maanantaina, tammikuuta 03, 2005

Naisen seksuaalinen anteliaisuus ei ole täysin uusiutuva resurssi

God pohtii vanhaa klassikkokysymystä: Miksi naiset saavat helposti huoran maineen, mutta miehillä ei vastaavaa kohtaloa ole?
Saarikosken kirja osoittaa yksittäisillä esimerkeillä kuinka huonon maineen voi saada aivan naurettavan helposti mutta minua kiinnostaa tietysti enemmän se mihin naisen huonolla maineella ja huorittelulla tähdätään?

- Naisen haavoitettavuutta pyritään lisäämään.
- Huoran kategorialla pyritään ohjaamaan tyttöjen seksuaalisuutta monogamiseen heteroparisuhteeseen, tekemällä kyseenalaista ja tuomittavaa siitä poikkeavasta seksuaalisesta aktiivisuudesta.
- Naisen seksuaalisuuden kontrolli ratinalisoidaan hyväksikäytön vastustamiseksi:
Sexual Economics antaa tuohon kysymykseen oikean vastauksen:
Sex would have high value if the woman has had few lovers or is known to be reluctant to grant sexual favors, whereas the same activity might have less value if the woman is reputed to be loose or to have had many lovers.

The amount a man would be willing to give in order to have sex with the woman would therefore differ as a function of her (perceived) sexual history.

In this respect, the woman?s sexual favors are not a fully renewable resource, and the woman will have some incentive to grant them only sparingly. Thus, a woman?s sexual favors lose value as she distributes them widely. In consequence, she has an incentive to be selective in her sexual partners and to maintain a reputation for having relatively few partners.

Put another way, a woman has two resources to consider. Actual sexual activity is a fully renewable resource, insofar as her ability to engage in sex is not heavily dependent on what she has done previously. In contrast, her reputation is a non-renewable resource. A fully rational approach to social exchange would therefore cause the woman to care less about what she actually does than about what she is perceived by the community as doing. Whenever she engages in sex, she should seek to keep it somewhat secret and deniable, so that her reputation is that of someone whose sexual favors are highly exclusive and therefore of high value.

Men are far less constrained by these concerns, and so men would be more willing to admit and even exaggerate how much sex they have had. In fact, if low-cost sex represents a loss for the woman, it may be regarded as a gain for the man, and so the man who can boast of multiple lovers without incurring substantial costs (such as having had to marry each sex partner) may lay claim to high respect from other men.

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