Past research has been inconclusive regarding the continued existence of the sexual double standard (SDS)—that is, differential expectations and evaluations of sexual activity for men (rewarded for sexual activity) and women (punished for sexual activity). Here, we present the similarities and differences (S&D) model of sexual standards, which significantly qualifies the traditional SDS by highlighting both similarities and differences between standards applied to women and men. Across two samples (student/community sample, crowdsourcing sample; Ntotal = 342) and seven sexual outcomes, high sexual activity was rated more favorably in men than in women (replicating previous research), and the opposite was true for low sexual activity (extending previous research). Importantly, moderate (not extremely low or high) sexual activity was rated most favorably in both genders, suggesting similar and curvilinear intragender trajectories. These findings illustrate a distinctly different perspective on male and female sexuality and open avenues for new research.
BanduraA. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice Hall.
2.
BordiniG. S.SperbT. M. (2013). Sexual double standard: A review of the literature between 2001 and 2010. Sexuality & Culture, 17(4), 686–704. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-012-9163-0
3.
BussD. M.SchmittD. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100(2), 204–232.
4.
CrawfordM.PoppD. (2003). Sexual double standards: A review and methodological critique of two decades of research. Journal of Sex Research, 40(1), 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490309552163
5.
EaglyA. H.WoodW. (2012). Social role theory. In Van LangeP.KruglanskiA.HigginsE. (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (pp. 458–476). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446249222.n49
6.
EndendijkJ. J.van BaarA. L.DekovićM. (2020). He is a stud, she is a slut! A meta-analysis on the continued existence of sexual double standards. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 24(2), 163–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868319891310
7.
EndersC. K.TofighiD. (2007). Centering predictor variables in cross-sectional multilevel models: A new look at an old issue. Psychological Methods, 12(2), 121–138. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.12.2.121
8.
FieldA. (2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics. Sage.
9.
FunderD. C.OzerD. J. (2019). Evaluating effect size in psychological research: Sense and nonsense. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 2(2), 156–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245919847202
10.
GesselmanA. N.WebsterG. D.GarciaJ. R. (2017). Has virginity lost its virtue? Relationship stigma associated with being a sexually inexperienced adult. Journal of Sex Research, 54(2), 202–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1144042
11.
Giner-SorollaR.MontoyaA. K.ReifmanA.CarpenterT.LewisN. A.AbersonC. L.BostynD. H.ConriqueB. G.NgB. W.SchoemannA. M.SoderbergC. (2024). Power to detect what? Considerations for planning and evaluating sample size. Personality and Social Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683241228328
12.
GoodmanJ. K.CryderC. E.CheemaA. (2013). Data collection in a flat world: The strengths and weaknesses of Mechanical Turk samples. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 26(3), 213–224.
13.
GreenP.MacLeodC. J. (2016). SIMR: An R package for power analysis of generalized linear mixed models by simulation. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 7(4), 493–498. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12504
JonasonP. K. (2008). A mediation hypothesis to account for the sex difference in reported number of sexual partners: An intrasexual competition approach. International Journal of Sexual Health, 19(4), 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1300/J514v19n04_05
16.
JonasonP. K.MarksM. J. (2009). Common vs. uncommon sexual acts: Evidence for the sexual double standard. Sex Roles, 60(5–6), 357–365. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9542-z
17.
LakensD. (2013). Calculating and reporting effect sizes to facilitate cumulative science: A practical primer for t-tests and ANOVAs. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 863. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00863
MarksM. J.FraleyR. C. (2007). The impact of social interaction on the sexual double standard. Social Influence, 2(1), 29–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510601154413
21.
MarksM. J.YoungT. M.ZaikmanY. (2019). The sexual double standard in the real world: Evaluations of sexually active friends and acquaintances. Social Psychology, 50(2), 67–79. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000362
22.
McKeenB. E.AndersonR. C.MitchellD. A. (2022). Was it good for you? Gender differences in motives and emotional outcomes following casual sex. Sexuality & Culture, 26(4), 1339–1359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-09946-w
23.
MilhausenR. R.HeroldE. S. (2002). Reconceptualizing the sexual double standard. Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 13(2), 63–83. https://doi.org/10.1300/J056v13n02_05
24.
Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251), Article aac4716. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716
25.
PickensC.BraunV. (2018). “Stroppy bitches who just need to learn how to settle?” Young single women and norms of femininity and heterosexuality. Sex Roles, 79(7–8), 431–448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0881-5
26.
R Core Team. (2023). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/
RightsJ. D.SterbaS. K. (2019). Quantifying explained variance in multilevel models: An integrative framework for defining R-squared measures. Psychological Methods, 24(3), 309–338. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000184
29.
SprecherS.HatfieldE. (1996). Premarital sexual standards among U.S. college students: Comparison with Russian and Japanese students. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 25(3), 261–288. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02438165
30.
TriversR. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In CampbellB. (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man 1871-1971 (pp. 136–207). Aldine de Gruyter.
31.
WeberM.ReisD.FrieseM. (2024). Development and validation of the Trait Sexual Motivation Scale (TSMS). Journal of Personality Assessment, 106, 267–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2023.2206896
32.
WescheR.ClaxtonS. E.WatermanE. A. (2021). Emotional outcomes of casual sexual relationships and experiences: A systematic review. Journal of Sex Research, 58(8), 1069–1084. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1821163
33.
WessonC. (2022). A mixed-methods exploration of young adults’ views of the sexual double standard. Sexuality & Culture, 26(4), 1314–1325. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-09944-y
34.
WoodW.EaglyA. H. (2002). A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128(5), 699–727. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.699
35.
ZaikmanY.MarksM. J. (2017). Promoting theory-based perspectives in sexual double standard research. Sex Roles, 76(7–8), 407–420. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0677-z
36.
ZaikmanY.MarksM. J.YoungT. M.ZeiberJ. A. (2016). Gender role violations and the sexual double standard. Journal of Homosexuality, 63(12), 1608–1629. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2016.1158007
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
