Mate Guarding & Slut Shaming

Level: High school

The subject of mate guarding and slut shaming explores the complexities of human social behavior and cultural evolution, offering insights into how historical societal norms influence current gender dynamics and relationship behaviors.

About Mate Guarding & Slut Shaming

<p>The subject of mate guarding and slut shaming is fascinating as it delves into the complexities of human social behavior, relationships, and cultural evolution. It offers an insight into how historical societal norms and economic pressures have shaped the dynamics between genders. As women gained more equality and independence, traditional exchanges of sexual and romantic access for resources became less necessary, leading to shifts in how both women and men view and react to sexual behavior. Understanding these behaviors sheds light on ongoing cultural phenomena and the persistent impact of past societal structures on present-day interactions.</p> <p>Exploring these topics is useful as it helps us recognize why certain behaviors, such as slut shaming and mate guarding, continue to exist and how they affect both personal relationships and broader social constructs. By understanding the motivations and implications of these behaviors, individuals can work towards healthier relationships and challenge outdated norms that perpetuate inequality and social discord. This examination also provides an opportunity to reflect on personal biases and encourages the development of a more equitable and understanding society.</p>

Learning objectives

Mastery requirements

Slut Shaming & Impossible Double Standards Where in the process of moving from patriarchal and monogamous societies to a free, equitable society did everything fall apart? In what ways is the current model not living up to its goals? Before the rise of gender equality and the sexual revolution, women were disadvantaged in the job market and not offered the same social protections as men. Women were therefore forced to leverage social institutions and cultural norms that encouraged them to trade sexual/romantic access for protection and resources. These systems ranged from the norm of a male breadwinner in a marriage to conventions around males paying for dates and offering gifts. As women gained more equality within society, this exchange of sex/love for resources became less necessary. A portion of females decided it made sense to just sleep with whoever they desired. This development led to the rise of slut shaming—from both men and women—which produced a “no win” scenario for both the shamed and the shamers. Let’s take a moment to explain what we mean by this and how it came about. We will start by exploring the economic pressures that caused slut shaming to come to exist as a cultural artifact in women and then discuss why men started slut shaming as well. Why Women Engage in Slut Shaming Behavior Women slut shame other women more than males do (or almost as much as males do—it depends on your chosen dataset ). If presumably women disproportionately suffer from slut shaming, why is this tactic so frequently implemented by women and where did it come from? Imagine a social group of ten men and ten women going about their lives as societal expectations transitioned away from women trading sexual access for personal investment and toward greater financial independence and “free love.” Two of those women will have sex with anyone regardless of investment given—be that investment emotional or in the form of resources. When given the choice between a woman who wants something in exchange for sexual/romantic access and one who doesn’t, these ten men will usually choose the woman who doesn’t (it’s a strict case of less investment for the same output). These two women will therefore ruin the sex-for-something-in-exchange economy in the same manner a worker crossing a picket line destroys a union's ability to negotiate. The only way the eight women in this group can protect their ability to trade sexual access for something would be to attach a negative externality to the act of having sex without securing at least emotional investment. This negative externality historically manifested as slut shaming. While slut shaming is usually just social shaming, it can go much further and have massive self-image and career effects on the women targeted. Not only does slut shaming dissuade women from taking this “no-exchange” path through social punishment, but it also lowers the value of these women in the eyes of the men of the group. While gender equality was being normalized, some women wanted to protect this old sex-in-exchange-for-something (specifically, emotional investment) system, and their only tool for protecting the old system was slut shaming. This battle was lost generations ago. A study seeking to determine how many dates the average woman has before having sex found the most common response to be zero—that 32% of respondents slept with their current partners before their first dates. Despite the war being long over, slut shaming persists as a powerful social artifact of an earlier time. To a great extent, slut shaming represents that aspect of our cultural unconsciousness that always yearns for the past and wants to return to the old system. Interestingly, once individual women realized they could leverage slut shaming to apply a negative externality to other women's social status and prospects on the dating market, some began to use it as a cudgel to attack any female rival deemed to be a threat (regardless of said rival’s actual sexual behavior). This can be seen in a neat paper from 2004: ‘‘Good Girls’’: Gender, Social Class, and Slut Discourse on Campus. This study found high status women used slut shaming to prevent lower status women from gaining power within local dominance hierarchies. Even though this cultural artifact no longer serves its original purpose, it is simply too useful a weapon to leave buried anywhere but in the backs of those who threaten us. Should the average woman wish to have genuinely good odds of securing a well-matched partner within today’s mainstream dating market, she has to undertake actions that will incite derision from her peers, coworkers, and likely even a little voice within her own head (obviously, some women get lucky and secure a partner without flipping this switch, but we doubt even a woman in such a position would claim that luck wasn’t a huge factor in her outcome). How anyone could think this system is “working” is beyond us. The only way for a woman to realistically compete on the dating market (outside of extremely conservative and religious micro markets) is to take actions that will inspire others to shame her and make her feel poorly about herself.

