Thanks, pizzabrat, for saying it clearer and better than I would.
Guys, you realize that many of the other men hitting on women are the male equivalent of the women you disregard at bars and clubs and find… unattractive.
If the sentiment expressed by Seinfeld is correct, and most people are unattractive, would you rather be an unattractive man doomed to hit on women and get rejected all the time, or would you rather be an unattractive woman doomed to walk into a bar and get hit by nobody?
I think the latter sucks, but the former sucks even more, because active rejection hurts. You’re putting yourself out there and - smack! - you are rejected.
Even if you are an attractive man, you still have to do all the work and put yourself out there. If you are an attractive woman, all you have to do is walk into a bar and just wait for the men to come along and have your pick.
I think the setup is decidedly in favor of women.
A couple WAGs:
- Is it possible that, due to the patriarchy of past societies, men had a lot of power, and the power to control sex was one of the few and compelling powers that women had? This provided at least some balance against all the power that men had.
So, it would seem that woman-kind would frown on women who sleep around a lot, because, if the behavior spread to most women, then sex would not be such a precious commodity that could be used to hold some power over men.
So, maybe the attitude was spread intentionally or unintentionally by women, and not by men? (Some of this can be seen today when women accuse other women of being a slut)
- Is it possible that a society in which women go around sleeping with as many guys as they want to, is not a stable society? Maybe because the women will have less patience to stick around the house and raise kids? Maybe because the women will have less patience to stick with one guy and raise his kids, especially if they start getting sick of him?
So, if such societies are not stable, e.g. do not provide for a stable environment in which kids are raised, societies in the past that have gone this route disappeared, leaving us today with societies that do frown on women sleeping around.
Bondage, foot fetishism and self-inflicted pain? Are you sure you’re not Evil Captor? 
In terms of having one’s feelings protected, I guess, but in terms of actually procuring a mate, actively initiating contact will prove more successful than sitting around and waiting for someone else to do so.
Hostile work environment harassment means making such an ass of yourself to a woman, just because she’s a woman, that she can’t work as effectively. There are plenty of ways to be an ass without getting raunchy. And if you’re clever, sensitive, and have good social skills, sexual banter could improve office morale and make women (and men) work more effectively. Link
I am not Evil Captor, but I sometimes play him in my bedroom.
Since similar proportions of the male and female populations end up paired off (unless you know differently) it seems that go-getting and sitting and waiting are both equally effective. Of course you have to belong to the gender for which the consensus is that either go-getting, or sitting and waiting, is an approved stratagem.
The flower does not have to shanghai the passing bee; it need only produce an attractive scent and the promise of nectar.
Where do eligible women outnumber eligible men? I must’ve been looking in all the wrong places.
But by definition the go-getter has all the choice. The waiter can only take her pick from those who approach her.
Is that all? And what option does the flower have if it wasn’t born with an attractive enough scent?
Probably. More men are in prison than women, more men die in wars than women, men die earlier than women in general, there are more gay men than lesbians, there are much more male-to-female transgendered people than female-to-male; it’s quite obvious that men have always had a larger pool (except in China, where the ratio was artificially skewed by government policies).
I’ve never heard that before. Cite?
BrainGlutton, that is just one view by some Sociobiologists and it is based on faulty logic and poor selection samples. It doesn’t match up with what we know about Sociology OR Biology. There are many sociological and biological advantages for females to be sluts. Furthermore, among our closest relatives, mature females are preferred over their adolescent sisters. There are many theories as to why this is so, including that proven successful mothers are more attractive than women who are having their first babies.
And as for the people blaming women… in societies where male patriarchy has more control over females, females tend to treat other females worse and are more critical of their action than they do in societies where males and females are more egalitarian. Look at the high level of female infanticide in many ancient and modern patriarchal cultures. This is not to say that women don’t perpetuate it just that they are far better off when they don’t and perpetuate it out of the realities of the situation more than inherent inhostility towards other women. However, even with this, when we examine both the animal kingdom and humans, in highly patriarchal societies, women face far more violence and trouble from males than from other females. After all, while it usually is the female who kills her infant female child, she normally does so under the order of a male.
Any sudden change in values and behaviours would be destabilizing to society and I think that’s why some people still cling to old fashioned double standards. Especially in this particular case where there are still benefits to keeping the double standard alive, but where individuals can reject it without terrible consequences.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that one day we would realize the double standard was stupid and the next day it would just be gone. If you take the 1950s as an example of a time when that double standard was very entrenched, it wasn’t just something that worked to keep women from having fun, it justified and supported people’s identities and the structure of the family that was becoming contrived on its own considering technological changes that affected what skills are required for work inside and outside the home. There was a practical advantage to believing that a woman should be at home because she is loving and devoted because you couldn’t really say that special womanly skills were needed to put a TV dinner in the oven or that special manly skills were needed to drive to an office and add up numbers. I think it did make sense that people became invested in those ideas that a “real” woman was naturally devoted to her man because that idea kept things the same and protected people from seeing their role as pointless and arbitrary. If a woman a woman is just like a man when it comes to love, sex and work, then how could those men justify the fact they worked to feed and clothe another adult his whole life? In a sense, that wasn’t that long ago that a woman was essentially making a living by the sex she wasn’t having. Never mind not wanting to work and slave to feed a baby that’s not related to you, why would a man want to work to feed another adult who isn’t related to him? Unless she is going to provide him with love and devotion what would the point be? The bottom line is that even promiscuous people like to have a faithful partner who makes them feel secure and loved and we are all more inclined to help a person when we trust that person! So at a time when men were out making money and supporting women who were physically capable of doing that themselves if they were inclined, there would be a big investment in the idea that women had something to offer them in return.
