Whenever a man deviates from this reproductive gender role, he's labeled as kind of a pussy. When a woman deviates from the role, she doesn't get off so easy—she's a bad, immoral, evil slut. It's funny: even those who believe that men and women were "created" this way though the process of evolution—and not via some God who wove his moral authority into our very genitals—will still argue that deviating from gender norms results in great moral depravity.

Except for gay guys! When gay men are sexually promiscuous—you know, like men are evolutionarily wired to be—they are bad, immoral, evil sluts, too. Welcome to the club, guys (there are no free towels). It's funny: even those who believe that there's nothing wrong with being gay still argue that gay sex results in the great moral depravity usually reserved only for female sluts. Why? Because there are no women around to virtuously refuse to have sex with them.

Yesterday, The New Gay editor Zack made the gay man's double-standard clear. Zack has been seeing his boyfriend for two years. And one time, Zack peed on someone's face in a kiddie pool (consensually). Sure, it's not the most effective way of spreading one's seed, but whatever—he's a dude, and it's only natural for him to want to do some freaky stuff with his penis, right? Wrong. Zack peed on a man's face, which is a no good very bad slutty thing to do. And it's not because men loving men is bad—it's because men fucking men is bad. And it all comes back to us ladies. Zack writes:

Though gay men’s lives are not purely defined by sex — I don’t need to tell you that the richness of the modern queer experience goes beyond an eternal search for dick in ass — I think we do ourselves a disservice by forgetting that we have been designated like we are because of sex. Not love, not companionship, not dating, but sex. Gay marriage is verboten because it leads to gay sex. Parent freak out about gay teachers because they think we’ll teach their children about abhorrent sex. Gay adoption, gay blood donors, all “controversial” aspects of us as a people can be traced back to a popular disdain for how we get off.

However, the way to address this is not to cut sex out of our lives entirely. Some people seem to think that we can whitewash ourselves to equality. Show no affection, no desire, no indication that you have anything between your legs but a smooth strip of plastic and we’ll be able to do what everyone else does. This is true in a sense, but if we win our acceptance as a sexless people we’ll be forever robbed of sex. It’s common sense. Not everyone wants to be joined in holy matrimony or to fight in the military, but everyone wants to have sex. And if the way we have sex is fundamentally accepted, then all of our other rights would fall into line. I’m sure of this.

The parallels between gay rights and women's rights here are obvious. There's a reason that feminism is so centered around reproductive rights (it's the sex). Birth control allows women to have sex the way we want, for the reasons we want to, and without the responsibility of bearing all the moral consequences that come with having sex (chiefly, babies). And yet, even when sex is very explicitly undertaken for pleasure instead of reproduction, women are still called upon to bring some morality to the situation. A woman who takes her birth control pill every day is still a slut. A woman who uses a condom is still a slut. A man who pees on another man's face, where insemination is impossible—as is transmission of HIV, which often acts as a moral-responsibility stand-in for pregnancy—is still a slut.

In response to Zack's coming out as a slut, commenter B.B. wrote:

I am so exhausted from hearing excuse after excuse about why having sex with anyone and everyone anywhere and everywhere is “okay.” No, it is not okay. Let’s also not fool ourselves into believing that straight men are just as slutty as gay men. Women are still socialized to rebuff men’s attempts to have sex with them. I do not doubt that many straight men would have sex as often as possible if they could, but there is still a certain degree of dignity in the straight dating arena.

Ah, dignity. Where does this dignity come from? Why, it comes from us, the women, who must be forever chaste in order to save all of mankind from sluttiness. But once you take women out of the equation, sexual relationships become a lot less dignified—in fact, they become something approaching equal!

Behind the slut-shaming of gay men and the slut-shaming of straight women is the same irrational fear: the fear of equality in sexual relationships. And it sucks for everybody. In accordance with gender roles, men are considered morally inferior to women. Women are considered morally responsible for men. Men who have sex with men will never have their immoral natures redeemed by women. Women who have sex with women are wasting their feminine virtue.

I'm with Zack on this one—it all comes down to equality in the bedroom. When women are allowed to want sex like men, we will all be made responsible for our own personal relationships—and not the collective morality of our entire society. And when everything is equal between men and women, gay men and women will no longer be considered morally inferior to all heterosexuals. And consensual kiddie pool face-pissing will be available for all, if that's what they're into.

Quick Quiz! Sex. What is it, exactly?

A. One step past whatever you were just caught doing with that woman who is not your wife.

B. Anything that two people do together in private when they love each other very much, not including whatever those queers are doing.

