Do women trade sex for love?

[rednosedays]

Okay I am starting a new thread as I did not want to hijack NJ's thread with discussions about rape and there were responses from a couple of people that I wanted to reply to.

I suggested that without a little bit of manipulation or coercion teenage boys would find it quite difficult to get laid. At least that was how things were way back when I was a teenager but perhaps things have changed.

In my mind I was thinking along the lines of: I will always respect you/I really love you/You are gorgeous/You are the only person for me etc which, in my very humble opinion (but perhaps I am just old and cynical or got it all wrong) were used by members of the male sex in order to get into a female's knickers. I KNOW women can do these types of things to, but in my humble opinion, it was more difficult for a teenage boy to get laid than vice versa.

The female, being susceptible to flattery and (hopefully) fancying the boy (and maybe hoping that he would fall in love with her or whatever) would agree to sex even though there were risk factors eg: she might get pregnant/he might have been lying about how he felt just to get her into bed/he might go around telling all his friends that she was an easy lay etc etc. She might genuinely have feelings for him whereas he might just be pretending.

Okay I was a teenager quite a long time ago and hopefully things have changed (but judging from the discussions that I have heard from my teenagers and their friends they have not changed THAT much).

Just want people's thoughts on this.

Question and description do not correspond. This shows by your responses.

I agree with the observations you have made.

partly because men have more affairs; and and partly because after the children have grown up there is much less of an economic motive to stay married due to matrimonial propery laws.

a) with whom are they having these affairs?
b) women consistently do worse, financially, out of divorce than men do.

I'm not suggesting that a model of female promiscuity is observable in all other animal species, what on earth does that have to do with it? I'm suggesting that your "men have a biological imperative to screw around" makes no actual sense. Your argument uses a model of early human society which does not exist as its basis. It is intellectually dishonest to concede that I "may be" right about early society and not concede that this makes your evopsych justification for male promiscuity extremely suspect.

Look, the idea that women trade sex for love and dont actually like it is the great Lie of Patriarchy. Because it's men who benefit when women are convinced that they need one man to 'love' and protect them - if the woman can be convinced that the worst thing that could happen is the man leaves her, she will scurry around servicing him uncomplainingly forever. Human civilisation has always been about identifying one class of people to do all the shitwork and convincing them it's their 'destiny' men want women to service them domestically and sexually and so they have to convince women that not doing this is an indication that the woman has failed or is at risk (all those articles about women geniuses/stars/champions which deal with the woman' acheivements in one paragraph and spend the rest of the wordcount trying to make her cry over the fact that she hasm't got a boyfriend). - The other reason for the constant pushing of monogamous couplehood as the 'right' way to do things is that this is the only way to ensure that the majority of men get to have sex - if women were free to choose sex with whoever they wanted, they would all shag the alpha male to get his genes to impregnate them and the lesser males wouldn't get to reproduce.

Dogfish: Because, as has been said, women who seek and have NSA sex still have to pay harsher penalties than men - if it's not abuse and criticism for being a 'slut' it's endless interference and condescension - 'You can't really be happy living like that/no man will ever love you when you want to settle down/something awful must have happened to make you like this, have you thought about therapy?'

sgb and dogfish - really interesting responses. sgb - I find your views on monogamy refreshing.

I would suggest that because there is still a double standard operating with regard to male/female sexuality (albeit not nearly as bad as previous generations) we can end up with the kind of situation that seems to appear with regularity on these board. eg: woman in long term relationship (married or cohabiting) with children caught in a dilemma about whether her relationship is "bad" enough to justify leaving the man, with all the emotional/financial and other hassle that this entails. (And yes, disapproval still that she might be so "selfish" as to put her own needs first.)

Or, in other words, how bad does the relationship have to be (or, sometimes, how much crap is she prepared to put up with) before she dumps him and goes solo?

Obviously men will also be struggling with this kind of dilemma, but I still think that the aces are more in their court as in general men still earn more than women and there is STILL a stigma attached to a married woman who decides to exit a dull but stable marriage to pursue (for example) sexual adventures elsewhere.

From reading these boards, women seem to agonise long and hard over these things. Due to the double standards operating, I think it is easier for a man to "get away" with an affair, either as temporary diversion from monogamy or as an exit strategy from a relationship.

Interesting views from SGB - agree that women have been trained to think they can't exist without a man - this is how things evolved. Let's not forget that through most of our history over the past centuries women did usually need a man as women were not allowed to own property and access their own money, inheritances passes through male lines. Also, babies had to be looked after, best for societies that men were obligated to pay for their children and marriage made this bond. Working class people were always threatened with the wrath of god while we have numerous examples of the ruling classes living it up with affairs and illegitimate children who they could afford to pay to have looked after. Also women needed to be scared into not having multiple partners as this raised the probability of STDS and it was preferable that women didn't catch STDs that might make them infertile or kill/maim the babies that did make it through to a live birth. It's all been about ensuring the continuation of the species. We live in extraordinary times now with women being able to control contraception like never before and the common STDs curable by anti-biotics or cesearian births safe and easy to access if a woman was going through an STD episode that might harm a baby. Women too, in most of the developed world can own property etc..

