Sexual Discrimination

[Little brother]

We had this discussion in class yesterday..... There is a party. We have two 17 year old teens. One a boy, the other a girl. Both are rather good looking and are popular with both sexes. That night they both go to this party. The boy ends up having sex once and then kissing another 3 girls..Meanwhile the girl kisses three guys.. The next day at school there is a uproar about these two. The boy was hailed a hero by the guys and the girls thought he was even hotter. However the girl got an opposite reaction. She was called a slut by the guys and called a slut and worse by the girls....Now. Why? this is what we discussed in class. Many girls brought up the point about this how come they had these restrictions on them? Where do you think the problem lies? Tell me, i think i've found the answer, but i want to hear everyone elses opinions first.

[TC]

Is this something that *actually happened* or just a purely hypothetical scenario that someone came up with for a classroom discussion?


Either way, assuming that this was a real scenario, i would suggest it can be explained this way (please, forgive my generalities as obviously not all highschool students or all highschool classes can described the same way):

-Guys are, on average, much bigger sluts than girls.

(Don't accuse me of sexism, i mean "slut" in the the most affirmative, sex-positive, post-christian-morality sorta way, its really neither a good nor a bad thing; nor am i suggesting that all guys are sluts or that its biological rather than social in origin, i would think its much more due to how people are raised.)


Given the fact that most guys are very slutty and will accept no-strings-attached sex with people they're not involved with when its offered, when guys act like sluts, they're congradulated by other guys since its an indication that they're desirable enough for people to want to have meaningless sex with them.


On the other hand, most teenage girls are not sluts and are unwilling to have emotionless meaningless sex with people they weren't involved with under most circumstances. As a result, the non-slutty majority doesn't want sex to be an expectation before emotional intimacy. Consequently, the non-slutty majority will highly resent other girls acting like sluts, as they're in competition with them for guys and being a slut gives them an 'unfair' advantage...because they figure that if the slutty girls are willing to do things that they're not, they wont have a fair chance, and additionally the more slutty girls there are the more guys will expect people they're with to move faster.

So, teenage girls tend to really hate people who act slutty (whatever that is by the local standards), and they're mean and try to make the slutty girls at their school feel really embarrased about it even though they've done nothing wrong, so as to discourage them for messing up the social dynamics in a way that would make the non-slutty girls less popular. When guys are slutty however, teenage girls don't nessessarily think less of them (though certaintly some do) because they just assume that all of the guys would be slutty if given the opprotunity and they're not in any competition with them so guys being slutty doesn't mess up their social groups as much. If they find guys who have acted sluttily more desirable, its not because they're slutty (which, again, is a characteristic they basically assume all guys have), but because other girls found them desirable, and, in general, people are more likely to want something if their friends want it too.


Teenage boys don't act the same way because most of them are such sluts in the first place that, since they're all that way, any one of them being slutty doesn't affect the social dynamic in a way that reduces the others chances, so they don't resent it. If they do suggest that a girls slutty (which, honestly, is pretty rare) its more likely because they're jealous and resentful that they're the only one she's not willing to fool around with, not because they genuinely have a problem with it as they'd appreciate it if it were directed towards them.

This, by the way, only really applies to fairly immature people in a highly insular environment like a highschool...its not a big deal when people are more grown up and they're not all dating in the same relatively small group of people.

[Red Axis]

It is a sad commentary on what capitalist culture does to us.

[claro de luna]

Well, I think that the boys have more liberties than girls and it really makes me sad.

For instance, the boy there was congratulated by the others since he had sex but the girl was called a slut. If there were no "slut" girls willing to have sex with the boy, what would he had done? Would the others call him a loser? I can't understand people when they act like this. Girls are to have a very short list of boyfriends otherwise they are whores, boys are to have a veeeeeeeery long list of girls in their lives otherwise they would be called losers...

[RevMARKSman]

^ And if that continued, there would soon have to be a VERY LARGE ratio of girls to boys, maybe 5 to 1? Implying that each boy would have 5 girls as "property". And that's sexism at its worst. We need to work and get rid of this "slut" and "conqueror" mentality.

[adenoid hynkel]

Originally posted by Red Axis@May 6 2006, 04:18 AM
It is a sad commentary on what capitalist culture does to us.

I do not think that this problem has anything to do with capitalism.
The problem is that for many reasons ( which I cannot fully understand or explain, maybe a phychologist or a phychoanalysict can) the female role in sex is perceived by a large part of society( both by men AND WOMEN), as passive, while the male one is considered as active. This concept has little to do with capitalism. It is older than capitalism. It existed in Ancient Greece, it existed in Rome and in many other ancient cultures.

The fact that this concept, while it still exists in our society, is not as strong as it was 50 or 100 years ago, is surely pleasant.

