And then the advertisers ran for the hills, not just from Limbaugh but from any radio host deemed "offensive or controversial".
I think we're all pretty familiar with it by now. But I do have one aspect to add to the saga: scientific rigor.
Because there have, in fact, been official scientific experiments devoted to determining which gender is sluttier.
I direct your attention to one of the titles in my bookshelf arsenal, Elephants on Acid by Alex Boese, as well as this much-cited study, called "Gender Differences in Receptivity to Sexual Offers", by Russell Clark and Elaine Hatfield. (PDF) It was published in 1989, though the actual experiments were conducted in 1978 and 1982; it just took that long to get someone to want to publish a study like this in a scientific journal. Hatfield's role was mainly in helping to get it published; Clark did the legwork and further validated the study with a revisit in 1990.
In 1978, Clark was teaching a class at Florida State on experimental social psychology. (PDF) He was referring to another study that measured whether people at a bar perceive members of the opposite sex as prettier as it gets toward closing time. (As it turns out: yes, but only if you're single. You probably know this as having beer goggles.) One woman in his class mentioned that maybe more attractive people showed up later in the night. After noting that this had been accounted for in the study, Clark said:
"A woman, good looking or not, doesn't have to worry about timing in searching for a man. Arrive at any time. All she has to do is point an inviting finger at any man, whisper 'Come on 'a my place,' and she's made a conquest. Most women can get any man to do anything they want. Men have it harder. They have to worry about strategy, timing, and 'tricks'."
This did not endear him to his female students, one of whom chucked a pencil at him. To keep the peace, Clark proposed that they design an experiment to prove or disprove his statement. Okay, fine, said the women.
What they came up with is this: five women and four men fanned out across the campus of Florida State. The attractiveness of these nine students was found to have no effect on the results. They would look around for students of the opposite sex that they deemed at least moderately attractive; a sample size was predetermined at 48 men and 48 women. Each of the nine students in the study carried a notebook which, when they found someone suitable, they would flip to the next page to see which of three possible questions they would ask the subject; each was asked to 16 men and 16 women.
All three questions began: "I have been noticing you around campus. I find you to be attractive..."
*"Would you go out with me tonight?"
*"Would you come over to my apartment tonight?"
*"Would you go to bed with me tonight?"
This is why the students only went after the at-least-moderately-attractive campusmates. They'd been instructed to stick to subjects that, given the chance, they would actually be willing to "go to bed" with.
When asked out on a date, things worked out pretty evenly- 56% of the women and 50% of the men said yes. Given the 16-person sample size, that's nine women and eight men. Within the margin of error, really.
And that's all you're going to hear about silly little margins of error.
When asked into the student's apartment, 69% of the men agreed, which means 11 of the men. Only a single solitary woman agreed- 6%.
And when asked for sex, 12 of the men- 75%- were willing to bed the female student. The other four apologized, as they tended to respond that they were already taken. Those who agreed immediately tried to work out a time- as in, "Why do we have to wait until tonight?"
How many women were ready to have sex with a stranger? Not even one. The male students were unanimously shot down, shot down in flames at that, as most of the women recoiled at the request.
A follow-up study, same campus, same sample size, was done in 1982. The men responded identically to 1978, the only difference being one fewer guy who said yes to sex (which still makes for 11 out of 16). As for the women, while this time eight agreed to the date (as opposed to nine in 1978), achieving parity with the men, this time the male students couldn't get any of the women to so much as go to the apartment, much less agree to sex.
In 1990, a follow-up (this one's hidden unless you buy it), again using the same sample size, measured the impact of AIDS on the numbers. If there was an impact, it was minimal and muddled. The women, once again, offered no sex. Seven agreed to dates and two were willing to go to the apartment. 11 of the men were still willing to have sex with the female questioner, eight were willing to go to the apartment, and 11 were willing to date.
All combined, (PDF) out of 48 of each gender in each situation over the course of three studies:
*Out of 48 women, not a single one agreed to an impromptu offer of sex. That's in comparison to 34 of the men (71%).
*Three women out of 48 agreed to go to the apartment (6%). 30 of the men agreed (63%).
*24 women out of 48 (50%) agreed to a date. 27 men (56%) did so.
Basically, both genders were willing to give half a chance to a date, but as things get more intimate, women get dramatically more cautious, while the men become more willing.
There's been a biological justification for the numbers presented in the studies: because sex leads to children, and the women are the ones carrying the child in question for nine months, they have to be very selective about who they allow to mate with them. Men, meanwhile, can, at least biologically, just bed the women and go on to the next one.
Which- and I'm sure you've been waiting for me to say it for a while now- leads to the conclusion that women are not sluts.
Men are sluts.
No comments:
Post a Comment