Two To Tango

So, having turned this into a weekly feature, the Demystifying Divas are at it again. And this week's topic is casual sex.

When we were discussing this topic via email, the general theme that arose was how women just aren't made for casual sex. Now, Sadie chalks this up to hormonal differences. Silk believes it's got something to do with vulnerability. And Feisty Christinathinks it's about differing expectations.

They're all correct. Each and every one of their reasons is true. To a certain extent. But I'm going to play the part of the devil's advocate here and say that the reason most women do not want to partake in casual sex is because some just don't like how they feel about the whole business in the harsh, cold, raccoon-eyed, light of day.

It's one thing to be Carrie Bradshaw at night. It's entirely another to be Carrie Bradshaw the morning after.

There is a reason, after all, why they call it the "Walk of Shame."

Because, like the reasons the others laid out, shame does have something to do with it. We may be fabulous, Twenty-First Century women and can compete with men on just about every playing field, but when it comes down to it, most of us would like to be considered a nice girl. And nice girls, on the whole, do not go home with men they barely know.

It's against the rules.

Men are allowed this sort of behavior when it comes to the rules of society. They're not labeled 'easy' after a night out. They're not labeled as a 'slut' or a 'whore' after spending the night with someone. They simply don't have to deal with any of that. It's expected behavior for them and they will not have to suffer the societal consequences of said behavior. But women? Well, that's a whole different story. The bar for our behavior has been set higher than for men.

It's the old "double standard" raising its ugly head again.

I attended an all-girls Catholic high school. It was school policy that when a girl became pregnant, she was automatically kicked out for violating the Honor Code. This wasn't something the school advertised, but it was apparent when someone disappeared, like a ghost who faces the steely light of dawn, that they hadn't just transferred to a different school. Yet, amazingly enough, when it was sussed out who the father of that child was, that boy never was kicked out of the boys' school down the road. He was allowed to continue on with his studies, at the school of his choice. He faced no adverse consequences, no drastic changes to his life, particularly when the child was invariably given up for adoption. But the girl? Well, that was another story. Conversely, when I was a senior, it was known fact amongst our classmates that one of the girls in our class had become pregnant and had had an abortion. When confronted, she admitted it, too. It was quite the scandale amidst all of us youthful pro-lifers. She wasn't kicked out of school, of course, because there was no proof of the deed and no one was brave enough to tell on her, three months before graduation. But, surprisingly enough, she couldn't get a date to the prom, either. She asked eight guys. They all said, 'no, thank you.' It didn't take a rocket scientist to suss out why she'd been refused. After all, if the news had spread around our school like wildfire, it would have been a very small leap to say that it had spread three miles down the road to the boys' school.

Now, of course, you're saying, "Kath, that was how many years ago?" Well, it was about fifteen. I'll admit that things might have changed in recent years. But I don't think they've changed so much that a construct as deeply embedded as the "Madonna/Whore" complex could be so easily removed from men's psyches in that short period of time.

Of course, this goes back to how women feel about themselves. If it doesn't bother you that someone has called you a slut, then you're probably going to go on with living your life as you choose. But it bothers a lot of us to be called such names. To have a "reputation." If there's any difference between now and my vaunted high school days is that women are increasingly ditching the baggage that comes with such behavior. And that's not a bad thing. After all, no one can make you feel bad about yourself unless you let them. Particularly when it comes to casual sex. To realize this is to pull the root of the double standard right out of its own turf. It goes one step further in making society at large realize that it takes two to tango, and that the consequences of casual sex should apply to both sexes, and that women shouldn't always be the proverbial fall guy.

Posted by Kathy at March 1, 2005 11:05 AM