[Little brother]

This is good, yes this is a hypothetical question but it some a scenerio that isn't uncommon.
[/QUOTE]On the other hand, most teenage girls are not sluts and are unwilling to have emotionless meaningless sex with people they weren't involved with under most circumstances. As a result, the non-slutty majority doesn't want sex to be an expectation before emotional intimacy.
This point however i think is untrue. My thoughts are girls would indeed be slutty
(a bad word i know yet i can't find a more suitable one) if accepted to be by the other girls....You've brought up good answers but not quite the one i'm looking for. I'll let this hang another night before i show the answer i came up with. Just out of curiosity could you say whether you are female or male when you reply. Thanks
Matt. (male)

[amanondeathrow]

adenoid hynkel

This concept has little to do with capitalism. It is older than capitalism. It existed in Ancient Greece, it existed in Rome and in many other ancient cultures.

The economic systems that existed before capitalism were still based on principles of unequal ownership of property. So obviously you would see the same type of discrimination in ancient times.

I would not go as far as to say everything about the slut/stud contradiction is caused by capitalism (nothing is as cut and dry). But the culture that gave birth to it was a direct result of our economic system.

[C_Rasmussen]

Originally posted by claro de luna@May 6 2006, 02:01 AM
Well, I think that the boys have more liberties than girls and it really makes me sad.

For instance, the boy there was congratulated by the others since he had sex but the girl was called a slut. If there were no "slut" girls willing to have sex with the boy, what would he had done? Would the others call him a loser? I can't understand people when they act like this. Girls are to have a very short list of boyfriends otherwise they are whores, boys are to have a veeeeeeeery long list of girls in their lives otherwise they would be called losers...

Absolutely. Thats the unfortunate thing called following gender roles. I also hate that guys and girls have to look a certain way <_<.

[Don't Change Your Name]

Hmm...this is probably related with an attitude which considers that women must find one "perfect" man she must get pregnant from while men must find many hot women to, well, have lots of offspring from them since they can afford to have sex with lots of women.

It would be interesting to track the root of this, uh, "meme" (?&#33;?)...

[Little brother]

We found the problem lay in the females attitude&#39;s towards each other. *****iness is something i know all females both young and old are aware of and have been victimised by such bullying. It&#39;s something every girl at high school knows about. It is such a simple answer to the problem. When females respect each other the males will follow suit. When girls call each other "sluts" it gives the guys an even better reason to. ie. Guys may cope a little harrassment for such attitude but they receive praise and support from their own group (other guys) women don&#39;t. they cope a double sided harrassment. Answer. Respect for others attitude.
A few have asked where this expirence came from? This isn&#39;t something that happens every hundred years when the stars are all alligned. This is something that you will find when you look in to the social lives of nearly every teen. But this scenario is from my personell expirence from last week. A crazy night and my mate (a girl) kissed quite a few guys that night. I kissed the same amount of people but they were girls though i was called a "leg" (legend) while she was called a slut...ahhh fair right?

[TC]

...am i the only one who found little brothers "heres a question: discuss, then i will reveal the true answer" thing as well as the attitude of his posts little arrogant...especially considering how uninsightful the &#39;answer&#39; was:

*****iness is something i know all females both young and old are aware of and have been victimised by such bullying. It&#39;s something every girl at high school knows about. It is such a simple answer to the problem. When females respect each other the males will follow suit. When girls call each other "sluts" it gives the guys an even better reason to. ie. Guys may cope a little harrassment for such attitude but they receive praise and support from their own group (other guys) women don&#39;t. they cope a double sided harrassment. Answer. Respect for others attitude.

Q. Why are girls called sluts?
A. Cause highschool girls are real *****s.

Or, in other words, the explaination your class came up with was "people are mean to people because they&#39;re mean". That was just brilliant.

-Actually it was really lame...you set up an elaborate social question and answer it in an inane and somewhat insulting way.


anyways i still think my &#39;teenage boys are sluts so pointing it out would be redundant&#39; explaination better

[Purple]

Originally posted by TragicClown@May 6 2006, 04:54 AM

-Guys are, on average, much bigger sluts than girls.

that entire text gave me a new perspective on an already nearly washed out theme. thanks..

[C_Rasmussen]

Originally posted by Purple+May 15 2006, 09:40 PM--> (Purple @ May 15 2006, 09:40 PM)

TragicClown

@May 6 2006, 04:54 AM

-Guys are, on average, much bigger sluts than girls.

that entire text gave me a new perspective on an already nearly washed out theme. thanks.. [/b]

I&#39;d have to agree with TC about that. Truer words never spoken. Then again I fall under the VERY few who aren&#39;t but I&#39;m not offended by what she said.

