Saturday, July 14, 2007

Today's Deep Thought



Has to do with the word "slut". A term that is applied to women who have several sexual partners or who are regarded as easily seduced or who like sex too much.

The deep thought is this: If Evolutionary Psychology is correct in arguing that men are much more into casual sex than women, why would it be necessary for societies to police women's behavior by, say, calling some women sluts? This name-calling is counter-intuitive. There is no need for it as women aren't really into casual sex. But suppose that some of them are. Then the name-calling cuts back on the number of possible partners slutty men have (see how I snuck that in?).

I can guess one EP answer for this, and that has to do with the desire to limit women's access to other partners. This desire can be satisfied by calling some women sluts or whores or hussies and so on. But it doesn't really work if women truly are pretty uninterested in casual sex in the first place. Because then there would be no need to invent terms such as slag or skank or slut or so on.