While some studies suggest that people may evaluate individuals based on their sexual activity, there is little consistent evidence to support a strong traditional double standard where women are judged more negatively than men for having multiple sexual partners. Studies indicate that both men and women express similar levels of reluctance to get involved with someone who has an extensive sexual history (or who is sexually inexperienced), and there is considerable overlap in what both genders consider to be the ideal sexual history of a prospective partner. In the Western world, these studies collectively suggest that the sexual double standard is not a significant or consistently observed phenomenon.

Peer-reviewed Publications

In western nations especially, there was little evidence for the strong sexual double standard embodied in the expectation that women but not men must be virgins on their wedding night. Other research has addressed the issue of whether there is a weaker form of the sexual double standard in the west, such that some past sexual activity is acceptable for both sexes but promiscuity acceptable for men only. Again, the evidence is mixed, with some studies finding evidence for this asymmetry but others finding none. O’Sullivan (1995), for instance, predicted that women with high numbers of casual sexual partners would be evaluated more negatively than men but did not find any such difference. Similarly, Allison and Risman (2013) found that around 48% of college students lost respect for both sexes equally if they hooked up “alot,” 27% lost respect for neither sex, 12% held a traditional double standard, and 13% held a reverse double standard (i.e., lost more respect for men than for women; see also Kreager & Staff, 2009;Mark & Miller, 1986;Marks & Fraley, 2005). (pg.1098)

Contrary to the common notion that male promiscuity is tolerated whereas female promiscuity is not, both sexes expressed an unwillingness to get involved with someone with a high number of past sexual partners. For long-term relationships, there was virtually no difference between the sexes in this respect. For short-term relationships, in contrast, men were more tolerant of female promiscuity than women were of male promiscuity (thus, in a certain sense, the traditional double standard was reversed in the short-term context). This is not the first study to question the existence of the double standard (see Allison & Risman, 2013; Kreager & Staff, 2009; Mark & Miller, 1986;O’Sullivan, 1995). It seems that, although the belief that there is a sexual double standard is widespread, the sexual double standard itself is not nearly as widespread as it might once have been—at least not in the kind of liberal western culture in which the present study was conducted (cf. Stewart-Williams, 2002). (pg.1103)

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Stewart-Williams, S., Butler, C. A., & Thomas, A. G. (2017). Sexual History and Present Attractiveness: People Want a Mate With a Bit of a Past, But Not Too Much. Journal of sex research, 54(9), 1097–1105. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1232690

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Targets were more likely to be derogated as the number of sexual partners increased, and this effect held for both male and female targets. These results suggest that, although people do evaluate others as a function of sexual activity, people do not necessarily hold men and women to different sexual standards (pg.175)

Although the sexual double standard seems pervasive, empirical research does not necessarily show that people evaluate sexually active men and women differently. In fact, much of the literature reveals little or no evidence of a double standard (Gentry, 1998; Oliver & Sedikides, 1992; O’Sullivan, 1995; Sprecher, 1989; Sprecher, McKinney, Walsh, & Anderson, 1988). (pg.176) To date, there has been little evidence that women are evaluated more negatively than men for having many sexual partners. However, if the double standard exists, methodological limitations of previous research may have prevented it from emerging clearly. In the present research, we sought to provide a rigorous test of whether or not the sexual double standard exists by rectifying methodological limitations of previous studies. Our data reveal virtually no evidence of a traditional, or “strong,” sexual double standard. (pg.181-182)

In an effort to denounce the sexual double standard, contemporary authors, critics, and the media may actually be perpetuating it by unintentionally providing confirming evidence for the double standard while ignoring disconfirming evidence. (pg.184)

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Marks, M. J., & Fraley, R. C. (2005). The Sexual Double Standard: Fact or Fiction? Sex Roles, 52(3–4), 175–186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-1293-5

