recollections of the word.
What possible difference could it make? Suppose you were convinced that the gender you aren't has it "easier." What are you going to do? Ask to be traded? Or if you became convinced that the other gender has it harder; would that make your issues cease to matter to you? This article is just an excuse to talk about sex because the Daily Beast people know we're all thinking about it (especially us married men, eh wahoomurf?) and we'll click on and read a story about it. Got me...damn them. Although, to be fair, it does make me feel slightly better to know there's a woman on this planet with a blog she named "reverse cowgirl."
Every time I hire the words "same sex marriage" it remind's me of the 27 years of having the "same sex marriage" to my wife. :-)
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Show me a man who can type and have sex at the same time! Ought to be entertaining!
I think of course historically women do have it harder then men when it comes to sex. Women were always forced to pretty much obey whatever men thought they should do throughout history, and that is wrong.
However, living in these modern times and being a man myself, I can definitely say that women these days have a generalized view of what a man is. Most women seem to think men are animals who will screw any women as long they the women lets them. Of course this is not true. Some men are sexual animals, and some women are sexual animals.
I have turned down women in the past, and I have not turned down women in the past. The problem I have is how women actually think there is something wrong with a guy if he turns them down. Aren't we supposed to be fighting against sexism? What is more sexist then thinking a man is nothing more then a slobbering dog?
trueroman, in or out does not mater. If men got knocked up, you would see a change.
Thank you.
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