Why can men sleep around but not women? – Rant of the week
For a while now, perhaps years I’ve thought that most people I know, share beers with, bump into and heck just in close proximity all had a similar mindset about work, politics and life in general. I was wrong!!
In fact so wrong that I decided it was worth having a write about it. Now this shouldn’t be so much of a shocker as everyone is different and we’re all products of experiences so its to be expected that we’d have a slightly different outlook on … well everything, but little did I know about how different my friends thoughts were on the subject of what makes a good “wife”.
My thoughts are mine alone
Perhaps it’s because for the last few years my general hang outs have been with other women, which in turn has altered my thinking in such a way that I’m living in a distant future where women keep men as cattle, feeding us with kegs filled with cheap fermented barley and entertaining us with outdated porn from the 60s, keeping us sated and docile. A world where a woman can do whatever she wanted without the judgement from their male cattle and other females alike, To coincide with this article, let’s focus on sleeping around or bumping uglies outside of stable relationships.
A man sleeps with a plethora of women in a week, he is high five’d by his peers and is given a platform to recall his adventures like Gaston sings about his ever flowing manhood.
A woman on the other hand is given the role of the cartoon villain, marked by her peers as slutty and judged by society as unclean, irresponsible and incapable of keeping her legs firmly closed. The act is the same but why is the crown different, I’ve always thought most Londoners of my generation, millennials, were a bit more forward thinking and out grown the prehistoric judgements that plagued our ancestors. That it was now accepted for women to sleep with who so ever they wanted with the consequences determined by their relationship status and mental well being, the same as men. Yes even without protection, don’t get me wrong though I’m not saying women should go have unprotected sex in the most awkward of places, I’m against that in the same way I’m against men having unprotected sex in the most awkward of places, that’s nasty.
The Purity of double standards
Did I mention I was wrong? A couple of conversations spurned my mind into writing this article, I had the opinion of my world shaken once again, no where near as badly as when Brexit passed or when Trump got elected, Jesus that was a shake!! But shaken nonetheless like a vegetarian ordering mock chicken and then having to double check that it is in fact mock chicken, except in my world I ordered equal thinking for the sexually active woman and instead got “she’s not wife material”. I was taken aback by the opinions of my closest friends.
“A woman who has slept around a lot isn’t what I’m looking for”
But… you sleep around more than anyone I’ve ever met!!
“Women are more likely to get an STI than men”
What? You mean from the men that already have the STI?
“It’s easier for a woman to get sex so if she sleeps around she’s sleeping around all the time”
So would men if they were getting vagina photos sent to their inbox all the time. In fact who’s to say men aren’t doing just that.
In a poor attempt to drag my friend’s out of the villain marked bag I’ve shoved them into, I’ll say they did agree that their thinking was full of double standards and blanket assumptions but neither could shake the fact that they would judge a woman based on these rules, stating that it’s just how it works.
Well my friends, slaves building porcelain baths was just how it worked too, now they get paid… and… want to build baths, okay there was a better way of putting that point across.
Just because it’s common thinking doesn’t mean it’s right.
Gripped by an idea
Being a guy, I am shamelessly aware of how hard it is for men to date, but after these short interactions, I got a peek into just how difficult it must be for some women to be human.
The ideas we have in our minds about what the right person should be even though we don’t strive to be that kind of person and the harsh judgement we place on others due to what society has deemed is right, proper and what a good woman should be.
I sat across a table from a friend and watched in awe as she gave her friend advice she got from her grandmother on how best to get a man, summarised heavily in one sentence as look pretty and be a trophy. I suppose her grandmother was saving “be successful” for the grandson.
To conclude
It’s 2018 people, I thought we had grown past branding our peers with strong social stereotypes, I guess we’re not there yet. I suppose this form of thinking is heavily ingrained in us through culture, religion and just hanging around with other like minded people where our thoughts are re-affirmed and cultivated as strong rooted trees of fact and truth. I don’t see an easy fix here but my thinking has definitely come from the constant interaction I have with very strong minded women, who share their uncomfortably frustrating experiences to me over a cocktail, wine and or beer. So maybe the first step is breaking the stereotype that men and women can’t be friends and going from there. We could learn a bunch from each other… or just get really drunk.
Loading ...