[rioters bloc]

so, in other words little brother, wimmin are the sole oppressors of other wimmin - right?

it&#39;s simply because wimmin are &#39;by nature&#39; jealous and *****y. it has nothing to do with the fact that men have historically considered wimmin their property, and so wimmin have always been perceived as belonging exclusively to one man or another (whether it&#39;s their father or another male relative, or their husband) thereby creating a (patriarchal) culture whereby any woman who doesn&#39;t commit to a single man is seen as deviant and immoral. and a man who sleeps with several wimmin is seen as just doing what a man does, as all men have &#39;urges&#39; that need to be satisfied or they&#39;ll just implode.

[pandora]

This is an excellent article by the Australian government on prostitution and sex roles. It determines that the relationship is a cultural phenomena that is part of the culture and therefore sees it as a harmful cultural practice similar to genital cutting.

It also addresses how in these relationships dominance is the main issue, and in scientific study dissects the results of different brothels by experiences analysed of hospital records and testimony to distinguish those practices which cause harm and are paid more for as being simply acts of dominance on another group, women or young homosexual men for reasons other than sex.

Through interviews, it also determines that these practices are indeed painful and harmful, and which is why the oppressed worker charges more for them, as they harm the body, sometimes to the point of death.

It is interesting looking at these things in the same way we often look at genital cutting in Africa as antiquated cultural practices that must be changed, and strips away the mental garbage to simple physical acts and the state of a body afterwards from a medical perspective, and the affect on the oppressed beaten persons mind afterwards.

By looking at it in this way, lighter practices that would lead to this point seem like a road map to this eventual destructive practice. I think we have a long way to go to change these cultural practices, but awareness is part of the answer, and looking at how human beings are socialized by peers into these antiquated roles.

http://sisyphe.org/article.php3?id_article=697

[Hegemonicretribution]

Although you described what you meant when you were using the term "slut" TC, it is still such a loaded term that perhaps there could have been a better alternative? Promiscuity perhaps?

Anyway...I can see how trends may be seen as being biological in nature, but regardless of whether or not this is part of the explanation is irellevant as "rules" are far from hard and fast. The different views that exist within society towards men and women have developed as rioters bloc said because of patriarchy. Religious "morals", and a male-dominated family and economic sphere have led to different approaches towards sexuality. The negative view of women that seek sexual satisfaction equal to that of men had its origins long ago, and exists to preserve the "social order."

Whilst things may have improved in some areas, the more repressive social agents such as various churches try and reclaim ground, and from what I understand of the Christian right in America, this has been with mixed success.

That these attitudes are readily accepted during high-school only goes to show the nature of our education system as oppressive in itself. So whilst some may claim males are disadvantaged because they tend to be slightly less developed that females come schooling age, females have far more issues to deal with thatn exist almost as a rule and not merely a trend.

Of course media influence is important as well, and on the whole this is a complex and layered issue, but to sum up; most of this is a result of cultural reproduction and the conservative/reactionary elements that have power to this effect.

[TC]

Pandora writes

This is an excellent article by the Australian government on prostitution and sex roles. It determines that the relationship is a cultural phenomena that is part of the culture and therefore sees it as a harmful cultural practice similar to genital cutting.

http://sisyphe.org/article.php3?id_article=697
???

First off, the article isn&#39;t by the Australian government, its by an australian "radical" "lesbian" "feminist" (the man-hating andrea dworkinite varity) professor Sheila Jeffreys, who i don&#39;t believe is affiliated with the australian government in any way, and is really quite crazy.

Second, as much of a nutcase as Shelia Jeffrey&#39;s is, and as long as that article was, i don&#39;t really see what you&#39;re getting at, in basically anything you&#39;re saying.

Prostitution isn&#39;t a cultural phenomina, its an economic relationship so its a socio-economic institution. Its nothing like genital cutting, and really i think comparing first world consensual economic exchanges like legalized above-ground prostitution, which, while exploitive both psychologically and physically, are based in equality under the law and willing participation which although it can be harmful is not intrinsically harmful, with barbaric fourth world non-consensual cultural practices that rely on grossly unequal protection from personal injury, both dejure and defacto, are instrinsically damaging and only exist in societies where most women are effectively property, is really to diminish the latter for the sake of exaggurating the former. Legalized western prostitution and genital mutiliation have no comparison.


Trying to illigalize prostitution, which is what Sheila Jeffreys is trying to do, is increadibly harmful to prostitutes. It means that if they get beat up or raped or stolen from by a client, or a client doesn&#39;t pay, they can&#39;t turn them into the police because it would be confessing to a crime themselves. This makes prostitutes lives far more dangerious, because their clients also know that they can&#39;t go to the police, which means that they&#39;re one of the few people they can be almost sure that they can get away with abusing. Persecution and exploitation by the police in areas where prostitution is illigal adds an additional source of danger, both of these drive them to pimps for protection who obviously end up exploiting them, because again, since its an illigal buisness, they can get away with doing pretty much whatever they want, since no one has official recourse. And criminalizing prostitution doesn&#39;t end prostitution, because the conditions that create it still exist, the fact that in a capitalist society its the only way for unskilled people to make a large amount of money as theres a demand for it and few people willing to fill that demand.

