Women Deemed “Sluts” for Raising Condom Use Erotically

It often seems as if no matter what sexual choices women make, the slut label is never far behind. Wear the wrong outfit? Slut. Sleep with someone too soon? Slut. Don’t use a condom? Slut? Use a condom, but suggest the idea in an erotic way? Apparently, this, too, can be seen as slutty!

In a study just published online in the journal, Sex Roles, researchers looked at whether the manner in which a woman raises the issue of condom use with a sex partner affects how other women perceive her.

To do so they asked 193 undergraduate students to read stories about a sexual encounter between a man and a woman where the female character brought up condom use in three different ways. In the first scenario, the woman expressed concern over STDs and pregnancy. In the second, she simply refused to have sex without a condom. In the third, she talked about how sex would be hotter with a condom because she would feel less inhibited.

The study determined that, “Female students rated the female proposer as less nice, more promiscuous and less like the housewife type when she used the eroticization strategy, suggesting that women are harsher on other women who highlight their sexuality.“

It would be nice to think that in the years since the sexual revolution women no longer had reason to judge each other sexually. Unfortunately, it seems the old joke, “being promiscuous means that you’ve slept with one more person than I have,” rings a little more true than I’d like.