Disciplining the disciplined: Making sense of the gender gap that lies at the core of puritanical morals

Abstract

Because suppression of sex has been and is at the core of puritanical morals, a proper account thereof would need to explain why suppression of sex has been largely directed towards the human female. Not only do the authors not account for this pattern, but their general model would seem to predict the reverse – that is, greater suppression/control of the male libido.

Fitouchi et al.'s target article is so capably written, so bold in ambition and scope, and so rich in ideas that seemingly only a churl would choose to dwell on its faults. Alas, churls we must be!

For, insofar as control and strident suppression of sex (Baumeister & Twenge, 2002) has always been at the core of puritanical morals, it seems that explaining these morals requires some type of account of why the said suppression has been far more intensely concerned with one half of our species, that is, the human female.

But therein lies the rub. Not only do Fitouchi et al. not give an account of this pattern, but their model, it seems, should indicate the reverse. That is, if the principal aim of puritanical morals is to reduce the occurrence of “antisocial” acts that stem from indulging/expressing one's “hedonistic impulses” (related to sexual longings), the morals' proponents should channel the bulk of their puritan efforts toward the male libido. Not only is it rather clear that males have stronger desires (Baumeister, Catanese, & Vohs, 2001; Frankenbach, Weber, Loschelder, Kilger, & Friese, 2022), but males also appear to be more willing and able to use violent means (be it against their partners or their potential rivals) (e.g., see Buss [2012, 2021] for an overview) toward their sexual ends. Moreover, the contrasts in question are so strikingly clear that they cannot be ignored by any puritan scheme that runs on the functional logic Fitouchi et al. stipulate. Thus, given the facts as they stand, it seems that Fitouchi et al. should make a clear prediction that it is men everywhere (the less “disciplined” half) that puritanical morals would target first and foremost.

Yet the reverse is the case – Baumeister and colleagues (Baumeister, Reynolds, Winegard, & Vohs, 2017; Baumeister & Twenge, 2002) provide a broad overview of the historic suppression/control of female libido and Kreager, Staff, Gauthier, Lefkowitz, and Feinberg (2016), Marks, Young, and Zaikman (2018), and Endendijk, van Baar, and Deković (2020) report a range of results that seem to support the persistence of a gender-based double standard that leads to more disapproval of women's sexual conduct than similar conduct by men. One could also advert to the historic existence of Magdalen “homes”/asylums for so-called “fallen women” (with no counterpart in the form of “womanizer asylums”) as well as the fact that the language (e.g., English, German, or Russian) includes more pejorative terms for so-called “promiscuous” women than so-called “promiscuous” men (Endendijk et al., 2020).

There have been varied attempts, some more persuasive than other, to make sense of these facts (Baumeister & Twenge, 2002; Baumeister et al., 2017; Rudman, 2017), but all of these varied attempts at least begin with the premise that there is, like it or not, a clear cultural pattern – the gendered suppression of sex – that must be accounted for, a premise Fitouchi et al. appear unable to grant.