Here's to my expensive education.

Two out my three classes today had a guest speaker. The one I choose to focus on for this post is psychologist Daryl Bem. Prof. Bem focuses much of his studies on sexual orientation and a notion of a gay gene (for those interested he believes there is no gay gene, but rather a genetic driving force in temperament which determines sexual orientation). But, I will not get into that too much. Rather I will focus on one study from his lecture:

To test sex differences in views on casual sex, Bem had two good-looking experimenters (one male, one female) go around college campuses (I forget which campus this was...he's taught at Stanford, Harvard, and Cornell though) and approach random students with the following statement: "I've seen you around and I find you very attractive. Would you like to _______?" Into this blank insert (A) go on a date?, (B) come over to my apartment? or (C) have sex?

The results:

Women: 52 said they would go on a date, 6 agreed to the apartment option, and 0 said "yes" to sex.
Men: 50 agreed to go on a date, 69 would go to the apartment, and 75 said "yes" to the sex option.

Now...I can gather that men view casual sex differently than women -- after all there is an added danger for a woman to go to a strange man's apartment (much less have sex with him) that men don't necessarily face. Also, there is the baby factor. But 75??? Who are these 75 men??

He then followed this with a theory for the stereotype that gay men are more promiscous. Since [fingerquotes] all men (gay or straight) perceive casual sex as not so bad then gay men are more likely to meet up with a potential partner that wouldn't scoff at casual sex. Meanwhile straight men go to women (incidentally both hetero- and homosexual women did not like casual sex) who would not agree to casual sex. They are barking up the wrong tree per se.

Very interesting Mr. Bem. My dad would be pissed if he knew this was what I was learning about in college. Don't tell.