Promiscuity in Women

Promiscuity in Women: Analyzing

the Double Standards among

Gender Roles and Female

Sexuality

“What if America loved women the way they love objectifying our bodies?” 2 In today’s society, promiscuous women are frowned upon while men are still praised for exhibiting the same behavior. This interesting phenomenon creates a double standard among genders that is subconsciously passed through children from generation to generation. Let’s examine closely a common example of the average person’s response to parents when first meeting their child. When people see a good looking male the average response is that he will grow up to be a heartbreaker but in reverse when people see a good looking female the response is usually to tell dad to get his shotgun. But why are these double standards still so prevalent in society? Perhaps this is due to the negative connotations of promiscuity among women that society subconsciously engrains in the minds of children into adulthood.

Promiscuity is defined as engaging in casual sexual intercourse indiscriminately, or with many persons. Logically, the definition can be split into two halves to further support this theory. The first half of the definition discusses engaging in sexual intercourse indiscriminately. The issue here is that one cannot measure sexually indiscriminate behavior. Indiscriminate is defined as lacking in care, judgement, or selectivity. Therefore, based on the definition, it is deduced that a woman is promiscuous if she lacks judgment or selectivity in her partners. The second half of the definition of promiscuity discusses engaging in sexual intercourse with many persons. The term “many” is synonymous with the terms countless, numerous, a multitude, etc. Therefore, based on the definition, it is deduced that a woman is promiscuous if she has a multitude of sexual partners. But these terms such as selectivity, multitude, indiscriminate, are all subjective. A multitude to one woman may be a small amount to another. How then can a selective woman also be promiscuous if she engages in sexual intercourse with multiple partners?

To further analyze this phenomenon, three particular disciplines were chosen with respect to this topic which includes Anthropology, Biology, and Gender & Women Studies. The first discipline, Anthropology, will examine a closer look at the human anthropological differences between women and men throughout cultures. The second discipline, Biology, will examine a closer look at pheromones, the hormones that drive a woman’s sexuality. The third discipline, Gender and Women’s studies will examine a closer look at the cultural rules and biases that lead to this double standard.  These three different disciplines together will show how each of the disciplines separately tie into the topic of promiscuity, and in-depth look at the disciplines, and the cultural rules and biases that result.

Despite a rapidly advancing modern society that preaches gender equality, women are still plagued with double standards when it comes to their sexuality. Today while men are praised for their behavior, women are still seen as promiscuous if they engage in casual sex. The real issue lies in the word's meaning itself and there won't be changes until the negative connotations of the term are removed from society and it recognizes women's bodies as their own rather than a body to objectify.

With respect to gender and sexuality, Anthropology refers to the study of women, men, and the intersection of gender across cultures. It was not until the 1970s where female anthropologists began to focus on the structural inequalities associated with gender in connection with religious beliefs, childhood development, the role of language, and female sexuality studies. Upon anthropological research, studies were found that the origins of sex differences accounting for the differences in male and female behavior are due to the division of labor between the genders and patriarchy, the greater the status and power of men then woman resulting in men’s ability to control a women’s sexuality and other aspects of their behavior. 3 This may account for the activities and careers males and females end up choosing and the paths they take in life. Males throughout cultures tend to choose activities such as haunting or carpentry while females tend to choose activities such as cooking or water fetching.

Despite these differences, times are changing and women are now becoming the bread winners and are more educated than ever before. Perhaps there is a correlation to why women are still treated as the inferior sex and why society frowns upon sexually promiscuous women while applauding men for their behavior. This discipline differs from the others because it relays more to the sense of gender differences and as to why society might have different views of the gender roles due to men’s role of labor and status over women.

