Contradicting perceptions of women’s and men’s sexuality: evidence of gender double standards in Türkiye

Abstract

Perceptions of individuals’ sexuality vary by culturally defined femininity and masculinity. Little research has examined people’s judgments for men’s and women’s sexual behavior. This quantitative research aims to investigate whether Turkish people have different judgments about the sexual behaviors of men and women. It utilized the “Values Module” in “Türkiye Survey 2015” that is a national dataset conducted by the Social Sciences University of Ankara including 2630 individuals, 18 years old or over, from 70 provinces. The present study finds that Turkish people have more positive attitudes towards males’ sexual behaviors, including premarital sex and extramarital sex. It also finds that not only men have more positive attitudes towards males’ sexuality, but also women hold similar attitudes.