Body Count: Do young men care, and will they admit it if they do?
Are manosphere views going mainstream?
Body count used to refer to casualties in war, now, in the modern vernacular it refers to the number of people you have had sex with.
A disturbing appropriation perhaps, ringing of conquest and guilt.
There has been an explosion of TikToks on the subject, 60,000 to be exact.
Very few of these refer to war.
In many of these, usually male creators, accost women in the street quizzing them on their sexual past.
Lengthy podcasts such as Fresh and Fit discuss whether a woman's worth is correlated to the notches in her bed post, at what number she is 'run through' and no longer suitable to be a 'wifey'.
The idea that a woman's worth is associated with her sexual experience is not exactly new.
Neither is the double standard, where men are revered for their sexual conquests, and women are shamed.
However, the rise of influencers such as self proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate and admitted sexist, Jordan Pieterson, who have 9.5 million and 5.2 million followers on X respectively, is are mainstreaming the 'Manosphere's' mantra, according to charity Hope not Hate.
The 'manosphere', previously a niche group, rose to prominence in opposition to feminism's percieved threat to male supremacy in what they see as the zero sum game of gender wars.
In their view there is so much pie to go around.
Tate thinks women's place is in the home, that they are their husbands property, can't drive, and are responsible if they are raped.
Oh and that a woman is disgusting if she's slept with more than three people.
These much maligned marmite figures are easy to dismiss as extreme.
However, Tate had 93% name recognition amongst young British men in 2023.
A YouGov poll last year found that whilst only 6% of the population looked favorably on Tate, over a quarter of young men, 18-29, praised him.
Yet, only 6% of young women of the same age share positive views of the influencer.
In 2022 Tate was googled more than Trump and Kim Kardashian.
He was the third most googled person in the world in 2023, despite having been charged with rape, assault and sex trafficking in Romania 2022.
Tate was Googled more than Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian in 2023, despite having been charged with rape, assault and sex trafficking in Romania, 2022. .
Social media algorithms reward interaction.
The relationship between influencer and the influenced is symbiotic, .
The popularity of 'manosphere' influencers as is reflective of society, as much as they have a role in shaping it.
You are unlikely to hear these ideas casually aired at your local pub or in mixed gender spaces, so why do these TikToks have so many views?
How do these ideas influence the 'normal' young people who don't, in general, possess extreme political views?
Why do young men, who identify as socially liberal, who would be horrified to be called racist or homophobic give airtime to these views, even if they don't completely buy into them?
In a world where young men and women are increasingly at political odds, with young men moving right and young women moving left how does this disparity impact our daily interactions and relationships?
The lingo of the noughties, lad, slut, player, hoe, are generally no longer socially acceptable in mainstream society.
However, how much power do these ideas still hold?
Are they there, but simply not being aired, contributing to a conspiracy of silence between parties increasingly at odds with each other, potentially damaging both?
A Kings College Study has found that young men are 10% less likely than young women to think that Feminism has helped society.
A significant 16% of British men, 18-29, think Feminism has been actively harmful to society, the highest of any demographic, including older men.
At the same time, the biggest cause of death for men under 50 is suicide.
The government's answer this is to beseech them to talk more.
But are they being shut down when they do?
Are traditional ideas around what it is to be a man, strong, invulnerable and built like the hulk being exacerbated by cancel culture meaning young men say even less?
How are the competing narratives of aggrieved masculinity and the ‘woke’ agenda percolating into young people's everyday lives, interactions and romances?
The juxtaposition of the Madonna and the whore, the virgin and the slut is quite literally biblical.
Perhaps the most worshipped woman in history is a Virgin.
And also a mother.
The ideal woman.
People tend to forget that Jesus also offered 'salvation' to Mary Magdelene, the prostitute.
These ideas have wanned and waned throughout the last thousand years but the idea that female sexuality is inherently dangerous whilst her reproductive capabilities are to be revered has seeped into almost every Judeo-Christian culture.
From Shakespeare's Ophelia, who cries out the sexual double standard, "By Cock, they are to blame”, after Hamlet sleeps with her and leaves her.
To Bronte's mad woman in the attic in Wuthering Heights, who, symbolic of the danger of unchecked female sexuality, wild and untamed literally burns down the house, blinding the male protagonist, Heathcliffe.
