Familiar with this double standard? A man has sex with several different partners and gets deemed a “stud.” A woman does the same and gets branded a “slut.”
We may be nearing 2016, but a recent study by a University of Illinois professor has found that women still feel hampered by these historical societal pressures and were more likely to engage in “sexual risk-taking” while traveling than when they are at home. Why? They might feel more comfortable in anonymous environments where people in their social circles are less likely to find out about these sexual experiences that are perceived as more taboo. For men? This tendency isn’t as pronounced, said Liza Berdychevsky, U. of I. professor and co-author of the study.
Respondents in the study were asked to rate how much more likely they would be to engage in risky sex on vacation on a scale from 1 to 5, 5 being the most likely, with an average response of 3.45. When asked if they thought other women were likely to engage in such behavior while traveling based on the same scale, the average response went up to 3.68.
The findings are the result of an online survey of 850 women, ages 18-50. Millennial attitudes get the spotlight here, as about 90 percent of the women surveyed were between the ages of 18 and 30.
Berdychevsky, who has studied gender, sexuality and travel for nine years, said she thinks the findings from the study could turn out to be very important. If researchers understand why women engage in sexual risks, she said, more can be done to help women be prepared and stay safe in situations that can lead to sexually transmitted infections, unplanned pregnancies, violence, rape, emotional damage and negative self-perception.
“Many women … suggested that for them the anonymity of being a tourist is more important than for men because of sexual double standards and the many sanctions attached to women’s sexual behavior in everyday life,” Berdychevsky told a writer at the Illinois News Bureau in 2014 after doing a similar study. “Those Puritan and Victorian sentiments have not vanished yet, and it is actually in sexual behavior where we can see them the most vividly.”
A sense of “timelessness” and “placelessness” might contribute to women’s increased willingness to take some risks, just as it could contribute to women’s practices of eating differently, sleeping differently and communicating differently.
“For some women, even trying casual sex … on vacation, was on a certain level, liberating,” Berdychevsky said. “They felt … more empowered.”
Based on her own experiences and observations, the study’s findings make sense, a 23-year-old Lincoln Park woman told RedEye, which is not publishing her name because of the sensitive nature of the topic. She said she thinks women might feel like they don’t have to protect their reputation as much, and that “there is something appealing about going somewhere and getting to start fresh.”
“You don’t really hesitate as much,” she said, later adding: “You know nobody is going to see you again, you don’t have to worry about a bad impression afterward. I guess it’s just more comfortable. … It’s like a break from yourself … and I think that does include being more adventurous with sex.”
The woman echoed a similar feeling in her experience flying to Arizona to spend the weekend with a man she only had met once before, at a bar in Chicago. She said she felt freer to behave in a way she wouldn’t normally than she would have if she had been at home. Even the fact that their meeting would take place in another state made it easier for her to rationalize that she was going to spend days with someone she didn’t know very well, she said.
“I remember I was [nervous] before I agreed, and he told me he got the ticket. But as soon as he said, ‘Hey, OK, here’s your ticket, here’s your information, you’ll pick up your ticket at Midway,’ there was this part of me that just kind of felt free, and it was kind of exciting,” she said.
The study’s other findings:
Women also found that alcohol made them more likely to take on sexually risky situations. Not necessarily because of the physical effects, Berdychevsky said, but because of the psychological effect of giving themselves an excuse to act outside the norm.
Vaginal sex without a condom with an unsteady partner was seen as the riskiest sex act, while being more flirtatious was seen as the least of the risky behaviors.
For women who engaged in more casual sex while on vacation, about half said it is best to be in a tour group. Berdychevsky said this might be because the people on the group are “semi-strangers” who are not completely unknown to the women but who are not part of their regular lives at home, meaning they could make for good sexual partners.
About 44 percent of the women said a sightseeing city trip would be best for meeting partners for casual sex while traveling.
Forty-three percent of women without partners said that a trip based on rest and relaxation is the best kind for engaging in new sexual experiences. The women in the non-partnered group found that eight days was the best length of time, and they preferred to be traveling with their single friends or alone.
Women’s sex lives at home can be an indicator of what will happen on vacation, and Berdychevsky said the study, also co-authored by University of Florida professor Heather J. Gibson, showed that if a woman already engages in casual sex while at home, she might be more likely to engage in casual sex without a condom on vacation. If a woman does not usually engage in casual sex at home, she might be more willing to do so on vacation. The women might engage in sexual behaviors with a steady partner while traveling that are different from what they usually would do at home.
When talking about their “ideal” vacation for engaging in risky sex, women in steady relationships and women who did not have steady partners had different preferences. About 90 percent of the women in casual relationships said that a trip based on rest and relaxation was the best kind of trip for sex, while 64 percent said they would prefer sightseeing and 30 percent preferred backpacking. Nine days seemed to be the “ultimate” length, Berdychevsky said—enough time to feel sufficiently relaxed but not so long that they came to feel like the vacation was a part of their regular lives. More than 85 percent wanted to travel with their steady partner, and 46 percent said the best location for such a vacation would be on a beach or a tropical island. About 21 percent said a European country would be the best place.
Caitlin Wilson is a RedEye special contributor.
