by Rosemary Redfern

Created on: January 30, 2010   Last Updated: January 31, 2010

There is an unspoken acceptance, and expectation, that men will sow wild oat; that they have a high sex drive which must be satisfied.  It is considered a manly thing to do; the penalties are fewer for men who are licentious and he is expected to have sexual experience, experience which gives him know how. This might not be the overt expectation of society yet there is usually less criticism of a man sleeping around than a woman. While he might contract a sexually transmitted disease, he does not have to get caught up in the raising of an unexpected and unwanted child. He can just walk away.

The problem starts when young men sensing this attitude, behave in a careless way and then become trapped as a result of their actions.  It is easy for a naive youth to believe all the tall stories they hear older men talking about and think they are missing out.  Add the drive of hormones and expectations might become difficult to satisfy. 

Women are expected to be discrete, modest and in the past, sexually ignorant.  It wasn’t considered ‘nice’ for a girl to like sex.  Here we have a society belief which flies in the face of evidence.  Most girls are just as interested but are more cautious because there are penalties.  Reputations suffer and many girls are criticized for apparent behavior, often with no real evidence to back it up. Imagination of what other people are doing creates jealousy and misperceptions, not to mention misconceptions. However, a baby in early teens is something many girls are not mature enough to deal with and don’t have the money to support either it or themselves.  The strength of the belief in marriage means that a girl will be stigmatized when she might have been unlucky.

This double standard is interesting.  It raises the question about why women should not like sex. If they were not interested the next generation would never arrive because pregnancy, childbirth and raising children is not an easy thing to do.

Many societies expect a girl to be a virgin on her marriage.  There are severe taboos which prohibit sexual license for women, even to the extent of honor killings for girls who are considered to have disgraced the family by wanting something other than what she is offered by them.  This is even taken as far as genital mutilation to keep them from experimenting. A side effect of this is that the woman cannot experience a climax and the health benefits this has.  Statistically there is evidence that sexual satisfaction keeps the uterus healthy and avoids some of the diseases of it.

Standards in sexual promiscuity are certainly looser for men than for women. 

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