Greta Gerwig's 2023 blockbuster Barbie ridiculed the existing double standard by creating a man's sterotypical dream girl without any genitals.
Recently, Taylor Swift called out the writers of popular Netflix show Ginny and Georgia for the line 'you run through men faster than Taylor Swift', for shaming her sexual past.
She pointed to the sexual double standard, with rappers, such as Kanye West, bragging about their conquests in their music.
Lighthearted ribbing of Leonardo di Caprio's refusal to date a woman over 25 carries none of the judgement that his ex girlfriend suffered when 'Nina Adgal bodycount' started trending on X in 2023.
Caught in a testorone fuelled swipe swinging pre match warm up between her boxer ex Dillon Dannis and her fiance Logan Paul, the trolling even extended to Google with analytics showing that Nina Adgal slut was one of the most common searches.
A Potted History of the Manosphere
Many hunter gatherer societies, with which we still share most of our genes, were matriarchal debunking the idea that female sexual subordination is biologically determined.
Indeed, the idea that men hunted, women gathered has recently been questioned with research finding that in modern hunter gatherer societies, whom anthropologists use as a window into that distant past, 79% of women actively hunted.
Grandma's were often the best hunters in the village." according to Cara Wall-Scheffler, biological anthropologist at the University of Wyoming.
Polyamory was also common, as the need to ascertain parentage wasn't necessary as childrearing was a community activity.
It was only after the agricultural revolution when people started living in larger groups, and knowledge and property passed through generations that patriarchal ideas around female sexuality emerged to allow men to determine paternity.
This has been the dominant ideology in Western culture for the last few thousand years.
It was only in 1870 that a woman could own her own property.
And was no longer her husbands property.
The second world war, conscripted so many working age men that an unprecedented 90% of all working age women were employed in some form.
This reversed significantly in the 1950's
In 1967 the contraceptive pill became available for unmarried women on the NHS sparking the 'swinging sixties' and minimising the risk of pregnancy from casual sex.
Modern medicine also minimised the risk of STI's, with proper precautions, meaning that the evolutionary argument for chastity was mitigated.
This meant, once again, controlling female sexuality ensure knowledge of paternity was, rationally at least, defunct.
In a major oversimplification, this accelerated feminist movements and triggered social and legal reforms all over the Western world.
Inventions such as the hoover, and other handy household tools meant housework was no longer a full time job, expediting the trend, which started during the Second World War, of women gradually moving into higher status, historically male, jobs.
The early roots of the 'manosphere' emerged in response to growing feminist waves with Men's Liberation movements in the 70s and 80s proclaiming men's rights in reaction to feminist demands for equality.
In 1975 it became illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender in the UK, however the gender pay gap was, and is, alive and kicking.
The emergence of the internet gave platforms to all voices.
The blogosphere allowed the previously niche manosphere to start making inroads into the mainstream.
It also enabled the #MeToo movement which exploded in 2017 with women calling out powerful men, most famously, for sexual abuse and double standards to send shockwaves throughout the world.
In the last ten years, social media, which rewards controversial figures, has become a lightning rod for increasingly polarised discussions around gender.
For many it's an outlet for views that would not be said publicly.
Jessica Ringrose, head of sociology at University College London, thinks that the Conservatives have been weaponing the debate to gain older people's votes.
Many also accuse the left of threatening free speech, pushing any non 'woke' ideas into the margins.
Red pillers, blue pillers, trad wives, chads and giga chads, chad wives...
Woke, the woke agenda, misogynistic pig, fuck boy, cancel culture.
With more buzz words than can feasibly fit on bingo cards, the modern discourse on gender and sexuality can feel a little boggy.
Last week Rishi Sunak, whilst calling out racist comments by a Reform campaigner said, "Andrew Tate isn't an important voice for men, he's a vile misogynist."
Sunak is referencing, Reform UK's leader, Nigel Farage's support of Tate.
'Farage and Tate' has spawned over 40m TikToks.
Indeed, Nigel Farage, leader of reform, thinks his popularity amongst young men, at 23% in 16/17 year old's according to one poll, is part of 'a similar phenomenon' of push back against 'emasculation'.
Campaigning in Clapton last week, where he is now MP, he said: "Look at the football.
"Please don’t drink more than two pints of beer.
"You what? Don’t chant at the football matches.