So I think its clear that the author of the article, Sheila Jeffreys, isn&#39;t really concerned with the welfare of prostitutes at all (or probably heterosexual women in general), rather she&#39;s only concerned with enforcing her own brand of reactionary, anti-sex neo-puritanism. Like other social conservatives, the primary objective is control over other people; maybe she especially focuses on the S&M stuff to compensate for the fact she gets off on it.

Hegemonicretribution writes

Although you described what you meant when you were using the term "slut" TC, it is still such a loaded term that perhaps there could have been a better alternative? Promiscuity perhaps?

Its loaded i think, primarily to social conservatives, of both christian fundementalist and radical/lesbian "feminist" varities. Its not that loaded in open minded, liberal (in the most general sense), youth society.

Promiscuity is more specific, it refers to sleeping with a lot of different partners...sluttyness is about implying sexual availability to a lot of people, which is not the same thing.

The different views that exist within society towards men and women have developed as rioters bloc said because of patriarchy. Religious "morals", and a male-dominated family and economic sphere have led to different approaches towards sexuality.

This is true in the origin but i don&#39;t think its relevant today. In the 18th century it might have been important to be a virgin if you wanted to marry a decent guy, but today its socially better not to be (just as it is for men).

That the idea of being a slut can still be used negatively is not necessarily evidence that women remain oppressed in the same manner as in pre-1960s society. I think in my earlier post i gave a very plausible alternative explaination.

There are reasons why its socially advantageous to be &#39;slutty&#39; just as there are potential advantages to being dishonest or overly competitve, and naturally, it can be socially advantagous to discourage members of your peer group from taking advantages that you&#39;d be unwilling to.

If its true (as i think it is) that teenage girls are on average less willing to be slutty than teenage boys (for whatever reason...in any case i think it tends to balance out after college age), then it would make sense as a matter of self interest for most teenage girls to want to discourage it...just as say, if psychologists are on average more honest than politicians, it would make sense for psychologists to react to other psychologist&#39;s dishonesty more strongly than politicians would to each other as they&#39;d all be doing it so a dishonest politician would have less comparative advantage than a dishonest psychologist. Or, in other words, the mere fact that people who are "slutty" get more attention from the opposite sex, and girls are less likely to be "slutty" than boys so a "slutty" teenage girl has a greater advantage over other girls than a "slutty" teenage boy would have over other boys, on that basis alone you would predict that a girl being slutty would attract more grief.

The negative view of women that seek sexual satisfaction equal to that of men had its origins long ago, and exists to preserve the "social order."

Whilst things may have improved in some areas, the more repressive social agents such as various churches try and reclaim ground, and from what I understand of the Christian right in America, this has been with mixed success.

Absolutely, but its not just the churchs. "Lesbian feminists", and i use that term because thats what they call themselves, not because they have anything to do with lesbianism or feminism as they aren&#39;t attracted to women like real lesbians and they aren&#39;t interested in equality or women&#39;s rights like real feminists, such as Sheila Jeffreys who Pandora referenced, literally think its unacceptable for women to want to have sex with men.

Sheila Jeffreys for instance wrote " Love Your Enemy?" that " all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women." People like her who attack female sexual desire as a whole as it applies to the majority of women are in fact more obscenely reactionary than the American Christian right, who attacks female sexual desire to a large extent but doesn&#39;t condemn it as totally unacceptable.

[Mujer Libre]

TC, I just want to point out that Sheila Jeffreys (and other lesbian separatist type feminists) in no way represents a majority (or even a large number) of radical feminists out there, so using her as a way to discredit radfems is pointless.

Radical feminism is not, by definition, anti-sex or lesbian- and you imply both of those things in your post.

[TC]

Originally posted by Mujer Libre@May 22 2006, 08:31 AM
TC, I just want to point out that Sheila Jeffreys (and other lesbian separatist type feminists) in no way represents a majority (or even a large number) of radical feminists out there, so using her as a way to discredit radfems is pointless.

Radical feminism is not, by definition, anti-sex or lesbian- and you imply both of those things in your post.

um, Pandora linked to an article by Sheila Jeffreys, i was giving background information on her not to discredit other radical feminists, but to discredit her and her article specifically lol.

Notice i said lesbian feminists or radical/lesbian feminists, not just radical feminists, so i don&#39;t think what you&#39;re saying is really fair.