Historically, men were more promiscuous than women, and relationships were mostly a full stop experience for women. Dabbling with various sweethearts and experimenting romantically was more dangerous and socially risky for women because it threatened their social standing and perceived value in lieu of the ways in which they are valued in contemporary society, as equally paid full-time employees, for example. I should probably clarify; I’m referring to the historical west. The Trobriand Islands for instance illustrate that there is nor was a one size fits framework for sexual and romantic freedom.
The advent of the sexual revolution in the 1960s would infer that sex beyond long-term heterosexual relationships has become desirable, accessible and socially safe for men and women in equal measure. Female promiscuity has become a key allure of contemporary clubbing and is frequently represented through current pop culture clothing, lyrics and celebrity behaviour. And yet, Tinder (amongst other apps) is defined by the relentless give and take between males pretending to want a long thing and women pretending to want a short thing, or so the stereotype goes.
So what does the data show? Studies vary greatly by country in terms of what an average body count looks like for men and women, but almost all of the datasets seem to show that when outlier results are removed, female average body counts fall to about two-thirds of males.
And yet, Tinder (amongst other apps) is defined by the relentless give and take between males pretending to want a long thing and women pretending to want a short thing, or so the stereotype goes.
So yes, it is true that in the grand scheme of things, women prefer more substantial relationships with less sexual partners. Because of how global this pattern is and that it transcends the cultural differences in the world, it can only be explained by inherent differences between men and women.
As humans, we have adapted over millions of years for the single purpose of passing on our genetic information. In pretty much all mammal species, it is shown that males are most successful at doing this when mating with multiple partners while female success in this regard peaks at mating with one partner. This can be explained by the much higher effort associated with female reproduction.
There are also other reasons; men are globally around 10cm taller than women on average and tend to be physically stronger. This means that the risks associated with an intimate relationship souring are higher for women (e.g domestic violence) so the potential costs of making a poor choice of sexual partner are higher for them despite social change. This helps to explain why scientists (and all the dating apps) show that while men rely more heavily on appearance when choosing a sexual partner, women place a much stronger emphasis on perceived kindness, status and personality to give them that sense of security. Anecdotally, this explains why you might see a female nine walking around with a male two on the street. Does that mean it’s more rare to see a female two walking around with a male nine? Perhaps.