"I mean, come on. We are trying to stop young men being young men.
“That’s why Tate got the following he got."
Like, Tate, Farage's party Reform has been accused of racism and misogyny.
Modern Views
on Tate and Gender
In 2023, YouGov asked Britons what their views of Andrew Tate were.
Not only was he well known amongst young men, but 63% of Brits knew who he was.
Tate has become a lightning rod for the debate around gender.
Whilst only 6% of Britons had a favorable view of him, over a quarter of young men had a positive view of him.
However, 49% of Britons had a negative view of the figure, and 44% a very negative view.
Of those that had a favorable view of him 56% thought that a woman shouldn't have lots of sexual partners.
34% of Britons who like Andrew Tate think that it can be a woman's fault if she is assaulted or raped.
How does this disparity affect hetrosexual relationships, and how we all relate to each other?
A Kings College study this year found that 30% of young men think it's harder to be a man than a woman, despite still having better life outcomes in terms of almost all measurable metrics.
Except life expectancy. And young male suicide.
Another YouGov survey has found that the average number of sexual partners in the UK is currently four.
Three for women, five for men.
However, 30% of men say they have had over ten sexual partners compared to 20% of women.
There is also an age divide, with one in five of those 40-59 having slept with 15 of more people.
Some of this is probably time being sexually active, but as demonstrated left in the last ten years the average number of partners has more than halved for both men and women.
This bucks the broad trend of an increase in promiscuity for both sexes over the last thirty years.
It also disrupts the idea of an inevitable, determinist liberalising of values as younger people seem to be beocming more prudish.
It reflects in reported numbers of sexual partners, the change in social mores for some that is being seen on social media.
In every age group, men say they have had more sexual partners than women.
But beyond that people do seem to be sleeping around less, or atleast saying they are.
Lad Culture
What do young men actually think about 'bodycount' and what it means to be a man?
Do they know actually know?
Dr Craig Haslop, senior sociology lecturer at the University of Liverpool
Haslop conducted a mass study into lad culture across the country speaking to young men, 18-29.
Men expressed an awareness of a double standard across the country, but the idea was described as too potent to dismiss.
The idea was stronger in those who spoke of struggling to express their emotions, it fed into the pressure on young men to be strong, invulnerable, the idea of the working man losing out in a feminised culture where there are less oppurtunities.
Haslop recounts one participant saying: "Where are the boys and men in this, all anyone talks about is girls and women?"
Similarly, every young man we spoke to expressed an awareness of the sexual double standard around a woman being shunned or judged for her sexual past.
Whether or not they personally cared, most said that it was part of the zeitgeist, end of.
They also reported that this is not something they would own publicly.
Many struggled to grapple with conflicting ideas on a the topic, as well as what it was to be a man as traditional gender roles are challenged but still everwhere.
Haslop pointed to hulky action figures that populate Hollywood, the pressure to be strong, invulnerable.
Many reported that there was nowhere to talk about this confusion.
Connor, 29, Buddhist teacher
Connor, 29, who lives and works in a Buddhist centre in East London, said that the topic of bodycount fills him with dread.
He expressed deep confliction around the topic, and as he spoke he reflected his own observation flitting between confused ideas around whether he cared, whether it was ok to care and what it meant to be a modern man.
He said: "I will react differently to women if they are seen to be promiscuous, casual is fine but if it's romantic, I find it difficult.
"It would affect whether what kind of thing I want to enter into."
Connor thinks that the mainstream 'woke' narrative means that it's no longer acceptable for men to express discomfort around the topic, meaning that the ideas, and men, are pushed to the sidelines.
He continued: “It’s this dialogue between two sides of your brain."
Referring to the competing narratives around whether it's ok to judge a woman's sexual history, but more broadly more traditional gender expectations about what it is to be a man in the modern world.
Or a woman.
He continued: "There are less and less spaces for men to speak about these difficult topics,
"The zeitgeist is all about women and women plus."
Connor was brought up Catholic and thinks that Christian ideas still influence him despite his rejection of the religion as an adult.
He also thinks the impact society more broadly.
He said: "We still live in a Christian society, we just don't go to church and have a God to attach purpose to.
"People have to believe in something.
"We still follow the same pattern, chase a career, get married, try and look perfect."
