Double Standards Revisited: A Thought Experiment
Modern women are much more upfront and open about their sexual urges than any previous generation of Western women. I feel like Sex and the City dramatically ratcheted up this comfort with female sexuality even further, as I regularly found myself having conversations with women I just met or were barely acquainted with about their sex lives, their sex toys, their one night stand urges and more.
Now this intro paragraph into isn’t a lamentation or a condemnation about how I wish women were more discrete like back in the old days. After all, I’ve made it clear that I’m no fan of Madonna/Whore complexes. To me female promiscuity or sexual openness is not automatically a sin and worthy of slut shaming unless it comes from a low self-esteem, dishonest and manipulative place and proper discretion is maintained. I just want to nip that in the bud before anyone starts to level the whole “slut shaming” accusation.
My personal eye-opening moment in this cultural sea change was years ago around 2001 or 2002 when I was out with some female friends having brunch, and on the same block was an upscale sex toy establishment. One of the girls said “Let’s go in!” and the rest enthusiastically agree. It was three women and the age range was from late 20s to early 40s. As we went in, I was surprised at how the women window shopped right in front of me, talked about their favorite sex toys, which vibrators they did and didn’t have, which ones they wanted and the type of sex toys they disliked. Then they kept getting more graphic. (Part of me thinks it was a test of me as well, to see if I would be fazed or visibly uncomfortable) I didn’t mind because I love those moments when I get a look into the female psyche that most men normally don’t get. One woman even made a purchase.
Afterwards though, it made me think: what if the genders were reversed? What if my guy friends and I took a female acquaintance to a sex shop and were window shopping for things like blow-up dolls and fleshlights and discussing our experiences with them in front of her. How often we used them, which makes were our favorites, the pros and cons, etc, then ended the excursion with one of us buying a blow up doll or sex toy in front of her?
Who looks more like a loser? The females admitting to sex toy use or the males admitting to sex toy use? I’ve seen women playfully or seriously use accusations of blow-up doll use against a man as an insult. And generally men confessing to regular masturbation in lieu of sexual intercourse is more seen in society as a mark of loser status than a woman passing up relations with a man in favor of the company of her sex toy. (In fact, I’ve heard some women use such a choice as a sign of empowerment).
So I think we already know the answer: they guy proudly using sex toys would be socially looked down on more than the woman doing the same, by both men and women. So the ultimate question is why is this the case?
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Because it is widely assumed, and in most cases true, that a woman CAN get sex whenever she wants, just by lowering her standards a bit. That being said, a woman using a sex toy is seen as a voluntary action. She’s doing it because she wants to. A man using them is seen as doing it because he HAS to. He can’t find ayone willing to have sex with him. True or not, that, I think, is the crux of the discrepancy.
Liz has a good point. I theorized a month ago that non-heterosexual expressions of male sexuality (chiefly masturbation and homosexuality) have historically been stigmatized in order to encourage men to marry and have children instead of pleasuring themselves or each other:
http://www.inmalafide.com/2009.....sexuality/
.-= Ferdinand Bardamu´s last blog ..Not another one =-.
Good point and good question, so it’s kind of a bummer that Liz pretty much nailed it so quickly. Could be a short thread.
Personally, I would never follow a group of women into a sex toy shop. The conceptual dissonance would be too much. I was in a country restaurant with a friend who poured a little plastic faux-creamer into his coffee, then pointed outside at the dairy cows in the adjacent fields. Same thing.
I agree with Liz also, but that doesn’t mean the thread has to end so soon. I’m still interested to see if people agree with her or have more to add. This is leading to a follow up thought experiment by the way.
I think there’s another factor in the social stigma against male self-pleasuring: the fact that it interferes with womens’ use of sex to control men. In ‘Anatomy of Female Power’ terms, if a man is content to fall back on his own hand it makes him much less vulnerable to ‘wifepower’. He’s harder to pussy-whip. I don’t have statistics but I’d be willing to bet on a strong correlation between a woman’s proclivity to transactional sex and her disapproval of male masturbation. This also explains the view that female masturbation is empowering – it reduces her need for sex and therefore strengthens her position in a transactional sexual relationship.