C. Whenever the one with a penis has an orgasm.

D. Given the obvious power disparity between men and women in the patriarchy, an implicitly non-consensual act—unless two girls are doing it, but only if two girls are doing it exclusively for their own pleasure and not to satisfy the male interest in two girls doing it.

E. Dancing.

Today, Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I will get to the bottom of this mysterious phenomenon, and figure out why the definition of "sex" is not actually any particular combination of penises, vaginas, anuses, and mouths, but rather a tool for cheaters to pretend they're not cheating and homophobes to pretend they're different from gays. Good morning, by the way!

AMANDA: hi

SADY: why hello!

AMANDA: do you want to talk now?

SADY: yes indeed! first off, i think we should acknowledge that approximately 125,000 celebrities will have died by the time we post this. THE GRIM REAPER HAS COME FOR CELEBRITY

AMANDA: and they never learned the true meaning of sex!

SADY: ah, yes. apparently, americans "can't agree" on it! this is something i could in no way have learned from my own personal life of dating. i define sex as a peanut butter sandwich. is that so wrong?

AMANDA: when involved in a high-profile political scandal, i define sex as "one step past whatever i did with that woman"

SADY: i personally define sex as "anything you can't tell grandma about for fear she might lose her tenuous grip on this mortal coil." but the studies themselves are intriguing!

AMANDA: yeah definitely. i think, though, that they may be lacking in context. like, it's not as important to define what "sex" is as it is to define what we're comfortable with people doing with us or with other people. i feel like defining sex is just inviting loopholes. see: anal sex to keep virginity.

SADY: right, exactly.

AMANDA: and any cheater's excuse about anything

SADY: and many many men's magazine think-pieces about how it's not cheating if it is with a stripper or other sex worker

AMANDA: or in argentina. etc.

SADY: oddly, the men's definitions of sex tend to be more liberal than the ladies', though, as per this particular article! like: forty-four percent of men surveyed said that oral sex was doin' it. only thirty-seven percent of ladies said the same.

AMANDA: yeah, that was a surprise to me. i have a theory on this. it's good.

SADY: i eagerly await it!

AMANDA: ok, so women are socialized to downplay their sexual expertise in order to not appear as— i believe the scientific word is "slutty". and so may tend for the stricter definition in self-reporting. whereas men may want to fudge it a little bit in order to be able to put another notch in the bedpost

SADY: there is actually a long passage in that keith gessen novel ("All The Sad Young Literary Men") that backs up your theory. observe how i move smoothly from actual science to literature! but: the dude is trying to figure out his Number and his List and whatever and is trying to figure out how liberal his definition needs to be. he concludes, if i remember aright, that blowjobs should indeed count in The Number!

AMANDA: sha-wing

SADY: whereas ladies might indeed self-identify as Virgins, a la Dionne in "Clueless" (CINEMA! INTERDISCIPLINARIAN THOUGHT!) had they only, say, given the BJs, or received the Lady BJs. actually, this study is weirdly non-specific about Giving and Receiving of sexual favors.

AMANDA: yeah, i noticed that also. allow me to extend an example from yet another genre, the Hip Hopera.

SADY: please do!

AMANDA: one thing that i've always found is important in these definitions is who is doing the sexing or non-sexing. so, a man could get Very Very mad at his girlfriend kissing another man, while he's out Real Penis Vagina sexing some other woman. and maybe it's not so much men excusing their own behavior while demonizing women, but that, as an individual, you can excuse your own guilt because you know the emotional context, the strength of the temptation, etc. etc. See: R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet, where everyone is fucking everyone else and they all get PISSED when they find out their significant other has been doing the same thing.

SADY: yes, and yet i feel that (since this article is all about contextualizing "sex" in light of certain political figures putting the Thing in the Places Where You Ought Not To) that there has probably never been a case of someone being cheaterly without KNOWING that they were being a cheaterly cheater. i think you can basically define "cheating" as "that thing you're going to feel really guilty about not telling your wife and/or husband and/or unmarried life partner because you know, for some reason, even if there was no Sexual contact involved by any definition, that you did something they would not like."

AMANDA: totally. i think the rush to define it, in the case of the high-profile cheating, is that the public is just honestly curious about the sexy details. not that we like, want to know what sex is.

SADY: right? especially if they took place in argentina! and involve THE FORBIDDEN PASSIONS that you told everyone you were on the Appalachian Trail to cover up! all of the futzing around, semantically, can be useful only when trying to figure out how the other person involved sees your sexual exchange... but no-one's denying that the exchange was sexual, in that case. the actual interest is kind of in knowing what other people have been up to.

AMANDA: and, in the case of say, gay sex, trying to define them out of the mainstream or out of existence. like, sure, you can put your penis in his butt, but it's not sex, whatever it is you're doing. which i refuse to equate with my penis in vagina business.