Without the meaning embedded in organised religion he thinks that people are becoming increasingly obsessed with being seen to be good looking, successful and for men, strong, invulnerable.
He oscillates between thinking that patriarchal ideas around masculinity are biologically determined of programming by society.
Connor admits that when he was younger, he wouldn’t ask about body count because comparing to past partners, how successful, cool or even sexually competent they were would make him feel insecure.
Despite claiming to no longer care about a woman’s body count, he jokingly states that judgement around promiscuity is karma baby.
There is an innate aggression in men that isn't inherently bad, but if not given space to can become dangerous."
This evolution of attitudes was common amongst the older men in the cohort interviewed, 18-35, who often either said that they used to care and now don’t, or used to care and now think they shouldn’t.
Many seemed to care more if a woman was seen socially as promiscuous more than whether she acutally had because of how it reflected on their own social status.
“I think that there is a change in the zeitgeist, and what’s clear is that we don’t really know how to talk about these things anymore and it’s turning into polarisation.
“Andrew Tate and Jordan Pieterson types, who get given a lot of sh**, are expressing something in the male psyche.
“Albeit not a representative picture, and most guys would be scared to say they agreed with a nuanced version of their ideas but I think they're saying something that needs to be acknowledged because people are responding to them.
“Guys are responding to them.”
Connor thinks that the answer to this confliction, to the fact, in his words men are stepping out of dialogue with women, is just that dialogue.
That the only way forwards is to have open discussions around these difficult topics.
Vincent Onuegbu, 29, market researcher
Vince, as he likes to be known, doesn't care about a girl's sexual past.
He talks about his views on the topic and how they impact society in his experience:
Women who are percieved to be sexually promiscuous in his friendship group will be categorised as unsuitable for long-term relationships.
He also speaks about the change in men being able to express their emotions.
Vince thinks that it has got better, with the boundaries of what is socially acceptable to say to male friends expanding.
In project #Ladculture, Haslop found that male expression of emotion has made strides, but is still in sanctioned parameters.
Vince also made the link between men caring more about a woman's reputation than their supposed 'purity', or actual sexual past due to how it reflects on their on social status.
He inadvertently flitted from reporting his friends judging girls for their body count but limiting their emotional sharing to a hug.
"It's better than when I was a teenager," he said.
"It's still extremely limited though, there's so many unsaid rules on what is acceptable to say, especially if your struggling, you still need to be percieved as strong.
"You don't want to be a downer..."
Oliver Richard, 19, student, London
Oliver does care about a girl's number.
In response to whether he thought his attitudes might change with time he said:
"I know it's bad, but I don't think they will."
He thinks some of this stems from insecurity, the need to perceived in a certain way.
He recounts liking girls but not getting involved because of how he would be percieved.
The insecurity also comes from comparison to previous partners.
"I just don't want to think about it, maybe I won't be good enough."
His stare turned to the middle distance when we spoke about being able to convey emotional struggles with friends.
"No one wants to hear that, if your struggling you just repress it."
"My girlfriend's friends think I'm this big, popular guy but she knows I am a soppy c***."
Interestingly, he admitted he can speak to girls who are friends privately about vulnerable, non macho feelings.
This was reflected in Haslop's research, where women reported beautiful experiences of connecting with male friends one on one but in a group never.
One female interviewee described chatting with girlfriends about men's tendency to offload on one night's stands.
"They are just so desparate to talk, that you get their entire life history and you've met them three hours ago."
Even if he was in love with a girl with a high body count, he wouldn't go out with her.
A woman's
perspective
Lucy Scarlett
Lucy Scarlett's instinctive response to the topic of 'body count' was that it was no one's business but your own.
If asked she said: "If I want to tell him I'll tell him, if I want to make it up I will.
"I have made it up before.
"It's just a stupid thing that society obsesses over, it's not logical that's why I've never put any importance on it."
Lucy, 29, is an events manager from London and not only does she think that a premium on having a low body count is ridiculous but she thinks that people will regret not exploring in their youth.
She said: "Maybe not now, but later you will regret not sleeping around, like I’m going to go to my grave not knowing what it was like because I didn’t have single years.”
To Lucy, the sexual double standard around body count is obvious, a given however she thinks that male anxiety over the topic stems from insecurity.
"It's not the body count their placing value on but something else...
