# Slut Shaming **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 25, 2016, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882 "2016-08-25T04:52:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/101 "2016-08-27T22:15:30Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Wasn’t too long ago that a divorced woman was seen as tainted and morally suspect. That attitude was able to be changed over time. Is the slut-shaming attitude more of an issue among men or women? ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/102 "2016-08-27T22:34:09Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Indeed. Millenials will have [fewer sex partners](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/06/why-aren-t-millennials-sleeping-around.html) than did the old white guys of yore: > > Seems the stridency of the women’s sexual liberation movement is starting to show its strains. Or maybe we’re just turning into Islamic fundamentalists. Random post. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/103 "2016-08-27T22:34:36Z")
Women generally promote slut shaming to drive up the market price of sex. If women give away sex too freely, women cannot barter it for access to male resources. Unpopular, but thems the breaks. Look up a paper called ‘Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions’ There is some really good info about slut shaming, dressing sexy, why men who have tons of partners are studs but women who do so are sluts, dowries, female genital mutilation, etc. If you search for the paper on google, the first site that comes up is a pdf of it. Here is the abstract > **[Sexual economics: sex as female resource for social exchange in heterosexual...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15582858/)** > > A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange. Societies will therefore define gender roles as if women are sellers and men buyers of sex. Societies will... > [@](#): > > A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange. Societies will therefore define gender roles as if women are sellers and men buyers of sex. Societies will endow female sexuality, but not male sexuality, with value (as in virginity, fidelity, chastity). The sexual activities of different couples are loosely interrelated by a marketplace, instead of being fully separate or private, and each couple’s decisions may be influenced by market conditions. Economic principles suggest that the price of sex will depend on supply and demand, competition among sellers, variations in product, collusion among sellers, and other factors. Research findings show gender asymmetries (reflecting the complementary economic roles) in prostitution, courtship, infidelity and divorce, female competition, the sexual revolution and changing norms, unequal status between partners, cultural suppression of female sexuality, abusive relationships, rape, and sexual attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/104 "2016-08-27T22:50:17Z")
God, that’s so desperately parochial and dated - it’s like the 1950s rather than Tallahassee 2004. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/105 "2016-08-27T23:04:04Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Is the slut-shaming attitude more of an issue among men or women? No clue. But women have always been taught to judge ourselves harshly. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/106 "2016-08-27T23:06:50Z")
Much, if not most, of human behavior is subject to analysis in “transactional” terms. No one really _thinks_ about sex in that fashion (well, _almost_ no one), but the point is that their behavior would be no different if they did. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/107 "2016-08-27T23:09:40Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Women generally promote slut shaming to drive up the market price of sex. If women give taway sex too freely, women cannot barter it for access to male resources. Male resources are fast becoming less essential to women, though. A more level economic play field means any woman or man who approaches dating with the same exact mindset as their grandparents is going to have an uphill battle, and sluts have shit all to do with that. In exchange for “male resources”, women used to have to put up with a lot that they don’t have to put up with now. Like the inability to say no and have that respected, for instance. Marital rape didn’t used to even be a thing. Nowadays, women are walking into relationships with the expectation that they won’t be giving up anything more than men are expected to give up. Are there women that still think maintaining a near-virginal status will earn them a Prince Charming? Most certainly. But as these ladies find it increasingly difficult to find dating partners who are willing to wait until marriage before having sex, they might have to change their attitudes towards all those “slutty girls” they look down on. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/108 "2016-08-27T23:33:18Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Indeed. Millenials will have [fewer sex partners](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/06/why-aren-t-millennials-sleeping-around.html) than did the old white guys of yore: > > Seems the stridency of the women’s sexual liberation movement is starting to show its strains. Or maybe we’re just turning into Islamic fundamentalists. Nothing wrong with fewer partners and there’s nothing inherently glorious about more. It’s value neutral. So if something is driving down the number of partners that’s not a “success” and when women had more partners that wasn’t a moral “failure”. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/109 "2016-08-28T00:50:46Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > God, that’s so desperately parochial and dated - it’s like the 1950s rather than Tallahassee 2004. You are free to disprove the claims. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/110 "2016-08-28T00:58:16Z")