SADY: ha, yeah, or sex between women, in which case basically everything outside of a strap-on is relegated to "foreplay." never "duringplay."

AMANDA: UGGGGHHHH i feel myself sliding into the inevitable rant about the supremacy of the male orgasm in the sexual blah de blah and how that's what this is all REALLY about and i can't force myself to do it.

SADY: you sure? i have lots of thoughts about how the penis-in-vagina-as-real-sex thing is totally not good even for couples that have, respectively, penises and vaginas! LOTS OF THOUGHTS I TELL YOU.

AMANDA: save it for another sexist beatdown.

Photo by Mike Licht

Earlier today, we differentiated between "real" and "fake" women with the help of an excerpt from Allan Williams' God Don't Like Fake People currently being distributed on the D.C. Metro. Now, it's the boys' turn to determine how authentically they conform to gender norms.

Men: Are you for real, or are you fronting (and possibly gay)? Take the quiz, after the jump!

ONE.

a. You don't change around people, so-called important people or women.

b. You are a Chameleon.

TWO.

a. You are the minority in this world.

b. You indirectly work for evil forces.

THREE.

a. You are very tuned-in with God.

b. You will never go out in public holding a Bible.

FOUR.

a. You refuse to buy women.

b. You will buy a woman.

FIVE.

a. You will take a pay cut in employment if it’s necessary to keep your sanity.

b. You worship money and education.

SIX.

a. You will stand your ground no matter what.

b. You will kill your brothers.

SEVEN.

a. You don’t worship a female’s booty.

b. You will do anything for money, even if it’s having sex with another man.

EIGHT.

a. you are content with a simple lifestyle.

b. you are used and controlled by beautiful women with fat booties.

NINE.

a. You do not define yourself by the material possessions you have.

b. You are very corny in nature.

TEN.

a. You are a leader.

b. You try to imitate rappers or any other entertainer that be on TV.

ELEVEN.

a. you are unpredictable.

b. you are predictable

TWELVE.

a. you only need one virtuous woman in your life because that one woman is worth more than 100 ungodly whores that are only beautiful on the outside but are full of worms in the inside.

b. you define your manhood by having sex with a lot of females all throughout life. It doesn’t matter how old they are.

THIRTEEN.

a. you know that fake women shop a lot and put expensive clothes and make-up on to attempt to cover up their horrifying souls.

b. you are afraid to die.

—

MOSTLY A'S: Congratulations! You are a real man.

MOSTLY B'S: You are a fake man who may or may not have personally annoyed the author of God Don’t Like Fake People by: stealing his love interest; valuing education; having sex with men; failing to recognize the worm-infested souls of ungodly whores. As a result, God doesn’t like you. For more information on your condition, read the entire excerpt here.

Photo by refeia, Creative Commons Attribution License

The other day, a friend of mine received a helpful pamphlet outside of the Metro entitled "Real Women vs. Fake Women." This handy guide—which reveals which ladies in your life are authentic and which are fake, make-believe women—is excerpted from Allan Williams' book, God Don't Like Fake People. In the book, Williams also tackles "real" and "fake" men. But more on that later—ladies first!

Women: Are you real, or are you fake? I've adapted Williams' tips into a handy fifteen-question quiz. Find out after the jump!

ONE.

a. You are very clean.

b. You put time, focus and energy into your booty.

TWO.

a. You are easy to please.

b. When you receive a compliment, you look at the person who gave it to you as if they were the scum of the earth. However, you are addicted to compliments, and if you go a day in public without getting one you will start getting insecure and looking in the mirror every 20 seconds.

THREE.

a. You cherish the simple things in life that are the really big things in life, like God.

b. You only mention God when you say “Oh MY GOD!!”

FOUR.

a. You intend to get married or have kids early in life.

b. You intend on having kids later in life, possibly as a single parent.

FIVE.

a. You don't have a lot of male friends.

b. You have a lot of so-called male friends.

SIX.

a. You are simple in nature.

b. You deal with multiple men at a time and claim that they are just male friends while steady fornicating with them.

SEVEN.

a. You love straight-forward simple men that need you.

b. You often cheat on your so-called boyfriends with coworkers at your job.

EIGHT.

a. You will take love over security because you know that true love always manifests itself in the physical form eventually.

b. You meet and talk to guys on Myspace.com or Facebook.com that your so-called boyfriends or husbands don’t know about it.

NINE.

a. You can't stand quiet feminine guys.

b. You are always getting into relationships with men that are on the down low.