"It's more to do with how they see themselves as a man, their own insecurities."
For Lucy, her response to being asked about her own sexual past is dependant on the motivation behind the question.
She has more sympathy if the man is vulnerable, and expresses his insecurity, and doesn't have a high 'body count' himself.
When asked she said: "I would unpack it with them.
"I'd be like, okay what are you upset about.
"Is it that you think I'm going to be comparing to guys in my past?"
However, she has no time for the double standard:
“If he slept with say 20 girls and he wants to know my body count and it's under 20 people I think you've got no right to be annoyed.
“It’s tit for tat.”
She also thinks that there is as much stigma attached to having too few sexual partners.
“If you’re a virgin, you’ll also be looked down on perhaps with more shame than if you’ve had sex with loads of people.
"The guy might think why does no one want her, will she be any good, she must be frigid I don’t want her."
Lucy also thinks that both women and men are battling with a hangover of ideas.
Describing unwarranted thoughts imbued from society, childhood, parents and her Christian school popping into her head, if though she, as an adult rejects them.
She said: “As much as you don’t agree with these values, it’s still in your head you know.
“It kind of affects our psyche without us really sort of understanding what it like does to us.”
Agrieved masculinity, Social Media and Cancel Culture
What do the clever people say?
Dr Simon Copland, provided by Copland permission to use granted
Dr Simon Copland, provided by Copland permission to use granted
The Double Standard
Simon Copland, PhD sociologist specialising in the 'Manosphere and Masculinity at the Australian National University, and Dr Craig Haslop
Copland wasn't surprised that over a quarter of young men sympathise with Andrew Tate.
He said: "I think it does represent, for some men the fact that feminism is being talked about an awful lot."
There is still this traditional model, Copland said, of being a carer, being strong, self independent, successful and god forbid vulnerable and it’s embedded into our psyche.
It's everywhere, he said, all one has to do is look at Hollywood where men are michelin men killing everything and not talking about their feelings.
The cult classic Fight Club encapsulates this perfectly.
Brad Pitt literally sets up a fight club where men pummel each other rather than talk about their feelings.
Both Copland and Haslop argue that it is a simplification to see the recent resurgence of misogynistic ideas as only a reaction to the drive for gender equality.
Copland posits: “There is a generation of people who feel like their future is worse than previous generations and people are looking for answers to it.”
Covid, sky rocketing cost of living and limited job prospects, are making it harder than ever to live up to patriarchal ideal of masculinity to be strong, to be the provider, to be successful.
Many mention positive discrimination.
"Where are boys and men in this?" Haslop reports from his #Ladculture project
People latch onto nostalgic binary ideas when a topic such as gender relations is becoming increasingly fluid, questioned.
Haslop said: " I feel like some of this stuff taps into people's background, desires to sort of want something quite easy and straightforward, to make sense of the work."
There are genuine challenges to the traditional model of masculinity, not just from feminism Copland argues.
He said: "Instead of being the provider, you have become the consumer, instead of being the protector you are supposed to be competing on social media platforms and doing all this kind of stuff.
"There’s nothing decent to replace it with. There’s no coherent thing that says what it can mean to be a man."
Copland and Haslop use Trump as an example of archetypal machismo masculinity, and his role in normalising the previously unsayable, doable.
Both Trump and Tate tap into a feeling of not being heard amongst working men.
The slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ played on economic anxieties, but also exploited nostalgia harking back to a perceived better past.
The old ideas around what it is to be man set very specific parameters on what men can talk about and how they communicate Haslop found.
Haslop argues that although some progress is being made, the understandable confusion at squaring this with modern progressive ideas around sex and gender is difficilt to talk about for fear of saying the wrong thing or being cancelled.
Jessica Ringrose, Gender and Sex Sociologist, University College London
Ringrose agrees that these views are not new.
She said: "These views are deeply historically ingrained in patriarchal views about ownership of women and acess to their bodies.
"These myths about virginity and purity playing a role in the value of women as a commodity are everywhere.
"Look at the Royal Family, where the woman's role is to breed."
She also points to popular TV shows such as the latest series of Bridgerton, which aired on Netflix last month.
The main man, Colin, frequents brothels, while his love interest Penelope's request to be kissed is scandalous.
Complete buy in isn't neccesary for these ideas to have an influence she thinks.
