Sexual (Double) Standards Revisited: Similarities and Differences in the Societal Evaluation of Male and Female Sexuality

Abstract

Past research has been inconclusive regarding the continued existence of the sexual double standard (SDS)—that is, differential expectations and evaluations of sexual activity for men (rewarded for sexual activity) and women (punished for sexual activity). Here, we present the similarities and differences (S&D) model of sexual standards, which significantly qualifies the traditional SDS by highlighting both similarities and differences between standards applied to women and men. Across two samples (student/community sample, crowdsourcing sample; N_total = 342) and seven sexual outcomes, high sexual activity was rated more favorably in men than in women (replicating previous research), and the opposite was true for low sexual activity (extending previous research). Importantly, moderate (not extremely low or high) sexual activity was rated most favorably in both genders, suggesting similar and curvilinear intragender trajectories. These findings illustrate a distinctly different perspective on male and female sexuality and open avenues for new research.

Keywords

sexual double standard sexual norms sexuality

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bandura

(1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice Hall.

Bordini

G. S.

Sperb

T. M.

(2013). Sexual double standard: A review of the literature between 2001 and 2010. Sexuality & Culture, 17(4), 686–704. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-012-9163-0

Buss

D. M.

Schmitt

D. P.

(1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100(2), 204–232.

Crawford

Popp

(2003). Sexual double standards: A review and methodological critique of two decades of research. Journal of Sex Research, 40(1), 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490309552163

Eagly

A. H.

Wood

(2012). Social role theory. In Van Lange

Kruglanski

Higgins

(Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (pp. 458–476). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446249222.n49

Endendijk

J. J.

van Baar

A. L.

Deković

(2020). He is a stud, she is a slut! A meta-analysis on the continued existence of sexual double standards. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 24(2), 163–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868319891310

Enders

C. K.

Tofighi

(2007). Centering predictor variables in cross-sectional multilevel models: A new look at an old issue. Psychological Methods, 12(2), 121–138. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.12.2.121

Field

(2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics. Sage.

Funder

D. C.

Ozer

D. J.

(2019). Evaluating effect size in psychological research: Sense and nonsense. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 2(2), 156–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245919847202

10.

Gesselman

A. N.

Webster

G. D.

Garcia

J. R.

(2017). Has virginity lost its virtue? Relationship stigma associated with being a sexually inexperienced adult. Journal of Sex Research, 54(2), 202–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1144042

11.

Giner-Sorolla

Montoya

A. K.

Reifman

Carpenter

Lewis

N. A.

Aberson

C. L.

Bostyn

D. H.

Conrique

B. G.

B. W.

Schoemann

A. M.

Soderberg

(2024). Power to detect what? Considerations for planning and evaluating sample size. Personality and Social Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683241228328

12.

Goodman

J. K.

Cryder

C. E.

Cheema

(2013). Data collection in a flat world: The strengths and weaknesses of Mechanical Turk samples. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 26(3), 213–224.

13.

Green

MacLeod

C. J.

(2016). SIMR: An R package for power analysis of generalized linear mixed models by simulation. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 7(4), 493–498. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12504

14.

Haversath

Gärttner

K. M.

Kliem

Vasterling

Strauss

Kröger

(2017). Sexualverhalten in Deutschland. Deutsches Ärzteblatt, 114(33–34), 545–550. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.2017.0545

15.

Jonason

P. K.

(2008). A mediation hypothesis to account for the sex difference in reported number of sexual partners: An intrasexual competition approach. International Journal of Sexual Health, 19(4), 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1300/J514v19n04_05

16.

Jonason

P. K.

Marks

M. J.

(2009). Common vs. uncommon sexual acts: Evidence for the sexual double standard. Sex Roles, 60(5–6), 357–365. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9542-z

17.

Lakens

(2013). Calculating and reporting effect sizes to facilitate cumulative science: A practical primer for t-tests and ANOVAs. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 863. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00863

18.

Leiner

D. J.

(2022). SoSci survey (Version 3.2.31) [Computer software]. https://www.soscisurvey.de

19.

Marks

M. J.

Fraley

R. C.

(2005). The sexual double standard: Fact or fiction? Sex Roles, 52(3), 175–186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-1293-5

20.

Marks

M. J.

Fraley

R. C.

(2007). The impact of social interaction on the sexual double standard. Social Influence, 2(1), 29–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510601154413

21.

Marks

M. J.

Young

T. M.

Zaikman

(2019). The sexual double standard in the real world: Evaluations of sexually active friends and acquaintances. Social Psychology, 50(2), 67–79. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000362

22.

McKeen

B. E.

Anderson

R. C.

Mitchell

D. A.

(2022). Was it good for you? Gender differences in motives and emotional outcomes following casual sex. Sexuality & Culture, 26(4), 1339–1359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-09946-w

23.

Milhausen

R. R.

Herold

E. S.

(2002). Reconceptualizing the sexual double standard. Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 13(2), 63–83. https://doi.org/10.1300/J056v13n02_05

24.

Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251), Article aac4716. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716

25.

Pickens

Braun

(2018). “Stroppy bitches who just need to learn how to settle?” Young single women and norms of femininity and heterosexuality. Sex Roles, 79(7–8), 431–448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0881-5

26.

R Core Team. (2023). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/

27.

Reiss

I. L.

(1956). The double standard in premarital sexual intercourse: A neglected concept. Social Forces, 34(1), 224–230. https://www-proquest-com-s.web.bisu.edu.cn/docview/1290943608/citation/37BB566E87074941PQ/1

28.

Rights

J. D.

Sterba

S. K.

(2019). Quantifying explained variance in multilevel models: An integrative framework for defining R-squared measures. Psychological Methods, 24(3), 309–338. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000184

29.

Sprecher

Hatfield

(1996). Premarital sexual standards among U.S. college students: Comparison with Russian and Japanese students. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 25(3), 261–288. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02438165

30.

Trivers

R. L.

(1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In Campbell

(Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man 1871-1971 (pp. 136–207). Aldine de Gruyter.

31.

Weber

Reis

Friese

(2024). Development and validation of the Trait Sexual Motivation Scale (TSMS). Journal of Personality Assessment, 106, 267–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2023.2206896

32.

Wesche

Claxton

S. E.

Waterman

E. A.

(2021). Emotional outcomes of casual sexual relationships and experiences: A systematic review. Journal of Sex Research, 58(8), 1069–1084. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1821163

33.

Wesson

(2022). A mixed-methods exploration of young adults’ views of the sexual double standard. Sexuality & Culture, 26(4), 1314–1325. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-09944-y

34.

Wood

Eagly

A. H.

(2002). A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128(5), 699–727. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.699

35.

Zaikman

Marks

M. J.

(2017). Promoting theory-based perspectives in sexual double standard research. Sex Roles, 76(7–8), 407–420. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0677-z

36.

Zaikman

Marks

M. J.

Young

T. M.

Zeiber

J. A.

(2016). Gender role violations and the sexual double standard. Journal of Homosexuality, 63(12), 1608–1629. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2016.1158007

37.

ZAVA. (2021). Lying between the sheets: Is my partner honest about the sexual past?https://www.zavamed.com/uk/lying-between-the-sheets.html

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.23 MB