So I think that’s why girls are still raised to keep that card up their sleeves and at least consider the option that they may have to prove fidelity if they are going to be loved and taken care of, and boys are still raised with a bit of a hint that maybe they will be expected to provide financial support to a woman at some point as a way to get her to stay around. But I think those are “just in case” ideas. I think a lot of people do grow up and find they aren’t so good at finding a job or a relationship and that will always be the case, but in the case when it’s the man bad at relationships, or the woman bad at providing material things for herself, the temptation to say, “well it’s natural,” is just too good to resist. So I think that’s one reason it persists. If you are a lazy and good looking woman, you can get by just by having sex selectively and holding out for someone who will support you financially, or at least appearing to. If you are a man who is not very good at relationships, you can find a woman who will love you and give you emotional support just because you have a good income. You can’t expect those people to say that they are a bunch of losers with bad life skills! It’s so easy to defend those situations by saying it’s natural and traditional so of course some people do.
And as long as there are people doing that, there will be opportunities to slam a woman for being in that role where she’s using sex to get something and relying on that old assumption that their sexuality is worth something to them besides their own pleasure, but at the same time breaking the old rule that they need to reserve it if they want everyone to consider it so special and valuable. It’s also very easy to call someone a slut if they don’t have anything but their sexual value to show for themselves. If you see someone like Paris Hilton versus someone like Oprah Winfrey, you don’t need to call Oprah a slut because she has many more accomplishments you can skewer and knock her down for. With Paris Hilton there isn’t much else to criticize besides her sexual behaviour. But how much of a consequence is in being called a slut is probably what matters. It’s easy to laugh off being called a slut if you aren’t relying on someone to find you virtuous enough to marry. So if you look at it in terms of consequences, then the double standard doesn’t persist in the same destructive and very limiting way. I think it’s likely that more people look down on Paris Hilton for the achievements she hasn’t made than for the amount of sex she actually has, and all the criticism of her sexuality is just words. It doesn’t make her poor or unloved. So “persist” is a strong word for how double standards are now compared to a few decades ago. I think it’s more like a residue.
No cite, just something I’ve read before. Could be false, especially since it’s hard to tell how many people are gay in the first place.
The double standard exists because casual sex is desirable for far more men than women. In general, men have a higher sex drive than women. Cite.
Not only do men desire sex more, but they orgasm far more frequently than women. Cite.
And from a happiness point of view, men need sex more.
When a man wants lots of sex, it’s very easy for other men to understand.
When a woman wants lots of sex, it isn’t as easy. For a woman with a low sex drive who has never orgasmed, the appeal of sex just isn’t as strong. It’s easier to call the women who enjoy sex frequently whores because they are in the minority.
Those are based on Americans where females have a lot of internal guilt over seeking out casual sex partners. Look at how our society has changed so much in that more and more young women are seeking casual sex. I doubt our biology has changed dramatically in the past 30 years. Furthermore, in other cultures, female orgasms are more highly valued and women have more orgasms per sexual encounter.
#1 is highly, highly debatable. Every bitching female friend tells me the opposite. And it might actually relate to #2-- why are all my female friends constantly on the prowl or coaxing their significant others to have more sex? Because their orgasm:intercourse ratio is lower. They’re just trying to increase their odds.
The second link is from a British study. I don’t know if the UK is an example of a culture that values the female orgasm more, but it was a twin study that indicated the female orgasm is highly genetically related.
Our biology hasn’t changed in the past 30 years, but the culture had kept female sexuality at artificially low levels. More and more women are seeking casual sex, but it’s never going to be the sexual free-for-all that would occur if society and culture were the only factors.
Are all your bitching friends in their late 20s to early 30s? No cite, but women and men peak at different times in their lifetimes.
YMMV, but the studies show that your average man wants it more than the average woman.
And the go-getter can only take his or her pick from those who will permit the approach, which IME is by no means a given. The waiter has at least as much choice.
Much the same as the bee - I’m remembering the quote that an ugly man with no money might as well cut off his penis. Anyway…
It depends what you mean by “attractive enough”; the bees are all competing for the most honey-laden flower, but they can’t all go to it. Inevitably some have to “settle for” a less attractive-smelling flower, in the same sense that the less-attractive flower has to “settle for” a less competitive bee; but it works out about as fair for the flower as for the bee.
'Sides which, there is far more sympathy for the woman in modern society who wants to be a go-getter than the man who wants to be a sitter, so I’m not buying this line about it being unfair to women.
All of which I take to be uncommon exceptions and not greatly skewing the numbers of eligible men versus eligible women, unless of course you know differently. Particularly the transgender issue - that’s what, a fraction of a percent? Hardly depriving millions of women of the chance to hook an acceptable male. There may be a big gender imbalance among the over-70s, but that won’t make much of a dent among people of mating age.
Why are all my male friends, and most male Dopers who express an opinion on the matter, of the opinion that their womenfolk are the ones putting the brakes on the amount of sex that’s going on, then? I’ve not made high marks on the number of sexual relationships I’ve had, but I can tell you anecdotally that I’ve not known one. single. woman. who wanted to have sex more often than we were having it - and generally were looking to have less.
I can’t find a cite either, but I remember the same thing as pizzabrat; more gay men than lesbians, by a large margin. Several times as many IIRC.
In a lot of relationships that I hear about, that seems to be the case, but again I wonder how much of that is due to the perpetual message women are given from the time they’re kids that if they like and want sex, they’re a slut.
I’ve certainly got a high sex drive, and in fact in some relationships it’s been me who’s wanting more sex and the guy who’s thinking there’s maybe a bit too much sex. At the same time, the reaction I get from a lot of people, women in particular, is hostility and insults. They think there’s something wrong with me, that I’m a slut, because they were brought up to believe that women who want a lot of sex are sluts, and that this is a bad, bad thing.