I think you are arguing against a strawman here. No, modesty advocates do not generally go around proposing that men have lots of non-marital sex. However, the double standard is that most modesty advocates spend a lot more time admonishing WOMEN, emphasizing the downsides of immodesty and/or non-marital sex TO WOMEN, using examples of WOMEN damaged by casual sex/immodesty, praising the supposed advantages of abstaining to WOMEN, etc etc etc. Then when they are justifiably perceived as having a double standard, they issue the standard 'we want men to be modest too' disclaimer. Well you can't claim to be an "advocate for a single high standard" when the overwhelming majority of your writing and public speaking advocating that "single standard" are directed at women.

It is similar to an NGO that claims is is non-partisan and only interested in "human rights for all," and then spending half their time and lobbying efforts on alleged human rights violations Gaza and the West Bank while ignoring far worse violations in other parts of the world. Then, when someone brings this up, saying "well we don't approve of _______ either," and expecting the statement to serve as proof of their fairness. It's not just what you say, it's how you allocate your time and energy that shows where your priorities lie.

Thanks for your thoughtful question Anon. Actually, in my books and my talks I do cover the downsides of non-marital sex to men.

The reason in this latest book I focus on new role models for girls specifically is that unfortunately, with so much pressure on girls to be “experienced,” we essentially have a reverse double standard operating today.

A young woman is judged the most harshly if she doesn’t sleep with a man by the third date. Is she “Victorian”? Is she “comfortable with her body”? On the other hand, although young men are pushed to be “players,” in reality they still have more options; while researching my book I was pretty shocked to find out that sex ed websites directed at teens will praise emotional boys and in the same breath, bark at emotional girls to separate their emotions from sex.

And very often, adult men who are more sexually conservative will be admired by the media: "How romantic! How wonderful that you want to wait until you've met the right person!" Thus was A.C. Green roundly praised for waiting until he was 38 to lose his virginity. Whereas a 23-year-old woman who is still a virgin will often be publicly stigmatized as "prudish” or “repressed”--you name it.

Our new sexual double standard is a reaction to the old one, but in my opinion, it is a misplaced overreaction that has helped no one. Just as women were once encouraged to postpone sex, now they are pressured to rush into things, just to prove they are not beholden to any outdated notions of feminine restraint. I think that’s just as harmful--if not more so--than the old double standard.

Finally, there are many great role models out there for men, whereas the Bad Girl Trinity of Lindsay-Britney-Paris is all that many young women see.

Therefore, no: I don't think offering up more wholesome role models for girls is akin to any double standard. Advocating that men can be promiscuous but women can't be is a completely different philosophy and totally contradicts everything I believe in and write about. I do not secretly believe anything remotely like that.

So thanks for the opportunity to set the record straight!

This story is great! I wish I could have been there. Can't wait for the video! Whoo Hoo for all those women. I have read all their books and think they are fab too. - Koni

There are voices, such as Fallen Sparrow and UltraCrepidarian, who write about male chastity and about being wounded by unchastity. They are also, quite appropriately, men. Perhaps someday soon, there will not only be women advocating chastity on such panels but men as well. I honestly believe most of us will continue to see chastity and modesty as women's issues until we hear men telling us that they're actually human issues.

Wendy,

If your "reverse double standard" theory was true, then what you say might be plausible. However I don't believe it is anywhere near true.

I have always been one of the women who don't sleep with men by the 3rd or even 10th date (although I do hook up), and even the worst mocking has been pretty mild. Also, the guys being shot down have always, to my face at least, been respectful about my saying no to sex. I have several female friends who stayed virgins all through college and were not particularly pressured, except by guys they fooled around with. On the other hand, the couple guys I know who keep to the no-sex-before-marriage rule (I am not THAT well-behaved) are routinely mocked pretty harshly, and mainly by other men. Gay and f****t are commonly directed at guys who don't take every opportunity to sleep with women. A guy who scores at a frat party with a girl he's never met is still a hero, if she's good looking. A girl who sleeps with a guy she's never met at a frat party will still be gossiped about as slutty by both the frat brothers and female acquaintances. You mention "sex ed websites" and "The media" but the two examples you cite are completely opposite to what is going on in real life. High school and college students care a lot more about the opinions of their peers than the opinions of either media or sex-ed websites (although I disagree with you that media encourages chastity in men over women, and I believe, given even a few days to prepare, I could easily go round for round with you, citing 3 examples to each one of yours).