"What people watch influences their ideas incredibly strongly, when these are the dominant narratives for so long they legitimise these ideas."
Indeed, one of the modern manosphere arguments is that this 'double standard' is simply the way it is, that's it's biologically determined.
Every mainstream representation normalises that.
Jessica also points to the role of social media, and lack of sex education in schools.
Her research, like the recent Evening Standard investigation showed children accessing porn at 10 or 11, along with rampant revenge porn and buy into Tate- esque views.
In her research into teenagers she said that a teenage girl would be shunned for having too high a 'snap' score', as this would indicate that she is a 'slut'.
Haslop found these views mellow with age, as deeper connections are formed with actual women.
However, he said: "I think the bar is then set so low, that it allows for double standards around body counts.
"Men want women to be completely faithful.
"When it suits them."
We need better open, non judgemental dialogue and conversation. And sex education.
Female Anger
Annie Knight
Sex Worker and Instragram Influencer
Annie Knight is a social media influencer who has become notorious for being open about the fact that she slept with 500 men in a year.
Initially, she admits that she publicised to drive people to her only fans account:
“When I first started talking about it online, I was just trying to get some exposure but after I started getting the amount of hate I started to get angry.
“I was stunned by how many people were so shocked that a woman, was God forbid, sleeping with men, and it made me want to keep making content and videos because I wanted to break the stigma.
“I’m just sick of the double standards."
Annie, who switched from training to be a brain surgeon to sex work, has garnered significant attention for her ‘brazen’ owning of her sexuality.
She describes the irony of men drooling over her via social media, and Only Fans, a platform on which subscribers can view sexually explicit content, of which she is in the top 0.2% of earners, whilst spewing abuse on her via social media.
A brief snapshot of the comment section on Annie's instagram:
She said: “Men out there sleep with the same amount of women and their legends, no one’s hating on them, but when a woman’s doing it she’s a whore."
In general, she tries not to read and engage with the abuse, however she does worry that she isn’t breaking the stigma.
Annie expressed resentments about how people portray her, for instance that she is riddled with STIs.
She said: “Because I am a sex worker, I am way ‘cleaner’ than the average Joe!”
She also resents being called a nymphomaniac, someone who is self obsessed, saying that people forget that this is her line of work.
Annie developed her feminist stance herself, with injustice aggravating her as a child.
She has become a role model for her mother, who, she describes as following in her footsteps.
She said: “I think she was wronged by a lot of men and she got to the point she was like, fuck men, you do you!"
In becoming a focal point for abusive comments, she worries that she is perpetuating rather than breaking the stigma by giving them a platform.
However, her anger is audible.
She repeats: “I am so sick of the double standards.
Annie is disillusioned around perceived feminist progress.
She said: “On the surface it looks like things are getting better, at a base level everything’s exactly the same.
“Women are still getting paid less, and the double standards between men and women and the gender roles are still set in stone.”
Annie Knight's instagram
Lucca Sophia*
Psychology student, 28, London
Lucca Sophia, is angry.
She thinks that the fear of a woman's reproductive power is one of the drivers of patriarchal misogyny.
Her own, and her female friends' experience of the sexual double standard when it comes to 'bodycount', she thinks does extreme damage to women.
This mirrors academics research, detailed below, which demonstrates that the normalisation of misogynistic ideas has direct links to violence against women and girls.
Femicide has been increasing in the UK, with a woman killed by a man every three days in 2022.
In the four years leading up to 2022 knife attacks on women by men doubled, and Essex saw a 400% rise.
Cecilia Rhodes*
Support Worker, 27
Cecilia, 27, is furious.
She is also deeply hurt.
Growing up, she said, you didn't question the sexual double standard of lads versus sluts.
"It was just part of the lingo, the fabric of society."
About a year ago, six months into a relationship, she was asked what her body count was.
Both parties had told each other they love each other, and she trusted her then partner.
After debating internally, she was honest.
The number was under ten, his was over 20.
Her partner went quiet and stopped speaking to her for about two weeks.
She cornered him about it.
He admitted that he had been struggling with the idea that she had a 'high' body count as he percieved it.
Her then partner, who she isn't naming, had also done some research into her exes, and realised, through social media that he was friendly with some boys at her school.
He had contacted them, gone to the pub with them, and brought Cecilia up.
