There is a double standard. Hardly anyone has challenged that. Perhaps y’all think it’s OK?
I don’t think it’s okay, but I do think it is to some extent inevitable unfortunately. As others here have pointed out the fact of the matter is, biologically speaking, women have always had the possibility of facing drastically greater consequences from casual sex than men do (although this is less true nowadays, and I’m not just talking about birth control–more on this in a bit) and it seems logical to me that the evolution of the double standard is at least partly rooted in this biological fact. The potential consequences are not equal, therefore the standard has evolved not to be equal.
Note that I did *not* say that this makes it good, fair or right; “biological” does not necessarily equal “good,” if it did then it would be perfectly acceptable for stepparents to deprive their stepchildren so that they could give more resources to their bio-kids. I don’t think there’s a single poster here who would argue that. However it *does* suggest, I think, that the “double standard” will be difficult to eradicate completely and, even if this is carried out, will be prone to reappear just when you think it’s gone for good.
Myself, I don’t think casual sex is a good idea for men OR women (I’m with EW on this one; I’d like to see *both* sexes exhorted to behave responsibly). And these days, it’s not uncommon (indeed, perhaps increasingly common) for some of those negative consequences to fall on men as well. I’m not just talking about false rape accusations although those are certainly bad enough; if you go to Dr. Helen’s blog, I’m sure you can easily find postings on the plight of men who have been slapped with paternity and child-support suits for children they didn’t know they had, or didn’t want to have, resulting from one-night stands. Again, this is why I would like to see *both* sexes exhorted to behave responsibly.
AVI’s analysis seems pretty much right on to me. The fact that MacDonald’s disapproval seems to be targeted at women may be rooted in the double standard; it could also be (and these things are not mutually exclusive by any means) that as a woman she tends to focus on the female side of the equation, i.e. “how ought women (like she is) to behave?” It would be interesting to find a publication dealing with casual sex, only written by a male and directed primarily at young men, to see if the tone is different.