(Insert here the usual first-poster blah about how interesting and insightful this blog is. Keep up the good work! I found the Rearden particularly useful.)
Liz is right and that is the reason whu woman with many sexual relationships is a whore but man a hero.
I think women’s use of toys (I am not fond of that word, btw) is seen by other women as being a form of self-indulgence, even a necessity and less of a ‘sex act’.Many men also seem to find women using them erotic, which deems it more acceptable? Few women seem to fetishize male masturbation.
Nuns have a history of dildo use and there are even museums that have these objects displayed as art from the 18th/19th century that were intricately carved ivory and wood. Not sure why that’s relevant but it came to mind when I read about the store and thought back to the history sex toy use. Wish there was a better word but ‘marital aid’ and ‘massager’ don’t really fit either but maybe I’m just an old catholic lady w/ provincial sensibilities.
I don’t think neither are loosers. Masurbation is a natural act and there is nothing wrong with spicing it up with sex toys. In fact, alot of married people still masturbate.
Liz and Mala make great points, but I also think that ridiculing guys who use sex toys is a reaction to the anxiety that many people have over violent, exploitive manifestations of male sexuality. Women’s sexuality is not threatening or upsetting to most people so no one feels the need to laugh at women and their toys.
Personally if I was with a mixed sex group of friends and everyone wanted to go to a sex shop I’d keep mum. Now there’s nothing wrong with discussing masturbation and toys with your boyfriend but I don’t think I’d talk that freely with my best guy friend. An equal society doesn’t have to be a 100% coed one, and there are certain things that men and women should keep to themselves. In traveling I’ve seen societies were sexes don’t mingle quite as freely and this seems to preserve the intrigue and allure of the opposite sex.
You make a valid point. This is my response.
When a group of my male heterosexual friends and I can walk into an upscale, empowerment-focused, male-owned sex shop and be able to discuss pros & cons & stories without the owner, my friends, or the environment around me giving none of us an overwhelming impression that we are anything other than a subject (v. object) with human value…
…then we’ll have something of substance to talk about.
occasional reader…i’m afraid i’m not following your point.
“or the environment around me giving none of us an overwhelming impression that we are anything other than a subject (v. object) with human value…”
occasional reader seems to mean that she should be able to walk into a sex toy shop without getting the feeling that women are being objectified there?
Maybe, like the blow doll should not look like a woman but more like a dinosaur, the fleshlight should not look like a vagina but more like, let’s say, a long door knob.
Just like the way they use candles to make dildos.
but wth is ‘empowerment-focused’?
On the topic : It’s the times we live in and what is perceived to be good and bad.Women’s urges are perceived to be naturaland make for a good erotic scene while a man satiating himself comes across as a loser in just about everywhere in the media.
Liz’s interpretation is also based on that.Lowering standards works both ways and has always worked both ways.Alcohol does the rest.
[...] T. aka Ricky Raw – “The Three Tracks: The Sopranos and The Wire“, “Double Standards Revisited: A Thought Experiment” [...]
I ask your patience with me on this.
In the so-called sex-positive stores, the environment is conductive to the construction of a little psychological barrier between what is happening in the store and what will happen at home. Put simply, it is a social lie. Kinda like how bars and dance clubs are ostensibly about alcohol or dancing. That lie is what separates a bar from a sex club. The function of the lie is to give many of the patrons what is really just an excuse to come, plus it allows for the presence of people who are actually only interested in alcohol or dancing to come in too, making it all a little less creepy and stigmatizing to be there.
One of these days, perhaps we’ll get past the need for a lie. Perhaps not. We are all kinds of pretty or all kinds of ugly at different times, but living with each other at any given moment demands some mental gymnastics.
It seems to me that plenty of men and women are turned on by things that they would disgust them outside the home. The barrier method, if you will, lets men and women interact in this setting in a publicly-appropriate way, while still permitting them to browse and buy all kinds of insanely nasty things to enjoy at home (plus a little chocolate body powder). My view is that stores owned by women work well for a woman’s way of thinking about eroticism. Maybe this commercial experience doesn’t work for men. You tell me.
The last thing I would advocate for is a dinosaur doll…but I bet there’s someone into that too. Who needs empowerment when one is sexually subjugating a Tyrannosaurus?