Summary: The Sexual Double Standard

The sexual double standard that polices the behavior of young women exists even in supposedly liberal contexts that would apparently make certain provocative behaviors acceptable. In the same vein, the word ‘faggot’ has gained an entirely new and diversified meaning among boys and young men, and is now used primarily to police masculinity and to emphasized the ‘correct’ masculine behavior. In the second half of the 20th century, there was something of a sexual revolution that brought a new level of liberal sexual expression into acceptance (Fjaer, Pedersen, Sandbert 2015). In spite of this, there is still a marked sexual double standard, both in the slut-shaming of women and the masculine policing of men.
For the younger generations, the practice of ‘hooking up,’ in which the main feature is a lack of long-term commitment, has become the norm in dating arenas (Fjaer,

The traditional morality regarding sexual behavior has very little place in the hook up culture of contemporary society, which has nevertheless given birth to a new sort of sexual double standard, featuring the masculine “stud” and the feminine “slut” (Fjaer, Pedersen, Sandberg 2015, p.3). Essentially, this policing stratagem glorifies men’s sexual conquest, while shaming women for similar behavior.
This leads to “symbolic boundary-work,” in which people emphasize a part of their social identity in order to claim moral superiority over others who they find somehow socially or morally inferior (Fjaer, Pedersen, Sandberg 2015). A lot of “women emphasized the difference between themselves and other women when talking about sexual experiences” as a way of presenting themselves as “moderate” compared to other “loose girls” while still supporting the general “hedonistic values” of the social context (Fjaer, Pederson, Sandberg 2015, p.8-9). Some of the moral boundaries that women draw is related