We'll have to agree to disagree. I find your response to be a mixture of ignorance and anecdotal cherry-picking, but please don't think I mean any personal disrespect. You seem like a nice person, bright, and a good writer. I find the topics you bring up interesting, and I think they are ones that do need discussing.

I've never understood why it's cherry picking when you disagree, but if it's your own examples it's not cherry picking?

Otherwise, interesting points.

Wow. A compliment from an anonymous person who disagrees with me is surely a sincere compliment, so I will definitely treasure that!

Anon, I don't think our views are actually as divergent as you think but I can't really condense my book-long argument to one comment and respond with the detail your question deserves, but I do address it in the book.

You are certainly right that men are valued as "players," but at the same time, the humiliation of the non-players is entirely personal. (As you point out, such as the implication that they're gay). It's not political, as it is with women. No one accuses a man of "holding all men back," for example, if he doesn't sleep with a woman. But a girl who is of the more modest type is maligned not just personally, but also politically and publicly.

I am not discounting your experiences, but at the same time, they are not the same as those who wait until marriage; therefore, you aren't privy to that special scorn reserved for such women.

Finally, I just want to add one last point about why I focus more on girls and women in this book.

If a man has not had good male role models and does not respect women, there is very little that another woman can say to convince him to respect women. It's sad but true.

Again, I am at great pains in my writing to stress the fallout of the sexual revolution on men, to underscore the importance of male responsibility and a single high standard. Unlike many conservative /libertarian writers, I do not think a woman's being drunk is any excuse for bad male behavior.

And it's certainly nice to imagine that my writing has had some effect on some men. But if I'm to be honest with myself, the reality is that probably, this man Dawn mentioned already had an abiding respect for women before he even read my book.

If it's not there to begin with, there is very little that "some woman" can say to change their minds. (Men who don't respect women think in those terms, "Some Woman" is talking, not "Hmm, a woman is speaking, let me see how I can learn from her.")

I'm thinking of a recent email I received, with duplicated IM messages between a young woman who wanted a young man to court her. In an increasingly crude series of messages, the guy responded by telling her to just take off her shirt. It was painful to read the exchange because she wanted him to want to "date" her instead, and he was totally laughing at the idea.

Don't get me wrong: Women can and do influence men by their behavior (in this case, the girl needed to stop communicating with this guy as I advised her, and that sent a message loud and clear). But very rarely does a barrage of words help.

"I've never understood why it's cherry picking when you disagree, but if it's your own examples it's not cherry picking?"

My own experience is certainly not a comprehensive study of human behavior. However I have some qualifications to add to that statement:

1) When it comes to experience with guys' behavior towards me I have a relatively large sample to work from (>40), although obviously a non-random one. If you include my male and female friends' experiences, it obviously grows by a lot more, though remains non-random.

2) Assuming that I have honestly reported the sum of my experience, my anecdotal evidence is not "cherry-picking" unless I am only reporting that experience which supports my thesis and leaving out those experiences that contradict it. Cherry-picking is when you have a data set X and you selectively choose elements of it to use. If Wendy's data set is "the media", I think it is cherry-picking to only use the quotes that make her point while ignoring many that make the opposite point. In my case, my experience and friends' experience IS my entire data set, and I suppose you either believe that I have reported it fairly or not. If you just mean that my experience is not strong statistical evidence from which assumptions can be made about people all over the nation, then I agree with you. However my data is limited not because I have screened out inconvenient data points (cherry-picking), but because I have not devoted the time or resources to expand my data collection (see pt 3).