Biology, or human biology, is defined as the physiology, behavior, and other qualities of a particular organism or class of organisms. This discipline will examine the biological attraction between male and female and especially with respect to pheromones. Pheromones are hormones secreted mostly through the axillary sweat glands. These hormones are usually triggered by a positive mood and heightened focus on sexual satisfaction and play a large role in mate selection and sexual desire and arousal. This may be through stimuli and physical contact triggering the senses to create a sexual response in women. Pheromones are dispersed due to odors, clothing layers, temperature, facial hair, body features, arm movements, and the general closeness of the nose. Participating in arousing activities play a large role in the secretion of pheromones and in face kissing and sleeping next to a partner secretes more hormones than sexual intercourse itself.

Table 2-Sexual Behavior and pheromone secretion results 4                                                       

                                                                 

This concludes that female hormones result in sexual attraction and is the body’s natural biological response to engage in sexual intercourse once sexual arousal is reached. This discipline differs from the others because it focuses more on the science of women’s bodies rather than the cultural opinions of society.

Lastly, gender and women’s studies is a field that focuses on gender and a social and cultural construction. This topic closely examines the double standards among gender and the ongoing movement against slut shaming. Slut shaming is defined as the practice of maligning women for presumed sexual activity. 5 Upon research it is discovered that women participate in slut shaming just as much as men as a result of internalized oppression. But why are men expected to carry out their sexual desires while women are expected to only be in a committed loving relationship or even still wait until they are married to participate in such activity? Research of the stigma concludes that the three primary reasons for this is distancing the stigma from one’s self, social pressure among genders to fit in, and the distinct line between boundaries of genders.

Another main cause of the construction of the stigma against sexually promiscuous women is due largely to religious beliefs. Most religions urge females to wait until marriage to participate in sexual activity and often women are seen as objects for their husbands to dutifully please them whenever they see fit and to reproduce children. Perhaps the stigma then comes from the promiscuous women being seen as anti-religious and non-willing to reproduce children as a result of having multiple partners.

One of the most influential papers by a popular geneticist Angus Bateman in 1948 who concluded that sex in females was like economics and was determined by quantity versus quality. He came to his conclusions with the study of fruit flies and determined that females chose the “best” male when looking to mate rather than an increase in reproductive success by mating with many males. Sixty years later further research showed that his theory was flawed and that society just accepted it with assumptions on how female sexuality “ought to be.”

Through my research on promiscuity, I realized that being promiscuous is not always as black or white as I was raised. Growing up I was taught that women who slept around were promiscuous and this resulted in an overall negative connotation to sexually free women around me.

In Conclusion, society needs to change its views towards women and their sexuality. The three particular disciplines were chosen with respect to this topic which includes Anthropology, Biology, and Gender and Women's Studies. The term promiscuous in itself has a negative connotation and its definition does not apply to all of the women who have been called it. Perhaps an alternative for calling a woman promiscuous that has a better connotation would be “sexually free.”

Bibliography

• 1.  Wood, W., & Eagly, A. (2002). A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Behavior of Women and Men: Implications for the Origins of Sex Differences. Retrieved November 5, 2015, from http://128.2.176.204/_media/papers/wood02_cross-cultural_analysis.pdf
• 2.  Armstrong, E., Hamilton, L., Armstrong, E., & Seely, J. (2014, June 14). ‘‘Good Girls’’: Gender, Social Class, and Slut Discourse on Campus. Retrieved November 5, 2015, from http://www.asanet.org/journals/SPQ/Jun14SPQFeature.pdf
• 3.  Upton, R. (2012, January 11). Gender. Retrieved November 5, 2015, from http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0009.xml
• 4. Johnson, E. (2013, December 4). When Are Women Most Likely to Be Promiscuous? Retrieved November 5, 2015, from http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/12/female_promiscuity_in_primates_when_do_women_have_multiple_partners.html
• 5. Verhaeghe, J., Gheysen, R., & Enzlin, P. (2013). Pheromones and their effect on women’s mood and sexuality. Facts, Views & Vision in ObGyn, 5(3), 189–195.,from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987372/
• 6. McCoy, N., & Pitino, L. (2001, November 21). Pheromonal influences on sociosexual behavior in young wome. Retrieved November 5, 2015, from http://www.athenainstitute.com/1013study.pdf