Are the assumptions that generally surround men and women actually accurate? Some psychologists are now questioning previously commonly held beliefs, such as men want more sex than women, and men value physical attractiveness whilst women value social status.
Sexual health is rooted in having a clear understanding about the opposite gender. In order for that to occur, the truth behind gender myths has to be discovered.
A new review carried out at the University of Michigan has looked at gender differences, and discovered that they are not always as clear-cut as they may seem.
For example, the cliché that men think about sex every six seconds is simply not true. Male wellbeing is not rooted solely in sex, and their thoughts vary as much as women’s’ do during the day. Whilst it has been proved that men do think about sex more than women do, they also think about other bodily functions such as eating and sleeping more often during the course of the day than women do. On average, men think about sex 18 times during the day, whereas women think about it ten times.
It has also been shown to be untrue that men want to have more sexual partners than women. Whilst some men do equate multiple partners with sexual wellness, most men want approximately the same number of partners as women do. It is also worth bearing in mind that there is a certain expectation on men to answer sexual questions in a certain way, so when studied they may feel compelled to pretend that they are more sexual than they are, as some kind of test of their masculinity.
Men and women tended to follow the stereotype on paper that men like attractive women whilst women like men with social status but, interestingly, when meeting up with real people at a speed-dating event and then rating attraction afterwards, looks and social status were not reflected in the same way as they would have been in theory, suggesting that this, too, is a myth.
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