"They told him that I had slept around at school, and that I was known as a slag.
"This was ten years ago, and in actual fact I had slept with one person.
"I was heartbroken that he associated my value with my supposed purity, and reputation."
They had been discussing marriage and children, before the topic came up.
She kept her face calm, and asked him what bothered him about it, whether he could move past it.
He told her, that whilst he hated himself for it, he couldn't and they broke up.
Cecilia's voice broke at this point.
She said: "I flip between apoplectic rage, shame which shouldn't be mine, and desperate sadness.
"I thought we had moved past these ridiculous ideas, but I also pity him.
"He had a domineering father, and battled with this ridiculous idea of what it is to be a man.
"His mother was an accessory to his father, and whilst he hated that, hated his father and worshipped his mother he couldn't move past it.
"Boys don't know the damage these ideas do, even though it comes from their own suffering."
"It's like they are in battle with something they are, themselves, perpetuating."
She is now engaged to someone else, but the experience, she recounts, haunts her every day.
She said: "I don't think men know the damage they do from their own insecurities."
The Private Sphere
Young people discuss their feelings around whether someone's sexual past matters.
Burk*, 26, Chef, London
"I don't care, I think that I would only care if was either stupidly high like 30.
"It would only matter if it was in a relationship because of what it said about them.
"I would be more worried about them being a virgin.
"I wouldn't care if we could work through it together."
Lucy*, 28, Lawyer, Durham
"I moved from Cape Town to escape my reputation.
"I thought it would be better here because it's less religious.
"I battle with my mother's voice in my head more than anything.
"My boyfriend would care about my number so I haven't told him.
"I don't think he talks to me properly, it's a hole in our relationship."
"But I am also angry, so angry, it's 2024 I should be able to sleep with who I want."
Derek*, 26, Accountant, London
"I used to care, but I realised it's ridiculous.
"I think I would care if it was recent because I would worry about what it said about where their head was at.
"Honestly, though I have no leg to stand on but I do feel confused about how to broach topics like this."
Clare Francis, Relationship Therapist, 15 years
Clare describes how the changing gender roles translate into the private sphere of long term relationships.
She elaborates: "We are at a stage in social development where we are unsure of what is expected of each other.
"I think in the past there were specific gender roles I don’t see that much now.
"It’s created confusion because the women say I work full time, have the same degree, why should I be at home looking after the child?
"Why should I be the housekeeper?"
Clare noticed a dramatic shift during, and after COVID when couples were forced to be full time, with each other, their children often whilst working from home.
Ten years ago couples used to come to her not being able to speak to each other, now they don't know what to expect from each other breeding a mutual resentment.
"They used to have a role.
"Men went out, earnt money, they knew what their jobs were and it wasn't just taking out the rubbish.
"Women did the housework, childcare, more recently, often whilst working."
Now there is a real dichotomy between reality and what we think should be happening.
Someone still has to change the nappy, and female pushback on taking on that role isn't being spoken about and it's breaking marriages.
Francis continued: "I am not sure we are yet ready to accept equality in a relationship.
"It doesn’t always mean the many is stronger, very often in private the woman has the power but she has her legs cut out from under her, because society dictates that she is a bad mother if she doesn’t stay with her child or her mother in law finds dirt on the girding board."
She describes a young couple with a baby, where the husband will happily change a nappy, but if they are both working from home the Mother still has the baby because he can't work and take care of them.
"I think that is quite a good insight into how society currently runs.
"We still have a few generations before we can get over this Victorian morality."
When asked what the answer was, once again the response was communication.
Confusion over where one stands, and what can be said is infecting a culture of silence even on the most intimate, private sphere of relationships.
What do you think darling?
Picture Credits:
Three girls : Lara Bowman
Virgin Mary and Mary Madeline via Deviant Art
The Matrix cover: Lara Bowman
Bertha: Creative commons via Deviant Art
Ophelia: Wiki Commons
Andrew Tate: Youtube: via Wiki Commons
Lucy Scarlett: provided by Scarlett, permission granted.
Girl on boat: Lara Bowman
Simon Copland: provided by Copland, permission granted
Duchess of Wales: Buckingham palace: via Wiki Commons
Angry woman: via Stockvault
Clare Francis: provided by Francis
What's your number, Chris Evans: via Flickr
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