3) I do not do sex/dating research & writing for a living. I work 50-60 hrs/wk and go to school at night. I read blogs as a leisure pastime and rarely comment. I was prompted to comment by this entry and to respond to Wendy's response because what she was saying just sounded nothing like what I or my friends experienced (I graduated college only a couple years ago).

Wendy, thanks for your thoughtful responses. To be perfectly fair, I have not read either of your books all the way through, though I have read parts, and quite a few reviews. Perhaps they will be more persuasive on this issue than I expect and of course it's not fair to expect you to condense a complex argument into a blog comment. I'll try to read the books all through then maybe formulate a more thought-out response. You are right about our views not being "so divergent," to an extent. I think we see many of the same things as problematic, we probably just disagree about the causes and solutions.

I think this is s a great story as well. I am glad that readers can see that both female modesty and male chivalry are important.

Well I think the biggest crime that these modesty advocates have committed in this beautifully symmetrical post modern world is to focus on the spiritual rather than the physical. The number one topic ( besides how to be sexually stimulating ) in womens magazines is how to look attractive and accentuate your assets - this does not cause outrage in such a huge sense because it is taken for granted that many women enjoy being seen as such - but what many also want is a chance to discover the interior of their souls and live in a world that allows growth and has a sense of appreciating the feminity that doesn't have a sell by date or a trading price... so each to their own and all that but make sure that you are not just being unreflective...

This is just a note about Anon's comments and Wendy's defence. I think that you are both right, and Anon frequently these websites and the media are portraying what goes on in our environment i.e. what people around us are thinking. There is no 'one' or even 'several' sources. Everyone seems to have expectations.
Also I agree with Wendy that women are more sensitive to these kinds of issues because frequently there is more pressure on them. However, the bottom line is that there are feminine men (not necessarily gay, just having traits that females stereotypically have, i.e. sensitivity) and masculine women and so we should encourage tolerance. Anon I see what you're saying but Wendy is addressing the needs of the community, and it is NOT unnecessary and redundant info to be focusing mainly on women, which would deserve criticism. Wendy has also clearly shown her interest in males as well as females in our society.
Also although you are arguing logical points, your tone is very condescending and attacking and I urge you to work on that. There is no need to make someone feel badly because you disagree with them.

Also I forgot to add that Anon, your friends are not everyone's friends, and it is certainly unreasonable for you to extend their ideals to all North American youth. Perhaps some of their ideals are representative, but you should also acknowledge that many may not be. i.e. You going out with guys and them saying that it's ok to not have sex. Also, as you pointed out, they may have expectations of women in general. I mean, you had to tell them that you didn't want to. Otherwise they may have expected you to and assumed you would because of the ideals of our society. I'm saying that though they may respect you and be fine with it after you tell them you are not going to have sex, the fact that there's an expectation says something also and touches on our 'hook-up culture'.

Well, I think what Anon's friends have to say is interesting and important, just as I think what my friends have to say is interesting and important.

But I want to be clear that the conclusions in my book are based on a number of peer-reviewed studies, and extensive interviews with over 100 young women from the U.S. and Canada. None of these girls were my friends or even acquaintances and neither did they necessarily agree with me--nor I with them on everything (A few of the girls did, however, later become my friends).

I ended up highlighting a few girls per chapter, girls who are doing amazing things to move society in a positive direction--girls who are rebelling by being "good"--but I tell their stories not as anecdotes, but because I think these girls are role models.

Hopefully, that clears things up.

"However, the double standard is that most modesty advocates spend a lot more time admonishing WOMEN, emphasizing the downsides of immodesty and/or non-marital sex TO WOMEN, using examples of WOMEN damaged by casual sex/immodesty, praising the supposed advantages of abstaining to WOMEN, etc etc etc. "

This is more a result of the fact that the target audience is women and not men. Also, the authors of most modesty works are women and so it comes from and focuses on a woman's perspective.