I said it was parochial and dated ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/111 "2016-08-28T01:52:02Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I think **Stringbean** ’s comment is accurate. Many men still consider promiscuity to be a negative quality in women (\*if \*a woman is promiscuous). Attacking \*\*Stringbean \*\*for pointing out that fact is ad hominem; shooting the messenger. > [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > But it’s an attitude worth trying to address. One of the ways we address it is recognizing its underlying assumptions that are unfair to women, shine light on them, and start changing the dialog. Reducing slut-shaming helps to change those attitudes. > > Wasn’t too long ago that a divorced woman was seen as tainted and morally suspect. That attitude was able to be changed over time. This is an example of the hypocrisy of feminism, which claims to be about “equality.” Some men find promiscuous women undesirable. You’re saying that’s “unfair” to women and that society needs to change it somehow. Feminists also complain about men judging women for things like being overweight (“unrealistic body standards”), or not shaving armpits and so forth. But when a guy complains about women’s dating standards being “unfair”, or suggests that they should be changed, feminists rabidly attack him for the crime of “sexual entitlement.” They argue that any guy who whines about his sex life is the moral equivalent of a rapist who feels “entitled” to force women to have sex. (To uneducated eyes this resembles bullies kicking a miserable man for fun when’s he down.) But they promote the same “entitlement” in women that they attack in men. (In fact, promoting this seems to be one of the main focuses of current feminism.) A woman complaining that she’s oppressed because men won’t date “sluts”, or obese women, older women or women who don’t wear makeup, is no different than a guy who says he’s oppressed because women won’t date a guy who’s short, underemployed, or socially awkward. Feminists attack the latter while they promote the former and the former usually _are_ feminists. Lots of women are repulsed by guys who are adult virgins. Do we need to “change the dialog” about that? The position of feminism seems to be that women can be attracted or not attracted to whatever they want, and nobody is allowed to complain about it at all. But men are required to be attracted to whatever feminists tell them. Somehow this constitutes equality. Men are judged and shamed all the time. For being short, underemployed, skinny, fat, living with parents, sexually inexperienced, small genitalia, social timidity, etc. Is there going to be a movement for any of that? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/112 "2016-08-28T01:57:16Z")
There is no hypocrisy. Men can find whomever they want appealing. No one is talking about rules for individuals but the impact of social mores on people. For example, no one forces a white guy to have to date a black woman, but when society as a whole demonizes and punishes those relationships we have a problem. Society as whole doesn’t get to label a behavior as morally bad without a damn good reason. And that goes for men and women equally. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/113 "2016-08-28T05:12:24Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > You’re making a conscious choice to judge based on … what? Gender privilege. > > I would expect any modern women to tell you exactly what you can do with that. > > I have no idea where you guys live or your work/social mix but you don’t get away with shit like this where I am. Gender privilege? Lol. Based on the fact that most sentient humans judge worth continuously. I wouldn’t have dated or married my wife if I considered her low value. Women and men both judge potential partners. Have you dated or had a long term relationship? What do you base your choice on? Dress, manners, education, speech, behavior have no weight on the decision? I find that preposterous. And I get away with judging what company I keep, who I dated, what I want to say by the fact that it’s accepted and expected behavior. You don’t understand signaling theory do you? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/114 "2016-08-28T05:22:14Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Nothing wrong with fewer partners and there’s nothing inherently glorious about more. It’s value neutral. So if something is driving down the number of partners that’s not a “success” and when women had more partners that wasn’t a moral “failure”. That’s not necessarily true. Each person has to make the choice as to what they value in a partner and sexual behavior is one such factor. A person who has a huge amount of sexual partners and behaves in a risky manner brings real danger into the relationship. I’m not a prude but I wouldn’t marry a porn star for example. I don’t think sex is immoral but overly promiscuous behavior signals to me that the person is not compatible with my level of risk aversion. Someone who cheats I wouldn’t trust enough to combine finances or marry. That’s what behavior signals to me. There’s nothing parochial or anachronistic about marrying rationally. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/115 "2016-08-28T06:03:50Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Nothing wrong with fewer partners and there’s nothing inherently glorious about more. It’s value neutral. So if something is driving down the number of partners that’s not a “success” and when women had more partners that wasn’t a moral “failure”. The only person espousing moral virtue in this thread is **up\_the\_junction** likening men who prefer women with fewer sexual partners/experience to misogynists from the 50s or Islamic fundamentalists. When presented with statistics that Millenials are having fewer sexual partners than prior generations, he dodged. I don’t consider it “progress” that all men should find sexual promiscuity appealing. It seems he does and Millenials don’t. I wonder who is really out-of-touch here. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/116 "2016-08-28T10:59:22Z")
How would you even know? Do you quiz your dates on their entire sexual history? ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/117 "2016-08-28T14:00:02Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Gender privilege? Lol. > > Based on the fact that most sentient humans judge worth continuously. I wouldn’t have dated or married my wife if I considered her low value. Women and men both judge potential partners. Have you dated or had a long term relationship? What do you base your choice on? > > Dress, manners, education, speech, behavior have no weight on the decision? I find that preposterous. You sound painfully aspiration, and almost a victim of your immediate culture. Fwiw, wherever you start from people tend to more increasing towards human qualities as they grow and mature; kindness, sincerity, commonality, life experiencing, etc. But sure, in the procreation years, people can make any number of bullshit decisions. Divorce lawyers love that. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/118 "2016-08-28T14:02:52Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > The only person espousing moral virtue in this thread is **up\_the\_junction** likening men who prefer women with fewer sexual partners/experience to misogynists from the 50s or Islamic fundamentalists. > > When presented with statistics that Millenials are having fewer sexual partners than prior generations, he dodged. > > I don’t consider it “progress” that all men should find sexual promiscuity appealing. It seems he does and Millenials don’t. I wonder who is really out-of-touch here. You didn’t make a point. Fwiw, had no idea of the dataset - downtown Tallahassee on a Friday night, perhaps? Maybe it was old white guys again. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/119 "2016-08-28T14:14:10Z")
Men are fully entitled to their preferences, but we’re also fully entitled to judge these preferences as a product of insecurity and backwardness if their basis essentially boils down to “I need a woman who is sexually ignorant because my ego can’t handle not being the biggest dick she’s ever had.” Justifying it using evolutionary psychology theories and other hokum doesn’t really remove us from the conscious motivation behind this thinking. The Madonna-Whore complex is a cultural condition that says more about the men who put stock in it than the women they judge. So if men want to judge women as sluts for having an active sexual history, they can’t complain when they are judged as troglodytes. Like I alluded to earlier, it’s not much different than demanding that a woman be dumb and helpless because those traits will keep her standards to an attainable level, thus keeping her eyes from wandering. Would any guy posting in this thread expect to be immune from judgement if he announced having this preference? The thing is, it used to be taken as given that a dumb, helpless girl was what every guy wanted. This is why women were encouraged to downplay their smarts, keep to light, fluffly subjects, and play the damsel in distress. Disagreeing with a man, talking politics, or even being funnier than him? Girl, forget about it. How have we overcome (much of) our bias against smart, independent women, while many men still feel comfortable advertising an aversion to women who have slept with X number (noticed no one has yet quantified what the slut threshold is in this thread…it must be a number so bad that it shall not be named). I suspect it’s primarily because education and financial independence lack the moral baggage that clings to sexual behavior. When you have words like “chastity”, “purity” and “sanctity” loading the discourse–and those terms only seem to apply to women’s behavior–it suddenly puts sexual prolificacy on whole other plane. Whereas a man might readily see how it reflects negatively on his competence and ego to announce a preference for uneducated women with few ambitions in life, notions of sexual morality prevent him seeing he’s signaling the same thing when he announces a preference for sexually ignorant women. Men who don’t make it a priority of screening out women based on the number of partners they have will likely have more dating success than their more finicky brethren. Not just because they are maximizing their options, but also because they are signaling confidence in their own sexual competence (which is a turn on by itself). ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882/120 "2016-08-28T14:24:35Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > “Many men” of your age, demographic and sense of entitlement. > > A lot of old white guys support foreign wars as well. Thankfully the world is changing. I’m neither old nor white. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slut-shaming/763882.md?page=7)