Ruth Institute Blog

An awful lot of nonsense has been said about the supposed “double standards” between the sexual histories of men and the sexual histories of women.  The discussion of sexuality is full of it like so much verbal ipecac.  The typical whine goes like this “why is it that a man who’s been with a hundred women is a ‘stud’ while a woman who’s been with the same number of men is a “slut’?”

The short answer is because men value the sexual loyalty of women more than women value the sexual loyalty of men.  This also explains why hooking up is a much worse idea for women than it is for men.  Because a woman’s value as a lifelong partner for marriage diminishes with each passing dalliance.  For men, not so much.  This does not mean that hooking up is a good idea for men, just that it’s not as bad an idea as it is for women.

This may be painful to hear, but it is true.  And you don’t have to take it from me.  Take it from observing women (or, I guess, if you’re a woman, observing your own emotions if you’ve been in this situation).

Here, controversial internet columnist Vox Day explains it all for you.  (Emphasis added).

It’s not so much that a man’s sexual history doesn’t serve as a practical proxy for their sexual loyalty, it’s that women don’t need the proxy because they place a much lower value on sexual loyalty than men do. It is perfectly clear that women are attracted to men with sexual experience and actively dislike men who don’t have it. It is primarily women who make fun of men who don’t have success with women, they are the ones who label such men losers. Indeed, as has often been seen right here on this blog, attacking a man’s sexual history and implying its brevity is a favored form of female insult.

So women are less concerned with sexual loyalty than with sexual status; on average they are very happy to trade an increased risk of sexual disloyalty for higher sexual status in the short-term as well as the long-term.  [...]   There is really not much room for debate on this as there are legions of men with no sexual history and low sexual status available at every geek-related convention and yet not even the most desperate woman would consider seeking a husband there.

… If it were true that women were genuinely repelled by studs, they would flee from rock stars and pro athletes in disgust rather than throwing themselves at them in droves. Now, one should never forget that women possess brains and free will and are perfectly capable of surmounting their biological impulses, but that doesn’t change the basic and observable fact that the impulses are there to be resisted.

So, there’s still a double standard, though, right?  According to Day, not so much:

So, I think it’s a misnomer to describe the situation as a double standard when it’s really two different sets of subjective values that underlie two entirely different standards. If women regarded rock stars in the same way that men regard street hookers, then the double standard would be hypocritical. But given the breadth of the divergence in the opposite sexual value perspectives, it really shouldn’t be regarded that way.

So, what’s a person to do?  For a woman, stay chaste, or stop sowing those wild oats.  For a man looking for lifelong love, he must learn to imitate those behaviors that men who are successful with women use to attract mates.

The answer, for the individual male, goes by the name of Game, and it is essentially a guide to simulating alpha behavior for the majority of men who are non-alphas. Although developed by pick-up artists with a focus on plowing through scores of women like a Panzer division through 1940s France, it is arguably even more useful for the man who wishes to find a good, attractive woman and provide her with what she most desires, which is marriage to a man she perceives to be of high value.