Men and women are not the same and rightly our sexualities are not handled in the same manner. A 'modesty movement for men' wouldn't make sense since our bodies aren't viewed in the same sexual manner as a woman's.

But the 'sexual double-standard' was never a double-standard to begin with because men & women aren't the same. That, however is a much longer post I'd rather not get into right now.

That being said, the sexual revolution hasn't been kind to men either. There are many divorced men who had their children taken from them who can attest to how the current culture works against them. Also, as you rightfully pointed out the popular culture is intolerant of men who are virgins past 16 or 17. For a world that pushes 'tolerance' so much, it's amazing how this is one thing no one seems tolerant of.

Does this mean men have no motivation for any sexual restraint? Absolutely not. The real problem is that most women don't understand men well enough to known what those reasons may be. This isn't some direct failing on women's part, rather this is a result of never living as a male.

I really just don't get this idea that everyone has to be put through the gender homoginiser at every point of divergence from the cult of equal/sameness of the sexes. When it comes down to it we long for another person because of the mystery and difference they contain - men have always primarily sought women and vice versa ( this is not an attack on gay people! ). The more society seeks to equalise and iron out the differences between men and women the more they seem to encourage the mutilation of the surface relations so that women have to be publicly more and more provocative, perhaps because they are on a large scale losing their inner identity and landscapes. i think anyone would have to live under a very large, mossy rock to not have noticed the ever increasing pressure on women to act like uninhibited strippers, talk about their sex lives in detail and be open to no strings sex or uncommitted relationships - this is just a fact if you live in the "first world" There is very little reflection of another way. you want examples? I'm sure you are unable to avoid them.... I can bet on it.

"Also although you are arguing logical points, your tone is very condescending and attacking and I urge you to work on that."

I thought I went out of my way to be respectful to Wendy despite my disagreements. To me, the case behind a person's opinion and the person are two separate entities. A wonderful, kind, smart person can have an opinion I don't think highly of, and a person I think is generally awful can have a flawlessly argued case on some topic. I realize some people feel like they are personally being attacked when their argument is attacked, but it doesn't seem like Wendy is one of those.

"Also I forgot to add that Anon, your friends are not everyone's friends, and it is certainly unreasonable for you to extend their ideals to all North American youth. Perhaps some of their ideals are representative, but you should also acknowledge that many may not be."

I DO acknowledge that in my post the day before yours. Twice in fact. "My own experience is certainly not a comprehensive study of human behavior" and "If you just mean that my experience is not strong statistical evidence from which assumptions can be made about people all over the nation, then I agree with you."

Also, something I just thought about today... Under the old double standard (which I don't think is really old), men were far more likely to play up, exaggerate and even make up their sexual experience, inflate their "number", etc, while women would often deny or minimize their experience. If the "reverse double standard" were truly in effect then logically, under the "new" pressures you would see women exaggerating or flat out making up sexual experiences and conquests while men would be more likely to deny or downplay theirs. While I'm sure there are exceptions, this is not the trend I see, and I would be surprised if anyone else could show it happening. The American Pie 2 joke about the "Rule of 3" (women have had sex with 3 times the people they claim, while men have had sex with one-third the number they claim) rang true with a lot of people. I can't find the link at the moment but there was a study where they found that the when asked about number of sexual partners, women's self-reported numbers were significantly lower when they had to turn in the questionnaire to a live researcher than when they could anonymously put it in a box. The same effect was not true for men.

