in brief: study claims women are ‘hardwired’ to regret casual sex
Image Via Jezebel
A new study claims that women are ‘hardwired’ to regret casual sex and one-night-stands. Men, on the other hand, are ‘hardwired’ to regret not having sex.
Apparently this has nothing to do with society – it’s nature over nurture. The research, published in The Archives of Sexual Behaviour, gives several statistics of people’s attitudes towards casual sex.
After surveying 24,000 people, the research states that heterosexual women regularly regret losing their virginity to the wrong partner. As well as this, they felt bad about infidelity and having sex with a new partner too fast. Heterosexual men, however, gave completely different answers.
The men surveyed regretted not having more sex. Their top regrets included not making a move, not having enough sex when they were young and not having enough before they were married. According to the research, LGBT respondents followed similar patterns.
The researchers admitted that there may be other factors at work, but they believe evolutionary pressures to be at the root of the findings. ‘For men, throughout evolutionary history, every missed opportunity to have sex with a new partner was potentially a missed reproductive opportunity,’ said Martie Haselton, a UCLA professor involved in the research. ‘But for women, reproduction required much more investment in each offspring, including nine months of pregnancy and potentially two additional years of breast feeding. The consequences of casual sex were so much higher for ancestral women than ancestral men, and this is likely to have shaped emotional reactions to sexual liaisons even today.’
However, many people are sceptical about these findings. With the addition of birth control, it is arguable that the shame associated with casual sex would be due to something other than a leftover ancestral weariness of pregnancy. To many it appears unlikely that our culture’s attitudes towards sex can be put down to pure science.
And the idea that this is all genetic does nothing to endorse a cultural change around these attitudes. Many see it as a justification of the status quo.
It doesn’t claim “women are ‘hardwired to regret casual sex’.
“After surveying 24,000 people, the research states that heterosexual women regularly regret losing their virginity to the wrong partner.”
So, it’s claiming there’s a stronger statistical trend among women to regret losing their virginity than among men, in contrast to the article headline which misleadingly implies that the study is stating that EVERY last woman feels X and EVERY last man feels y.
It’s no surprise that feminists are generally suspicious of evolutionary science considering how scientific studies are consistently misreported and misrepresented in feminist and social science circles.
“Many see it as a justification of the status quo.” – If someone wants to argue that because something is scientifically true it is morally true (ie. it ‘justifies’ the status quo), that’s their decision – however, there’s nothing in science to encourage that view. It’s called the “naturalistic fallacy”.
If the women surveyed were on the pill it probably messed with the results. Besides, questionaries are not going to answer the question if you want to understand evolutionary stuff alone .
Questionaries will give you culture mixed with evolutionary effects.
Nobody can truly separate the two out cause it’s all mixed up together. So why do people even bother writing about ‘nature vs. nuture’ it seems pretty pointless…
From the study abstract it is difficult to see how the researchers went from identifying statistical trends to then making conclusions that the cause of the trends are evolutionary rather than other causes like culture.
What evidence showed that it is likely to be an evolution issue? How did the researchers isolate the effects of evolution from cultural influences? Who formulated the research and what does it tell is about them? How might culture have influenced their approach, which in turn shapes participant responses to an extent? How did culture influence the researchers’ interpretation of the findings? Participant responses and the research itself cannot be analysed in isolation from culture.
Science can and does include a heap of cultural views and values that are indeed imposed in oppressive ways and are certainly used by researchers, governments and the general community to maintain the status quo!
I think the writer poses some really important questions – what on earth is the use of this study apart from perhaps letting social structures and imposed cultural meanings off the hook for the oppression of women’s sexual expression? Sure that might not have been the intention but many harmful things are done without intention.
And is there really any such thing as scientific ‘truth’? It depends on the ontological assumptions you’re making.
“it is difficult to see how the researchers went from identifying statistical trends to then making conclusions that the cause of the trends are evolutionary rather than other causes like culture.” –
On what evidence are you basing your opinion that it’s *not* evolutionary based and is definitely culture based? It seems to be a bolder assertion – one that would need evidence – to assert that the evidently differing physiological effects of sex for males and females (ie. males never get pregnant, females can get pregnant, which go for nine months) have *nothing* to do sexual selection practises, and that it’s all culture.
“Science can and does include a heap of cultural views and values that are indeed imposed in oppressive ways and are certainly used by researchers, governments and the general community to maintain the status quo!”
Not really. Science is the practise of explaining the world through general principles. The way this comes around is through open debate, peer review, double-blind methods and falisifiable theories. This is why, despite the Theory of Ether being the dominant physics theory of the ‘status quo’ in the 1890s, the scientific world adopted the theory of relativity after the efforts of Albert Einstein, at that time a lowly clerk. There’s few better examples of truth over power in human history than that.
Just because someone claims to be speaking on behalf of ‘science’ doesn’t make it science. Ultimately, if a movement calling itself ‘scientific’ doesn’t allow opportunities for the falsification of its own beliefs then it’s not science.
“And is there really any such thing as scientific ‘truth’? It depends on the ontological assumptions you’re making.”
Regardless of the ontological assumptions you’re making, James Clerk Maxwell’s theory of electro-magnetism produces light bulbs, no one else’s theory of light, electricity or magnets does. The fact you’re reading this comment on a computer is a pretty good indication there is such thing as ‘scientific truth’.
Chris, I never said it definitely IS culture and I certainly never said it has nothing to do with evolution or psychology. I think it would be a combination of things and not one thing alone. It looks like the researchers didn’t conclude that it is ALL evolution either.
That wasn’t the point I was making. I was asking questions about how the researchers analysed the impacts of evolution separately to the impacts of culture and then made the conclusion that it is more of an evolution thing. I question that it’s possible to do this, especially using a questionnaire, as Andy pointed out.
“Science is the practice of explaining the world through general principles”
I notice three key concepts here. I have more questions: Who is *practicing*? Who is *explaining*? And whose *principles* are we talking anout?These are the works of *people*; they are inherently laden with people’s values, views and interpretations. I don’t believe that people and therefore science can ever be totally objective or value free, and so I believe that science can and does maintain the status quo, whether consciously or not.
I’m not saying that science is bad or that it is always used in this way. Nor am I saying it can’t be or isn’t used to *challenge* the status quo. Absolutely not! But I do wonder about the point of this particular study. I thought the writer made a good point by calling the use of the study into question. Can you see any good use in it? (Genuine question)
The methods you point out for scrutinising science help to moderate the influence of cultural values; it doesn’t get rid of them. Especially since these processes are influenced and most probably overtly guided by specific value sets and ways of interpreting the world.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing – I’m not sure we want to get rid of values altogether! I’m just saying science is not free from culture and cultural values. Even when the researcher is deciding what to research culture is at play.
I’m not going to argue with you about the ‘realness’ of light bulbs. But I will argue that reality means different things to different people. Things are real, but how we understand reality isn’t a reflection of ‘truth’. Rather, it is a reflection of our interpretation of the world as we interact with it. So you see we make different ontological assumptions and it does make a difference to our ideas about ‘scientific truth’. This is why we are having this debate right now, even as I am looking at the light coming through my computer screen.
To me, science presents interpretations of our world rather than the truth of our world. I don’t think this is bad either but like anything these interpretations have the potential to have negative impacts. I’m wondering about the impacts of this study although haven’t made any conclusions because I haven’t seen the full article.
You can read Cordelia Fine’s ‘Delusions of Gender’ to see how societal expectations and researchers’ prejudices can skew data and reinforce outdated and inaccurate gender norms.