TEN.

a. You don’t drink or smoke but will perhaps drink a tad bit on occasion.

b. You often drink a lot and sometimes smoke because you get taken out so much, and that’s why you don’t know how to cook and are often very filthy and dirty.

ELEVEN.

a. You speak your mind to your man but don’t mind being submissive.

b. You lack common sense.

TWELVE.

a. You know how to cook and clean.

b. You only work out mostly in the spring time because that’s when you get to compete against unknown females and your fake friends on who got the best body and tattoos.

THIRTEEN.

a. You are clean.

b. You are very used up.

FOURTEEN.

a. You are just happy to be in a real man’s presence.

b. You look pretty but your inside organs and your vagina are work out because so many male private parts have visited there.

FIFTEEN.

a. You are too into your mate to have time and energy to spend with another man.

b. You don't know that you are the cause of your own misery.

—

MOSTLY As: Congratulations! You are a real woman.

MOSTLY Bs: You are a fake woman who may or may not have personally annoyed the author of God Don't Like Fake People by: cheating on him with your so-called friends, co-workers, and Facebook acquaintances; drinking alcohol; having a worked-out vagina; being a single parent; or simply refusing to go out with him. As a result, God doesn't like you. For more information on your condition, read the entire excerpt here.

Photo by gailf548

and hot girls:

This month's psychological musings include a handy guide to figuring out which girls are slutty. Great. I love psychology.

"Is a short skirt just a welcome mat with a belt?" asks writer Matthew Hutson, to which I reply, "Do skirts have belts?" and also, "No." No, it is not.

Hutson cites a Florida State University study where researchers "recorded 24 women working on a Rubik's Cube with a male partner for a few minutes and played the soundless tapes to other students." They then, naturally, asked the viewers to rate how slutty they think each of the girls are! And it worked. "The viewers showed surprising ability to guess the women's proclivity to sleep around," Hutson writes.

Let's take a look at what Rubiks Cube solving behaviors "tag a tart," according to the study:

Yes, fellas, it's true unclear! If she looks at you or lifts her brows, she's down to fuck. If she dresses provocatively, tilts her head, laughs, or smiles, you just think she's down to fuck. No surprise there: A girl labeled as a "sluts" doesn't have to actually want to have sex for observers to think she wants it. Sometimes, all she has to do is wear a "welcome mat with a belt" and then reject the guy—those girls are called both "sluts" and "teases."

Strangely, these indications that you think a girl totally wants to fuck you are also the characteristics that make her more desirable to bed—call it wishful thinking. They're happy, attractive, and expressive. I'm sure they have a lot of sexual prospects to choose from. A lot of them probably have significant others, too, who will probably kick your ass when you approach her in a bar, indicate her smile, and assume she wants to fuck you because you find her attractive.

—

UPDATE: Okay you guys are totally right, I can't believe I overlooked that. I'VE READ MY AGATHA CHRISTIE. But I'm confused! What does "red herrings" mean in this case then? Are they signs that viewers reported as being linked to sexual activity, but that actually are not? Or just cultural misconceptions about what sluts do?

UPDATE 2: I'm keeping the post up in the interest of transparency, because taking down a post that makes me look dumb is kind of a dick move, right? Also, if the "Red Herrings" were suggested by study participants, are then I think the critique is still valid—that people's ideas of "slutty" women are invented from their own perceptions, and off-base. I have an e-mail out to Hutson asking him is that's the case, and will update when I hear back.

Also, creative writing majors are dumb! Sorry!

UPDATE 3: Here's the word from Huston on the "Red Herrings" category:

The red herrings are a combination of two sets of cues:

- The researchers listed "misleading cues" as those performed a lot by women who were perceived by others to be open to casual sex but who in fact were not. Presumably observers were using those cues to inform their judgments.

- The researchers listed "poor cues" as those performed no more or less by women open to casual sex, and no more or less by women people perceived to be open to casual sex. These cues didn't mean anything, and people didn't use them anyway.

Some of the other editors here were confused by the distinction between "poor" and "misleading" cues, and it can be argued that in the real world some people's perceptions probably are influenced by those poor cues (even though in the study, on average, subjects were not), so I combined poor and misleading cues into one category and called it red herrings.

Okay—so there are three categories of women at issue here:

a) Women that are perceived to be sluts, and are.

b) women who are perceived to be sluts, and aren't.

c) women who are not perceived to be sluts.

The Red Herrings include gestures that observers popularly linked to sluttiness, but which weren't actual indicators of openness to casual sex. So, if she looks at you or lifts her eyebrows, she's down. If she looks pretty or dresses provocatively, you only think she's down. Sorry for the confusion—I've edited my post to reflect the changes.