Also, to Luthor who says "...the 'sexual double-standard' was never a double-standard to begin with because men & women aren't the same." I would guess this leads to some version of "due to biological differences, men are more inclined to be promiscuous, therefore the old double standard wasn't unfair." Men and women don't have to be the same biologically or psychologically to have the same moral standards apply to both. The sexual double standard was a moral double standard, severely condemning women for behavior that was excused in men, and therefore unacceptable. Even if studies show that higher levels of testosterone correlate on average with violent behavior, I do not think a male murderer or bank robber should get less social condemnation from society than a female one (not talking criminal penalties here, just social disapproval). What makes humans different from animals is that we are capable of considering the future, the consequences and meaning of our actions, and we have free will. We bear full moral responsibility for all our actions regardless of varying personal proclivities towards various sins. For example, if you have a population of Orthodox Jews who are very tempted to eat pork, and a population of the same who are only mildly tempted by it, it is not "less sinful" when members of the more-tempted group eat it. Both groups had free will and both knew what was allowed and forbidden. One can disagree of course, but then all consistent morality goes out the window, and the degree of any moral offense becomes merely a subjectively determined function of how tempting that offense is to commit.

I apologize if my posts are too long. I wish I had the time and willpower to keep up a blog of my own... sigh.

What an interesting discussion! Wendy, I'm impressed at how you keep up with comments. I often find myself unable to do so over at own blog.

Chivalry belongs in the past, for it is a type of benevolence sexism. Any sexism, not matter if it is benevolent or not is still sexism and must be confined to the dust-bin of history.

"Also, to Luthor who says "...the 'sexual double-standard' was never a double-standard to begin with because men & women aren't the same." I would guess this leads to some version of "due to biological differences, men are more inclined to be promiscuous, therefore the old double standard wasn't unfair." Men and women don't have to be the same biologically or psychologically to have the same moral standards apply to both. The sexual double standard was a moral double standard, severely condemning women for behavior that was excused in men, and therefore unacceptable."

In this case it does because of what each gender wants in the other.

No woman will ever fear becoming a cuckold because the woman always knows the baby growing in her stomach is her own. But the man *doesn't* know, and that fear of not knowing shows up not just in human beings but also in males of other species that reproduce sexually.

Men have wanted 'virgin brides' not because of pride but rather to ensure paternity. I'm not talking about our conscious motives here, but rather the real driving motives we have given to us by Mother Nature.

Also, and I believe this is in Wendy's book, philandering men haven't always been held up as some standard all men should strive for. They are disruptive to civil society because their actions help to breakdown family units. Sure some men might say "you go boy!" until it's *his* wife the philanderer sleeps with.

There's a second good reason to condemn men who sleep around: they have surrendered their lives and their wills to women. Those 'players' that you seem to think men look up to are losers because they don't have an existance outside of how they relate to women. If you put them on a desert island they would lose a larger part of their identities. There are other types of men this is also true for, but that would take too long to go into.

Luthor,

My whole point was that people's wants are not an acceptable basis for a moral standard. Your response indicates that you disagree. There really isn't much else to say, since we are obviously starting from two totally different sets of premises.

If chivalry must be consigned to the dust-bin of history, with what shall we replace it?

Sara Evans - we will replace it with waxing and designer aftershave. No, not the best idea maybe...Hmmm Good question

Just wondering, Wendy. What's up with the women with tattoos, anyway? I just find them so offensive and gross -- and I"m clearly in the minority here. I remember telling another mom at school that I was really uncomfortable with my son having a teacher who had a "tramp stamp" -- a tattoo on her back that showed when she turned around to write on the blackboard and her shirt rode up. She told me I was being way too uptight and judgmental. Why aren't we allowed to have any standards anymore?

What do you think of the fact that women seem to sabotage themselves? What makes young women less confident than the young men? And why do we go to extremes? (sexuality being a prime example) Any thoughts? Haven't read the book but it sounds really good

Thanks for putting truth out there.. for helping people see their value and for helping them to see that they are not alone in their struggles:) I think that all of us desire great things.. to shoot for the moon when it comes to life.. but I think that many times it seems as though perhaps we should settle for less than great or we should change standards or boundaries to meet the norm. I, for one, am encouraged by your blog, by the women who shared their stories, and by the young man who shared his. I appreciate those who are willing to take a risk, willing to step out for the best. Gracias!! Christina:)