To think promiscuous men should be shamed more?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I found the opposite about sex. It made me angst ridden. I didn’t want to be a notch on a bedpost

This is what it comes down to for me: promiscuous sex is still something society largely sees as something men do to women.

I’m past the age of hookup culture but when I was younger I always experienced this weird cognitive dissonance with casual sex: I would both feel good about it in myself but also feel judged for having “let it happen to me”. There was (maybe still is) a weird double standard that a man doing it was sowing wild oats and a woman was automatically being used, even when she freely consented and didn’t want any commitment.

I came out of various one night stands initially feeling fine and over time people would chip away at my self esteem saying things like “you know he just wants to shag around, right?” You end up being painted as gullible and vulnerable because you haven’t held out and it’s assumed that you’re the one who wants commitment when the man doesn’t. It may be different today and I dare say Gen Z are savvier but in the 80s/90s it was still very much seen as something that reduced a woman’s value.

I don’t think anyone of either sex should be shamed for promiscuity unless they are cheating, having unsafe sex or misleading the other person as to their intentions. The problem comes around mixed signals and unclear expectations.

I think shame has value in some circumstances and highly promiscuous sexual behaviour from both sexes is one of them.

The pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that monogamy and also straightforward sex itself is seen as boring, unadventurous.
There is even a new term “vanillia” used as an insult.

As with most issues there is a middle line.

No one needs to be shamed for having lots of casual sex. I've had plenty of one night stands and casual hookups. Im a well adjusted, normal decent person.

The problem is those who think it's ok to shame women but not men. They shouldn't be shaming anyone!

I don’t value anyone’s worth with how many folk they’ve shagged.

im old enough to be your mother. And ive had a lot of sex, in relationships, FWBs, fuck buddies and one night stands.

I feel zero shame for that.

You say in your OP that a man's worth is measured by how many women he has had sex with- and I notice that you are only 19. I'm in my 40s and I dont know any man or woman who puts value in how many women a man has had sex with and haven't heard this since my teens/early 20s. Trust me, once you grow up you will realise it's not the issue you think it is.

I think the OP is confusing pre internet generations, which would, broadly be baby boomers and earlier as Gen X basically invented the internet, with digital natives. But Gen Z is often referred to as the first digital native generation because even the oldest, who are knocking on 30 now, had cell phones and internet access as kids so ‘grew up’ with it pervading their lives. Of course so did millennials by and large so many of them will also be digital natives as well. The use of the internet to ‘hook up’ started with Gen X though, and was widespread for millennials. So I have to say I don’t think Gen Z have invented the internet, hooking up or casual sex 😂

I don't know, I get the impression that something's changed but I'm not on the scene; most of what I know about 2020s dating is from Mumsnet!

It seems as though women are more earnestly searching for commitment and hoping that either having or withholding sex will achieve it, while men are eagerly searching for a heavily-notched bedpost. This is an insanely reductive view that has never been true. I doubt it is today.

I do believe the 'manosphere' influences men & boys to believe they will struggle to get enough sex, has revived the sexual double standard, and promotes the idea that sexual violence is desirable. All of that is blatantly misogynistic.

I don't believe women should be guided by misogynistic arseholes, and am surprised that a "fierce feminist" would parrot their views in the guise of concern for women.

Well that doesn't really make sense aa they are having sex with each other
I had a fair few one night stand s when i was single
I wasent really very good at them because I usually ended up falling for them but I don't blame the men for my feelings .

Nobody should be shamed for having willing sex with a willing partner. Nobody. Shaming promiscuous men does nothing to stop the shaming of women.

That said, I wouldn’t want sex with a guy who’d shagged half my acquaintance.

Craigslist dating started in 1996.
Tinder started in 2012
Eharmony started in 2000
Even Ashley Madison started in 2002

I first used the internet when I went to university 29 years ago. I first got home internet in 1998. The idea that any generation before Gen Z didn't have the internet is absurd.

What's your point? Obviously consent is the bare minimum.

Consent is the absolute lowest bar

I'm not sure about this, I think this clamour to destigmatise everything has brought all manner of deviant behaviours out in the open, when I much preferred the days when they remained underground and we didn't need to be exposed in public to their various fetishes and anti social behaviours. Bring back shame, it existed for a reason.

I am gen Z and I don't see a problem with men or women having casual sex. Why shouldn't people do what they want with the their bodies and enjoy sex?

I do agree that porn culture is the real issue.

