We’ve all heard the story before:

Boy meets Girl at annual Delta boat ride/beet eating contest. Girl is charmed by Boy’s strong jawline and the fact that Boy said Girl’s ass was “unusually zygomorphic”. Boy and Girl exchange numbers and appear to be headed for an upcoming night of bad movie and Cheesecake Factory bliss. But, when Girl walks away, Boy’s Boy quickly approaches to inform Boy that Girl—a Howard University graduate—slept with so many men in college that she was known as the “Howard Hallway”. Although taken aback, Boy doesn’t take his boy’s word it, and immediately sends a text to another friend—also a Howard alum—to ask if he knew anything about the “Hallway”. Moments later, Boy receives “Hell motherf*cking yeah! Everybody knows about the Hallway. Why did you ask about her? The tape with me, her, and the entire back-up offensive line isn’t on the internet, is it?” reply from friend. Despite the fact that these events took place over a decade ago (and despite the fact that Boy’s new found knowledge is secondhand), Boy is completely stunned, decides to delete Girl’s number, and asks his boy to introduce him to blond bartender.

Now, if I were to poll 100 random men about this story, asking them how they’d respond in a similar situation—met an interesting and attractive woman, but found out she might have a seriously dubious sexual past—I bet at least half would say they’d respond the exact same way. And, although the other half wouldn’t have deleted the number, they’d probably be extra vigilant for any signs of strumpet relapse.

But, if I were to present the same scenario to 100 random women, asking them to share their thoughts about Boy’s actions, I assume the vast majority of them would say that Boy is being completely unreasonable. And, the women would be right.

Boy’s actions were completely unfair and unreasonable. A woman’s decades old sexual history shouldn’t have any bearing on how she’s regarded by men today, especially if said woman has lived a “normal” sexual life since then and currently (and happily) bows before the alter of relationship monogamy. Plus, it’s not even as if Boy had concrete data about what and who Girl actually did. His decision was completely based on hearsay, and, as many of us know, decades-old college hearsays and remembrances are completely unreliable; living and breathing telephone games with the ability to turn scrubs to stars, simps to Sigmas, and “she ran track for a couple years, until she accidentally dislocated her toe while getting off the train” to “the entire track team ran a train on that toeless ho”.

The women would then probably argue 1. whatever Girl did happened over 10 years ago (and she wasn’t doing anything “wrong”, just exercising her sexual freedom), 2. it’s unfair (and dangerously sexist) to judge a woman for something she did as a young adult, and 3. Boy thinking it’s perfectly rationale and reasonable to shun Girl is just another example of the sexual history double standard—promiscuous women are often given the commitment cold shoulder, even if said promiscuity happened years ago, while promiscuous men usually feel no real relationship repercussions—benefiting men.

Number 3 should be no surprise. Anyone who has ever had any type of discussion about sexual double standards with a woman has probably heard a passionate denouncement of the fact that men are much too judgmental in regards to a woman’s sexual past. And, usually lurking right beneath the surface of this argument is a bit of a holier-than-thou tone; a latent implication that women are a bit more “evolved” than men because they’re less likely to hold a person’s sexual past against them. They’re the epitomes of progression and advancement; forward-thinking phoenixes sitting atop of cirrostratus clouds, absolving all of any past sexual indecisions and etching “thou shall not make value judgments based on long-lost sexual histories” in stone with ivory and chalk-laced vaginas.

This is all true. Women are much more forgiving than we are, and much more willing to argue that a person’s sexual past shouldn’t have such an adverse effect on their relationship future.

Actually, wait a second. Let me rephrase that.

Women are much more forgiving, and much more willing to argue that a person’s sexual past shouldn’t have such an adverse effect on their relationship future…unless, of course, you substitute “woman with a decades old promiscuous past” with “man with a decades old bisexual past“. When this happens, when they’re thrown this curve ball instead of the easy to hit, “promiscuous women/double standard” softball, all rational arguments about sexual histories get thrown out the window, and it becomes “Well, I don’t need to explain why I feel this way. I just wouldn’t be comfortable dating a dude if I knew he’d been with another dude…even if it only happened once 20 years ago”

You could say that comparing a woman’s past promiscuity with a man who performed one unhetero sexual act in the past is like comparing apples and hand grenades, but the feeling behind why many (if not most) members of each gender would find these revelations hard to deal with come from the exact same place. And, while we (men) are very aware of the fact that we can have somewhat hypocritical ways of looking at and rationalizing sex, (most) women don’t seem to want to own up to it.

At this point, they lose their phoenix wings and fall from the cirrostratuses, joining the rest of us and our “judging people’s sexual pasts” selves on Earth, ultimately proving that there’s a bit of Boy in all of us, even if Girl’s “evolved” sistren don’t want to admit it.

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