The sexual double standard, or SDS, is the phenomenon of heterosexual men and women being judged differently for identical sexual behavior. G贸mez Berrocal et al. (2019) state that traditional SDS expects men to think about sex all the time and women to ‘gate-keep’ their sexuality. Consequently, traditional SDS evaluates particularly sexually active heterosexual men more favorably than heterosexual women exhibiting the behavior of the same kind. Estimating the prevalence of SDS is important for comprehending sexual health, which is associated with a person enjoying and expressing their sexuality freely. Accordingly, SDS has been linked to a number of sexual issues, such as sexual assault, sexual victimization, victim-blaming, increased risk of catching sexually transmitted infections, and low sexual satisfaction.
Sexual liberation has continuously been conducive to traditional SDS being less influential in some areas. For instance, G贸mez Berrocal et al. (2019) note that premarital sex nowadays is much more accepted among both men and women. Despite this, men’s first sexual intercourse happens earlier in regards to age than that of women and men, on average, tend to have more sexual partners. Moreover, some mass media and video games still reinforce the stereotyped image of males and females, which often facilitates sexism among young people. Therefore, SDS also appears to be a widespread phenomenon in modern society.
In terms of where these gender-based expectations might originate from, it is possibly due to the belief that men have power that women do not or the belief that men were ‘programmed’ by evolution to have more sexual activity. According to Hensums et al. (2022), deviation from these gender-based expectations might result in negative assessments from others, both men and women. Social learning theory states that people are more likely to repeat behaviors that are rewarded (sexual activity for men and sexual passivity for women) than behaviors that are punished. The prevailing gender-based expectations are thus important for manifesting and maintaining the sexual double standard in society.
References
G贸mez Berrocal, M. D. C., Vallejo-Medina, P., Moyano, N., & Sierra, J. C. (2019). Sexual Double Standard: A psychometric study from a neuropsychological perspective among the Spanish heterosexual population. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1869.
Hensums, M., Overbeek, G., & Jorgensen, T. D. (2022). Not one sexual double standard but two? Adolescents’ attitudes about appropriate sexual behavior.Youth & Society, 54(1), 23-42.