Totally agree, but the problem always seems to be: is one party (nearly always the man) deceiving the other about the nature of the encounter? I get the strong impression that promiscuous men aren’t honest about the fact that all they want is a ONS, and I think this is a man problem - I’d bet women don’t go in for this kind of deception anywhere near as much.

Nothing wrong with sex (even casual/ons etc) as long as both parties are fully consenting adults.
Why should we shame anyone for what they do with their own bodies?!
I don’t see how you made the leap from ‘we shouldn’t slut shame women’ (which I agree with!) to instead let’s slut shame everyone; rather than the more obvious idea of no one being slut shamed.

Well, it can be an effective one.

Societies have always used shaming as a way to control, depending on the fashionable morality of the time. Nowadays in the West we are freer about individual sexual behaviour but much more censorious about say, racial or sexual discrimination, or sexual relationships between older men and young women/ girls. A couple of generations ago this situation would have been reversed.

Why should they be?

I’m an older poster - for context.

Just to state my position, I’m as far from promiscuous as it’s possible to be - I’m an old romantic who could never separate sex from the idea of love, trust, romance and a longterm relationship. But I have no problem with promiscuous men or women as long as they’re not deceiving anyone. I suspect promiscuous men are far more likely to do this than promiscuous women. (Is that unfair?)

I’m also a fierce feminist and while some may disagree with this - I think a lot of contemporary feminist thinking about sexual relationships plays RIGHT into the hands of promiscuous men. It suits their agenda very nicely, thank you.

Also - OLD is a promiscuous man’s dream. It works for men absolutely perfectly but just on MN, the number of miserable, insecure and hurt women indicates that the balance is very much in men’s favour.

Yes, we can debate the morality of shaming and, as you’re suggesting it as a course of action, we must.

So - do you, OP, think that shaming people is a morally-sound strategy for influencing behaviour?

@TheJoyOfWriting, contraceptive implants came after the Pill. The first one was invented in the mid-60s but didn't go into use until the 80s. I seem to recall some scandal about them being trialled on African women before they received approval, but have no details and it might've been a scare story. Irrelevant to this topic, anyway: sorry.

Women became able to be 'spinsters' after the two World Wars, which depleted male populations leaving a (slightly) better range of career options for women. I've compressed a lot of complex and interesting history there, of course.

Before 1914, the only women who could live independently were from well-off families. They could achieve full autonomy if they had a decent inheritance: the rules against women owning property/investments and having bank accounts would be relaxed for them because they were wealthy customers.

Large families would sometimes keep a younger daughter at home to care for the parents in old age. These girls had no more control of their destiny than their sisters who were 'married off'. A young middle-class woman could become a governess to a wealthier family, moving from one oppressive household to another but retaining some freedom by not having children of her own. Pretty much the only other opening was to join a convent.

Working-class women could become live-in servants or, if very lucky, join the family business without being required to marry (this was only possible if she had no brothers).

Absolutely none of these women could risk having sex. Of course, it was quite likely to be forced on them. If this got them pregnant, it was a disaster. They'd be fired from their job or sent away to some remote boarding house for 'fallen women', where nobody would see them being pregnant. Their babies would be sold or killed.

Do you know about the Magdalene Laundries? The last one, I think, closed in the 1990s.

While I was a kid in the 1960s, a few older girls from my street disappeared for nine months and came back with their spirits broken. My mum explained what had happened. One girl returned to her parents' with a baby, but she was never the same feisty chick she'd been before. The adults all raved about how heroic her parents were to take her in.

Hormonal contraceptives and legal abortion gave women their freedom, though there were still a lot of legal and economic hurdles to overcome. This was only 60 years ago! It took a couple of decades for society to adjust its attitudes somewhat, so we're probably looking at around two generations of women having genuine choices on how to live their own lives. It strikes me as more than tragic that things seem to be sliding back, before the revolution's really found its footing. Never underestimate the patriarchy's sneaky persistence.

Since you think being Gen Z is so important to your point (it shows your age and inexperience and "I'm young so I know better") I'm speaking as someone just outside of Zillenial

No one should be shamed for sex. Women probably lie when asked about casual sex because it's still somewhat frowned on for women to be promiscuous

It sounds like you've maybe had some religious influence as well tbh

Neither men nor women should be shamed for being promiscuous, because nobody’s worth should be be judged on the fact that they enjoy sex with other consenting adults for its own sake.

Also, Mumsnet in general seems to shame men as much as women for shagging around a bit. The more I look at this site, the more I’m amazed at how many posters here seem to think any sexual behaviour, from either men or women, that isn’t straightforward PIV sex with a loving long-term partner, is disgusting 🤷🏻‍♀️