Some social interactions are governed by mechanisms that go beyond the simple question of free will.
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A recent study shows that when a girl spends an evening with a boy, she feels more obliged than he does to consent to sexual experiences. Researchers have given this phenomenon a name: sex debt.
A sense of accountability
This is the finding of a Swiss study conducted by the University of Social Work on young men and women aged between 14 and 27.
When a girl spends an evening with a boy and he offers her a drink, dinner or lodging, she feels more indebted to him for something, because she's anticipating expectations traditionally attributed to men.
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A social injunction
This study shows that, in this type of situation, women will tend to accept sexual experiences as a compromise, but without really wanting them.
Why do they accept it? Because they're based on men's supposed sexual expectations, which are based on a prejudice: men have more sexual needs than women by nature.
In the world, many people are convinced of this presupposition: 73% of women and 59% of men, according to a survey published by La Découverte.
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An experiment that questions the notion of consent
The problem is that these relationships are consensual, but are not born of desire.
There's a form of implicit coercion that's problematic and blurs the notion of consent: the woman is objectively consenting, but the sexual relationship is more akin to a transaction born of silent negotiation.
We're dealing with a symptom of gender relations. In a relational scheme, positions are determined by the nature of the sex: the man deserves to receive this, so the woman must offer that.
But there's no one to blame more than the other. This sex ratio shows that the thinking mechanisms of both genders are biased: if men are supposed to expect something, it also implies that they would always be available and performing. Another cliché!
The only way to deconstruct the forces that create the conditions for this feeling of 'sex debt' is to think about it and talk about it.
Find out more in our video at the top of the article!
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This article has been translated from Oh!MyMag FR.
Source used:
La Découverte: Enquête sur la sexualité en France
