We as a species love to create tags for each other. Today I want to talk about two of those tags made by us. One of these tags is seen in a positive light and one in a negative light but essentially mean the same. One is an honor of a man and the other is the shame of a woman. This is the story of studs and sluts.

I looked up on google and found these in Collin’s dictionary:

Stud- “A sexually Promiscuous man.”

Slut- “An insulting word for a woman with a lot of sexual partners.”

Ok, lets back up a little see one more definition from the same dictionary.

Promiscuous- “Someone who is promiscuous has sex with many different people.”

So, like I said before, essentially the same definition. Yet slut is an insulting word and stud is not. I honestly didn’t want to write anything beyond this but I have a target of words to complete. So, I started to think. I didn’t want to blab and have no meaning come out of it. What did I do? Research and found a research paper. I have never been much of a numbers person and quantitative data just makes my head spin. But I read the conclusion and I am sure you can guess what I found.

The paper is called, “He’s a stud, she is a slut.” By Endendijk JJ, van Baar AL, Deković M.

In short, the paper says that studies that assessed differences in evaluations, or expectations, of men’s and women’s sexual behaviour showed evidence for traditional Sexual Double Standards (SDS). For men, frequent sexual activity was more expected, and evaluated more positively, than for women.

These SDS is what keeps us from being at peace. These SDS is what keeps the rape culture going, because “If she doesn’t mind doing it with four guys, she won’t mind another.” I am a dancer and I follow many dancers online and one of them is Jojo Gomez, who like many other, has gone through many ups and downs in her life. In addition to that being famous makes you even more a target. I saw one of the comments on her 2020 round up of dance videos. But she stood up for herself.

We all need to.

We all should.

Don’t let anyone bully you into sadness. Stand straight and be confident about yourself. Confidence can be contagious for people who need it and weakening for people who feed on your vulnerabilities.

Citation: Endendijk JJ, van Baar AL, Deković M. He is a Stud, She is a Slut! A Meta-Analysis on the Continued Existence of Sexual Double Standards. Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2020 May;24(2):163-190. doi: 10.1177/1088868319891310. Epub 2019 Dec 27. PMID: 31880971; PMCID: PMC7153231.

Jahnvi