Men Can’t Handle the Truth
When faced with the facts, they retreat to their echo chambers.
I recently posted an article discussing the truth about dating women. As expected, this lured the usual suspects (misogynists) out of the woodwork and into my comment section. If only they could sniff out their own insecurities as acutely as they can a self-possessed woman, we’dve probably achieved world peace by now.
“You’re one of those women who can’t take criticism of her own gender,” said one particular dingus, who was so okay with feedback on men he commented five separate times on that same article. And the truth bomb he wanted to drop? It’s really the “hos” that are to blame. Pot, meet kettle.
I’m sorry, but the jokes practically write themselves, people.
He then went on to cite a bunch of random studies that he clearly did not read to argue that women who’ve slept with multiple men make terrible partners because they will inevitably cheat. He also came in hot with the WELL ACTUALLY it’s women who are “masters of the double standard.”
Please wait while I attempt to feign my look of surprise.
Unfortunately, while I am no longer taken aback by the magnitude of shear idiocy that abounds on the interwebs and social media, I do have a pesky need to set the record straight, no matter how dumb the comment. Blame it on my being a Gemini—after all, I hear dudes really love women’s silly interests like astrology and equal rights. So, I took it upon myself to respond thoughtfully and thoroughly to each of his comments. I actually read through the studies he cited and went on to fabulously debunk each one of his “points.” But wouldn’t you know it, when I logged on the next morning to see the depths of stupidity I would be taken to in the next stage of our “debate,” I discovered all of his comments gone.
He vanished and had me blocked.
At first, I cackled with unmitigated glee at this development. Another ding-dong vanquished. But then, cruel reality set in. I remembered all the time I’d spent responding to his very poorly crafted arguments. And what’s worse, I started to think about the all the societal problems this ghosting was emblematic of, like the fact that men think they know women better than they know themselves. Or the reality that many men aren’t interested in understanding women’s experiences, because if they were, that would mean they’d actually have to face their shortcomings instead of blaming women for all their life’s woes. And perhaps most importantly, it’s clear we cannot have an informed discussion in the U.S. anymore. With anti-intellectualism on the rise, the crumbling of democracy has picked up alarming speed.
I know — very doom and gloom. But all is not lost because wouldn’t you know it…I drafted my comments in a Word document that is still sitting open on my laptop as we speak! I would be delighted to share the highlights:
It shouldn’t be surprising to most folks that infidelity is one of the biggest factors leading to divorce. But the idea that men should avoid women who’ve had multiple partners because they have an increased likelihood of cheating is complex and flawed for a couple of reasons. One of the studies our dear commenter posted (Whisman & Snyder, 2017) actually stated that their most significant finding was the fact that childhood sexual abuse (i.e., forced sex) predicted greater probability of infidelity. Childhood sexual abuse often is a predictor of promiscuity in adults as the victims attempt to gain mastery over the original abuse and the abuser. (Many psychological studies back this, but the 2008 work of Timms & Connors is a good place to start.)
Further, girls and women are more likely to be sexually abused than boys and men — one in nine girls and 1 in 53 boys under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse or assault, with 88% of the sexual abuse claims that CPS substantiates being perpetrated by men. (In 9% of cases the perpetrators are female, and 3% are unknown.) This information is readily available and continually updated by RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. So if we really want to get down to brass tacks here — men often play an influential role in why some women seek out multiple partners in their adult lives. As in, if ya’ll stopped raping and abusing us, we could better focus on being healthy partners. Just a thought.
Another study cited by our friend (Lynn et. al, 2004) examined the heritability of infidelity, and they found that for women, the number of sexual partners is correlated with infidelity— it was 38% heritable. (This is NOT to be confused with a CAUSAL relationship). Where as another much more recent study (Zietsch et. al, 2015) that used a larger sample of twins of both genders (~7000 vs. 1600) found that the heritability of extramarital sex behaviour accounts for 62% of such behaviour in men and 40% in women. So if we want to talk about who we should be more concerned about in terms of number of sexual partners, surprise — it’s men and not women. This is especially true when you account for societal norms where promiscuous behavior is championed in men and shamed in women. Hence why there is no male equivalent for the commenter’s delightful “ho phase” term.
In the spirit of transparency, there were some other old and intentionally misconstrued or outright misread studies that I also addressed in my now erased response because I am nothing if not thorough, but I think I’ve communicated the gist of my rebuttal against the dangers of a “high body count,” so I will move on.
In terms of the argument that “women are masters of the double standard,” I’m still wondering to which double standard our friend was referring. We certainly have a mastery of living under the weight of many. Maybe he was thinking of the fact that women get paid less than men for doing the same work? Or it could have been the troubling reality that women pay more than men for hygiene products, including taxes on tampons which are a literal necessity. Perhaps the fact that women don’t get to control their own bodies like men really had his attention? So many double standards, so little time.
In seriousness, his comments on women as “masters of double standards” help elucidate some very important issues regarding toxic masculinity and the pervasive nature of the patriarchy and misogyny. In thinking just about women and relationships, there is a dearth of U.S.-based research explaining women’s sexual behavior, pleasure and anatomy because we live in a society founded by Puritans where women’s chastity and men’s dominance was encoded into the fiber of our nation’s DNA .
As an example, we can look at how the scientific community has treated female dyspareunia — the severe pain some women can experience during sex — vs. erectile dysfunction — the ego bruising but not at all physically harmful inability for men to get and/or keep it up. In looking at the PubMed database alone, there are only 393 clinical trials studying dyspareunia, while erectile dysfunction has a whopping 1,954. But let’s not stop there.
Today, a man can walk out of his doctor’s office with a prescription for Viagra based on self-report alone, but it still takes a woman, on average, 9.28 years of suffering to be diagnosed with the extremely painful condition of endometriosis. And when it comes to sex, research shows that 30% of women report pain during vaginal sex, 72% report pain during anal sex, and “large proportions” don’t tell their partners when sex hurts at all. Bad sex for men is when they deem their partner is boring or they don’t finish. Bad sex for women is when they’re in physical pain or danger. Now if that doesn’t sound like yet another glaringly important double-standard, I don’t know what does.
The inequities in data reach far beyond the realm of sexual health too, because for nearly all of human history, the lives of men have been taken to represent the lives of everyone. This is referred to as the gender data gap — the idea that men are the default and women are second-class citizens has been written into the way we research and carry out all sorts of policies and processes, the consequences of which can vary from annoying to life- threatening. Women find offices too cold because the formula to determine standard office temperature was developed using the metabolic resting rate of the average man. Car safety tests don’t account for women’s measurements and neither does construction site equipment. Traditionally female dominated work environments have been overlooked when addressing health and safety requirements. I could go on, but as Cady Heron once said, “the limit does not exist.”
Anyway, TLDR: Men, you can run, but you can’t hide from the truth. Retreating to your usual circle jerk of “Alpha Males” isn’t going to make you any more successful with women or any less bald. It isn’t going to heal you from whatever your mother did to you or society’s patriarchal bullshit.
You know what actually will help? Listening to women for once.
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