2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
The difference in attitudes towards sex between men and women is taken for granted. It is believed that men think about sex all the time, do not skip a single skirt and are prone to polygamy. Women are rumored to be hunting for men's wallets, a penchant for long-term and reliable relationships, and an inability to have frequent orgasms.
American psychologists have conducted a study on how these stereotypes correspond to reality. Based on the results of numerous surveys conducted mainly among students, as well as an analysis of previously published works on the topic, a research group from the University of Michigan released a detailed final review. Terry Conley and her colleagues argue that attitudes towards sex cannot be so easily divided into white / black or pink / blue, writes Livescience.com. They concluded that the six common gender stereotypes about sex are nothing more than social myths.
Myth 1. Struggle for sex and status
According to evolutionary psychology, men are guided by attractiveness criteria when choosing a mate in order to give their offspring good physical advantages. Women, in turn, are more concerned with the high social status of a partner who will provide children with better starting opportunities. Surveys among students showed that this mechanism really works, but … only in theory.
According to data published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in a real-life acquaintance, imbued with RESPECT and INTEREST for each other, men and women forget about the imagined ideal and begin to act regardless of considerations of beauty or material status. Thus, the common stereotype, in fact, does not have any effect on preferences in choosing a sexual partner.
“It’s the idea of the 'ideal' that gives rise to stereotypical thoughts about the relationship between men and women, as well as how they 'should act,” says Conley. "And when you encounter a real person, different rules apply."
Myth 2. All men are polygamous
If you ask men and women how many sex partners they need to be completely satisfied, the results obtained from men will be much higher than from women. It is a fact. However, this fact itself does not mean anything, the researchers say. Upon closer examination, it turns out that the "average temperature in the hospital" is created by single respondents who repeatedly overestimate their real needs for sex.
For example, if out of 10 men nine report that it is enough for them to interact with one sexual partner within a year, and one states that he personally needs 20, then the average value is calculated at the level of 2.9. that the average man needs three women a year. If we focus not on average numbers, but on typical answers, it turns out that the overwhelming majority of men and women, when asked how many sexual partners they need, give the same answer: one.
Conley talks about why some representatives of the stronger sex distort statistics in terms of social psychology. In her opinion, these people do not say what they really want to say, but what they think “should be said” to prove their masculinity. And since many surveys on the topic of sexual relations of people are carried out among young people, it is not surprising that some young men seek to attribute to themselves sexual heroism, which is not characteristic of them in real life.
Conley cites the results of a study once published in the Journal of Sex Research to back this up. According to the data obtained, it is enough to warn the respondents that they will be tested on a lie detector, and men begin to name the same number of desired partners as women, and the overall numbers miraculously equalize.
Myth 3. Men are more likely to think about sex
Even the conventional wisdom that men think about sex every seven seconds turned out to be half-true. While the researchers do not argue that they actually fantasize about sexual topics more often than women, this imbalance looks very different when you look at it from a different angle.
Thus, it would be wrong to say that sex is more important in the lives of men than women.
Myth 4. Women rarely have an orgasm
According to a widespread belief, the fair sex is biologically doomed to a more meager sex life simply because they are not able to often experience orgasms. Numerous studies are based on statistics: in absolute terms, men have more orgasms than women.
However, psychologists under the leadership of Terry Conley made a small but very significant amendment here. It turned out that if you separate "one-off sex" and long-term love sexual relations, the data will change beyond recognition. With a permanent sexual partner or in the presence of harmonious sexual relations in marriage, women are able to experience almost as many orgasms as men.
In a study published in 2009 in Families as They Really Are, researchers asked nearly 13,000 people to share their sexual experiences. According to the data obtained, during the first sexual intercourse, the number of female orgasms barely reached one third in relation to male ejaculations. With repeated sex, women experienced orgasms only half as often as men. But as soon as sexual relations between partners became permanent, the number of female orgasms reached 79% of the total number of male orgasms.
From these statistics, Conley and her colleagues concluded that for women to achieve orgasm, two things are important: complete trust in a man (and this happens only with a long acquaintance) and the presence of a partner who takes care of her sexual satisfaction.
So, in this case, biology has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Myth 5. Men love casual sex
The stereotype that a man is ready to drag after the first skirt he comes across has come to be perceived as something proven thanks to a study published in 1989. Then psychologists asked young men and women to approach their peers of the opposite sex and make them a proposal of a sexual nature. Seventy percent of the men who were offered a night of love by young ladies happily agreed. But all women, without exception, responded to indecent proposals with a categorical refusal.
From this it was concluded that women are not at all interested in casual sex. However, Conley's research team is convinced that it is all about unaccounted cultural factors. If an offer of sex comes from someone you know or from a very attractive man, women become much more supportive. And when it comes to being in bed with a celebrity - here, as it turned out, gender differences are completely erased.
Terry Conley claims that she has pinpointed the reason for this behavior. The fact is that a man who openly offers himself to a stranger is perceived by her as a loser, unable to satisfy his partner in bed.
"Women accept fewer random offers of sex from men just because they see these offers as evidence of limited sexual performance," the study's author writes.
Myth 6. Women are more picky than men
Evolutionary theory states that men are tempted to breed with whoever they can, while women are much more selective when choosing a sexual partner. The Conley group's calculations indicate that this statement is by no means universal.
A study published in 2009 in the journal Psychological Science reports interesting results. It turns out that regardless of gender, people become picky the moment a potential partner offers them his persona. And on the contrary, as soon as a person himself is forced to be friends with someone, the effect of “picking up grubs” immediately stops working.
During the experiment, scientists simulated the opposite situations. So, in one case, women stayed in their places, and men took turns approaching them, offering themselves to be a couple. Under these conditions, the ladies showed wonders of selectivity, looking out at the slightest flaws in the gentlemen. But as soon as they were reversed, the behavior changed in exactly the same way! Now young people already allowed themselves to disdain "substandard goods", while the ladies, knocking off their feet, tried to find a mate.
From this, Conley and her colleagues conclude unequivocally: the myth of the legibility of women must be attributed to the traditions, thanks to which the representatives of the stronger sex are forced to take the first step. This disposition itself allows women to choose, and obliges men only to be content with the result of the choice.
Illustrations by Shanghai artist Zhang Weimang
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