Column:
No home plate, no second date
Published June 11, 2008
In the heat of summer we find ourselves in all sorts of situations: hook-ups, break-ups, revenge hook-ups — the list goes on. As a lady, if you find yourself in many of these situations, you are given the title of slut, ho, skank or my personal favorite: skankity-slut-ho. As a male, you will be applauded by other males, if not worshipped and bowed to for your ability to score with the ladies.
I recently eavesdropped on a conversation attempting to make sense of the double standard regarding sluts and prostitutes versus players and pimps, and I will share it with you through a quasi-fictitious scenario.
A lady and a gentleman meet for a date. The date ends and both return to the gentleman’s place of residence for, as Flavor Flav likes to call it, a little “night cap.” We will assume the date went well and both parties feel mutual attraction. Here comes the economics.
Our lady is the “supply,” to put it in the eavesdropped terms. Thus, our gentleman is the “demand” in our equation.
According to the basic rules of economics, the greater the supply, the less value it holds when demand is met.
In this case, if the lady is easily “obtained,” her value drops significantly. If the argument holds up, as good arguments should, if the lady limits the “supply,” it becomes more valued, thus she becomes more valued and the demand is greater.
This argument might work in teen movies and Christian abstinence teachings, but for those of us in the real world it doesn’t quite hold up.
On the other end of the spectrum from all the skankity-slut-hoes we have “The Prude.” The Prude is just as reviled as the hoes, if not more so for her alleged inability to have a good time. But back to our sexual encounter.
Our lady makes out with the gentleman but stops before it goes further. During the time in which they were making out, the gentleman assumed he would be able to slide into home plate by the end of the evening and prepared himself for the no-pants dance.
Her ceasing to fill his fantasy has left him with the dreaded blue-balls syndrome. The gentleman grows frustrated with the build-up of excess testosterone and the lady is never called again.
In this age of instant gratification with everything from convection ovens and high-speed Internet, we expect certain things and become disgruntled with waiting periods and having to work to get what we want.
But old traditions die hard, and ladies are still expected to be ladies, just as they are expected to please a man, no matter the effect on their reputation.
The moral I would like you to take from this conflicting argument is to stop listening to the grape vine, because as women we cannot win.
Have (safe) fun this summer and stop listening to what other people have to say.