I think the proliferation of female sex tourists to countries like The Gambia, Turkey, etc.. and even here the proliferation of toyboy websites show that women are very very interested in sex. They do still often search for romance with it but this is hardly surprising given the centuries of conditioning versus the few decades of freedom for the average woman.

WOmen have been trained to think they can't exist without a man - and men have made it as difficut as possible, over the centuries, for women to live without a man because men need women far more than women need men. Men need women to bear and raise the children and do all the shitwork. This is obviously a bum deal for women so they have to be coerced into doing it. SO on the one hand there's all the guff about 'romance' and how a woman's life is nothing without it, then there#s been the centuries of economic oppression - not only have women been forbidden to earn money or own property, they themselves have been designated as property, and finally women have been told that they need one man to 'look after' them ie stop all the other men from raping them all the time, because a woman who isn't demonstrably property is available to rape (the rape laws are all founded on the idea of women as property hence the rapist's crime is more severe the more 'valuable' the woman ie if she is a virgin it's a bigger deal...)

Of course plenty of people (then and now) have formed couple-relationships and married and been happy - indeed have treated eah other fairly. But that doesn't stop the roots of marriage being a rough deal for women.

I dont think so at all. Also never got that women want status and money from a man either. Rather have a man on minimum wage thats good in bed than a bloke with money who wasnt.

'This is also why "tear your clothes off sex appeal" has a 2- year limit'

Thats not true at all!!

Thank you, SGB and swallowedafly. SGB, your post at 18:42 is a thing of beauty.

SAF's point is exactly what I'm trying to say - the argument that it makes genetic sense for women to be monogamous has no logical basis. The fact that men have "more affairs" but with women rather suggests that women are just as promiscuous, I'd have thought that was blindingly obvious.

Dogfish, YOU brought up evolutionary biology, not me. You don't actually mean evolutionary biology, though, because that discipline doesn't concern itself with human behaviours. You mean evolutionary psychology, which does.

Evolutionary psychology theories of sexual behaviour, which is what you're on about, and specifically the "parental investment" model, uses research about hunter-gatherer societies as its logical base.

If I'm right about early societies, then the evo-psych theory you're spouting cannot hold true, and that is irrelevant of all the other distracting statements you're throwing up; other animal societies are irrelevant, agricultural societies are irrelevant. What is relevant is that I'm right about hunter-gatherer societies, which you concede, and therefore the specific evopsych theory you are referring to does not hold true.

I know you're 'only' saying that there's a genetic imperative for women to be monogamous. I'm saying that you are wrong, and that you have given absolutely no basis for your own theory.

Oh, and as for women being poorer after divorce? I know it's an inconvenient fact, but it's hardly an obscure one. On average, male incomes rise by 25%, whereas women's fall by a fifth, even when children are not involved

I am loving many posts to this thread but, SGB, yours are blasts of fresh & fragrant air :)

rnd - as you say, the girl's parents pushed the rape accusation. How specious, dishonest and disrespectful to their daughter.

The constant propaganda about how women need commitment for men and all the guff about how men will no longer want to offer it thanks to all those wicked feminists is just more of the same. Because the more women refuse to be percieved as hoovers/dishwashers with fuckable orifices who can't function without an 'owner' the greater the likelihood that men will actually have to do their own shitwork. It's women's unpaid work, of caring and servicing, that makes the world go round.

It's also interesting that something which really frightens and horrifies sexist men (and even some quite nice ones) is the idea of women being able to physically defend themselves from rape. 'Lesbian karate classes on ratepayers' money' used to be a popular scare story, and whenever there is an increase in male predator activity., the advice to women is always 'stay home or attach yourself to a male protector' never the far more useful 'take a self-defence class'.

dogfish - you officially rock? haha lol I take it from your views and that statement then you are quite old. Most women have loads of casual sex nowadays and I dont think anyone bats an eyelid. I definitely dont think it takes much to get most young women or men in to bed and I know plenty of 20 somethings who have been with many men and are high up in to double figures. If they want to do it then up to them and how many people anyone has been with doesnt make any difference to most people.

Also I never worried about having sex with loads of people as I am a woman so was in control of contraception, always knew I would have an abortion if I wasnt married etc. Where as my male friends keep ending up with kids they dont want off random women so I do think it is riskier for a man to have casual sex than vice versa.

Additionally the men in my town the ones that have the most sexual partners are usually on benefits or cant hold down any job at all and women are falling all over themselves to get with them because they are attractive so I definitely dont understand it when people say women biologically seek money!

DOgfish: Well I hope you are glad that you are surrounded by forward thinking decent people. Historically, and in many backwaters in the present, women are still doing all the shitwork and convinced that they can't protect themselves and need a man to do it for them.

'But I don't think that invalidates my argument, which is that most of the time (Sunny's town excepted) men want casual sex more than women so women can and do ask more in return for it, whether in the form of commitment, money, love or anything else. If this trend is decreasing, great.'

I haved lived all over the country and it is always the same. I am ex military and everyone has been with everyone in there. I think its way worse than the gay scene for people randomly having sex!

My husband always says the men that say women dont like casual sex are the ones that cant get any women to do it with them, and I agree with him