Mate Guarding Behavior
Behavior falls under the designation of “mate-guarding” when its objective involves increasing the probability of maintaining sexually exclusive access to a partner. In humans, mate-guarding manifests as anything from putting your arm around someone in public (to demonstrate to others they are “taken”) to sleeping in the same bed as your partner or adorning your partner in attention-grabbing possessions like jewelry (people who use this tactic are statistically more likely to be jealous partners).
Better knowledge of mate-guarding behavior will help you identify, contextualize, and suppress the mate-guarding impulse in your brain. Why suppress mate-guarding behavior? As we will discuss below, it can often yield very counterproductive results. 
The most common mate-guarding behavior in human females manifests in the ostracization of other desirable females. Females increase this behavior when they are ovulating and will increase it further if a potential rival is also ovulating. Some studies have also found that women dress more provocatively when ovulating and are less likely to introduce their partners to other provocatively dressed females.
In other words, the most common type of mate guarding behavior in women is to either denigrate other women or prevent their partners from spending time with other women.
In general, the level of mate-guarding behavior a female will exhibit can be judged by how attractive she believes she is relative to her partner (more on that shortly), her level of Machiavellianism (more Machiavellian personalities engage in more mate-guarding), how liberally minded she is towards sex, and the level of intimacy in her current relationship (with more intimacy being tied to less mate-guarding). 
While it is easy to separate genetically ingrained and socialized mate-guarding behavior in women because we can look at how their behavior subconsciously changes when they are more fertile, we cannot use this same pattern with men, whose fertility does not regularly fluctuate.
Men who see themselves as less attractive when contrasted with their partners engage in more mate-guarding behavior, such as public displays of affection and attempts to prevent their partners from interacting with other males. Simultaneously, females who view themselves as more attractive than their mates are more likely to resist these forms of mate-guarding behavior. Women with less attractive male partners have also been found to resist mate-guarding behavior more vigorously if they view their partner as less wealthy than their peers, be more likely to flirt with other men, and experience more frequent thoughts about breaking up. 
Female resistance to mate-guarding behavior increases further when a woman is fertile. The more fertile a woman is, the less she will like having her current pair-bonded partner demonstrate to others that she is off the market, and the more she will fantasize about sex with individuals who are not her pair-bonded partner. When a female is fertile, she is even more likely to be drawn to events like parties at which she might meet non-pair-bonded partners. Resistance to a male partner’s mate-guarding behavior is also more pronounced in women who engage in abundant mate-guarding behaviors themselves. Finally, males who have higher digit span ratios (low testosterone males) will also receive much more female resistance to mate-guarding behavior. 
This interplay of male mate-guarding action being met with female resistance and subterfuge suggests that mate-guarding subtly signals to females that the male to whom they are bonded believes that he “needs” to guard them. As a result, male mate-guarding behavior may lower a female's estimation of her male partner's value.
Studies have shown the more mate-guarding behavior a male partner exhibits (e.g., the more possessive and controlling he becomes), the more likely a female is to want to sleep with other partners, and ironically the more likely she is to successfully sleep with others. Alas, few studies look at female mate-guarding behavior—wish we could say if this was a two-way street, but we don’t know.
Mate guarding is not only a warning sign to a partner that they can likely secure someone better. Possessive behavior can also be a sign of shady behavior and dishonesty on the part of the mate-guarding partner. For example, people who utilize coalitional mate retention tactics (mate retention with the help of social allies, such as friends) are more likely to be dishonest (higher in extraversion, lower in conscientiousness).
Does theory on attachment styles interest you? Visit the chapter Attachment Styles on page 631 in the appendix. In short, the concept of attachment styles, which has become popular among relationship psychologists, strikes us as suboptimal for various reasons we will happily delineate in the appendix, but not bore readers with presently. 

Part of Types of Lures.

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