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Our results confirm previous research findings that frequent casual sex is still stigmatized among many college students despite the cultural perception of ‘‘hooking up’’ as normative. With our measurement of attitudes toward frequent hooking up, the modal category (comprising nearly 50% of students) is to lose respect for both men and women who hook up ‘‘a lot.’’ While attitudes are conservative overall, patterns also reveal that gender egalitarianism in attitudes is prevalent. The majority of men and women hold both sexes to the same sexual standards when evaluating hooking up. Four out of five women hold egalitarian attitudes (whether liberal or conservative), and more than two thirds of men. Given previous qualitative studies documenting a pervasive sexual double standard in hook up culture, the degree of egalitarianism found here was unexpected. If attitudes toward hooking up ‘‘a lot’’ are generally conservative, but egalitarian, we do find some sex differences in response patterns. A greater percentage of women than men hold conservative egalitarian attitudes, losing respect for anyone who hooks up ‘‘a lot’’ (a 24% gender gap). In contrast, a greater percentage of men than women report a traditional double standard, with men more likely to lose respect for only women who hook up frequently. And women report a reverse double standard, where they lose respect for men only, more often than men. Both women and men lose respect for hooking up among the opposite sex with greater frequency than they do for their own sex. (pg.1201)

If the results here indicate minimal presence of the double standard and a good degree of convergence in men and women’s sexual attitudes, it must be noted that the directional change in attitudes is toward less acceptance of frequent casual sexual pleasure outside the bonds of relationships. (pg.1202)

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Allison, R., & Risman, B. J. (2013). A double standard for "Hooking Up": How far have we come toward gender equality?. Social science research, 42(5), 1191–1206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.04.006

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In line with evolutionary theory (Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Trivers, 1972) and biosocial theory (Wood & Eagly, 2002, 2012), this meta-analysis demonstrated clear evidence for traditional SDS in studies assessing differences in people’s evaluation, or expectation, of men’s and women’s sexual behavior, although the effect was small. People expected behaviors associated with high sexual activity more from men than from women, and behaviors associated with low sexual activity more from women than from men. Similarly, people evaluated highly sexually active men more positively (or less negatively) than highly sexually active women, and low sexually active women more positively (or less negatively) than low sexually active men. In contrast, the overall set of studies using Likert-type-scale questionnaires for assessing SDS did not yield evidence of SDS. (pg.179)

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Endendijk, J. J., van Baar, A. L., & Deković, M. (2020). He is a stud, she is a slut! A meta-analysis on the continued existence of sexual double standards. Personality and Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 24(2), 163–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868319891310

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Internet Articles

One takeaway is that we can’t always trust widespread views about men and women. A lot of people are convinced that the sexual double standard is alive and well in the Western world. But our study and many others suggest that it’s a lot less common than it used to be. It’s not that no one cares about a potential mate’s sexual history; most people do care. But people seem to be about as reluctant to get involved with a man with an extensive sexual history as they are a woman.

Dolan, E. W. (2016, December 20). Study finds your number of past sexual partners has a large effect on your attractiveness. PsyPost. https://www.psypost.org/2016/12/study-finds-number-past-sexual-partners-large-effect-attractiveness-46594

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Second, we found considerable overlap between the responses of men and women. Men were slightly more forgiving of a large sexual history than women, but this effect was small and tracked the same “pattern” as women. In short, there was very little evidence for a “double standard."

Thomas, A. G. (2021, December 9). How many previous sex partners is too many? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwin-does-dating/202112/how-many-previous-sex-partners-is-too-many

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Overall, there is no difference in how men and women judge the morality or immorality of men and women who have premarital sex. Roughly equal numbers of Americans say it is always or often morally wrong for a young woman (33 percent) or a young man (35 percent) to have sex before getting married. The views of men and women are nearly identical regardless of whether the question is about a young man or a young woman.

Gray, K. (2022, October 12). A moral double standard on marital infidelity. The Survey Center on American Life. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/a-moral-double-standard-on-marital-infidelity/