Is it really easier than ever for 20-something guys to get sex with no strings attached? And even if it is, is that necessarily a problem?

“A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange. Societies will therefore define gender roles as if women are sellers and men buyers of sex.” — from the Abstract for the article Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions, authors Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs

I came across a link to the above article, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review, while I was reading this Slate piece by Mark Regnerus about how today’s young men, while “failing in life,” are not failing to get laid.

I found the Slate piece interesting and … well, depressing, in the way in which it reduces sex, which to me should be something (usually) intimate and (always) passionate — even if it’s a one-nighter — down to a purely economic exchange of values. I mean, I get the theory behind it, sure, but I also think that theory is inherently sexist in that it assumes that men want sex MORE than women do, which may be the case for some men and some women but is certainly not a universal truth.

Nonetheless, here’s how the Slate piece more or less breaks it down:

A) In times when women outnumber men (assuming that women are competing with each other for that smaller number of men and not just buying a good, reliable vibrator instead), men become an increasingly desirable commodity;

B) This shifts the balance of power between the sexes, essentially shifting the power structure of the bartering value of sex acts, meaning that men have to exchange less of perceived value (primarily commitment to an exclusive relationship, engagement, marriage, and children … although for some women what they want in exchange is more material) in order to obtain sex from women;

C) When this happens, young women are forced to engage in more casual sex outside the context of a committed relationship in order to gain the value of having any sort of relationship, committed or not, and are willing to entertain the possibility of a wider array of sex acts that men are likely to find more appealing.

D) In order words, what your grandmother told you was true: Men don’t need to buy the cow when they can get the milk for free. When the balance of sexual power has shifted to the male side of the equation, we see more short term relationships, casual hookups, more couples living together long term rather than getting married.

Now, all this is well and good, but it also assumes that there’s something wrong with that. Not that there’s anything wrong with marriage and long-term relationships — I’m married myself — but I don’t think everyone has to get married or that being married is necessary for raising healthy, happy kids. Lesbian partners raise kids. Single moms (and, for that matter, single dads) raise kids. Even Natalie Portman can raise a kid.

And I don’t believe that all young women who are engaging in casual sex are doing so purely out of the economics of relationships. Isn’t it possible — just possible — that 40-some years after the advent of the feminist movement, and 38 years after Roe v. Wade, a lot of these young women have simply grown up in a time when virginity is less important, and when the primary concern around casual sexual encounters is more about avoiding unwanted pregnancies and STIs, rather than whether the guy will marry you after you negotiate the terms of your sexual relationship?

The nuclear family model we’ve been conditioned to accept as the brass ring girls are supposed to be reaching for from the time they first dress Barbie in a wedding dress isn’t necessarily all that it’s cracked up to be. Conservatives like to point a finger at the feminist movement and blame the divorce rate on uppity women and their feminist ideas. To an extent, they’re right: feminism has empowered women to no longer believe that they need to get married, or stay in a bad or unfulfilling marriages. Feminism has encouraged women to balance having kids with having careers, which in turn makes it easier for women not to be trapped in bad marriages for financial reasons. And feminism is responsible for things like birth control and legal abortion, which make it easier for young women to enjoy an active sex life.

One of the points in the Slate piece has to do with the “low cost of sex for men,” which the author backs up, in part, with these stats: “Take the speed with which these men say their romantic relationships become sexual: 36 percent of young men’s relationships add sex by the end of the second week of exclusivity; an additional 13 percent do so by the end of the first month.” Another 30%, he says, have engaged in sex without any wooing necessary at all. (These stats are pulled from a source that’s pretty reliable, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health ).

But isn’t it possible that, for some women, there’s also a perceived “low cost of sex” from her perspective as well? After all, if a young woman in her 20s wants to steer clear of the entanglement of a committed relationship but still wants to enjoy a healthy, vigorous sex life like the boys do, what the hell is wrong with that? I’m assuming here, kids, that we’re all old enough to be smart about birth control and condom use and having regular checkups to ensure we’re not picking up and passing around any STIs. But these are all things that BOTH men and women having consensual sex with multiple partners should be doing anyhow, right? Get laid all you want, but be responsible about it.

The problem with the Slate piece is that it’s operating from the assumption that the young men in question — these unmotivated, uneducated, unemployed or under-employed, video-game addicted slackers of whom the piece speaks — should actually be desirable to these young women as anything but sexual partners, or, potentially, as future sperm donors should these young women some day desire to have a kid. Why would a smart young woman even want to have a commitment from someone who isn’t committed to his own life?

I’m reminded of a conversation my mom overheard at the store between a couple of 20-something hipster guys:

HIPSTER GUY #1: So, you find a job yet?

HIPSTER GUY #2: Nah, but it’s cool. I got a girlfriend who has one.

Girlfriend, trust me. You can do better than that.

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