We live in a sexually liberated society that doesn’t exactly dance around the subject of sex anymore. As soon as we sat through our first college lecture and heard the professors curse and talk openly about sex, we realized that there was no longer any need to be coy about the subject. With all the exposure to crude material on the regular, are we guilty of violating the TMI code? Or do we still like to keep what happens in the bedroom our own secret? And who does the more telling: men or women?
“I think guys reveal more because, to be honest, we think about sex all the f—king time,” says Greg Michaels*, a junior at the University of Hawaii. “But we reveal it more on the superficial level. I have girls who tell me certain things about their sex life I’d rather not know. They might go into more depth when they talk about sex, like more on the emotional side. But for guys, it’s more on how were her tits, ass, etc.”
But is the superficiality just a response to the pressure for guys to be promiscuous?
“Most guys brag about their sex lives, but it’s very questionable,” says a Chris Baker* senior at University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. “More times than not, they’re lying. But they do it because that’s how we’re taught to prove our manhood. It varies with girls, but girls naturally keep to themselves.”
While most guys answered and agreed that their friends definitely embellish stories for the “wow” factor, they also agreed that women don’t talk much about it to their friends. Having been a part of countless “girl nights”, I think it’s safe to say that sex does come up quite a bit. The problem may be that the information is watered down.
According to a survey conducted by Terri Fisher of Ohio State University and Michele Alexander of the University of Maine, women are more likely than men to lie about their sex lives, for the opposite reason that men lie. The survey shows that women change their answers depending on whether or not they think they’ll be caught in a lie. The researchers found that when women believed they were being hooked up to a lie detector test, their number of sexual partners nearly doubled.
The reason for this probably has a lot to do with the pressures that women feel from society not to sleep around. It’s often acceptable in films and television for women to hook up at random with men (otherwise, who would the men be promiscuous with?) but in reality, women are often chastised for having more than a certain number of sexual partners.
“Many women are very willing to discuss their sex lives with their close girl friends,” says a Elizabeth Johnson senior at James Madison University. “I think many women will not give details about their sex lives if they feel they are going to be judged for something they have done. If they feel comfortable with the people they are with, then they will usually be honest. I think a lot of girls actually bond over it.”
Ultimately, sex is definitely a topic that comes up quite frequently when you’re hanging out with your friends, but I think it’s safe to say many people still have a problem with either embellishing their bedroom tales or not owning up to them. If you’re one of those people, there’s nothing wrong with believing that what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom.
