Why Can’t Women Sleep Around?

X Factor ‘star’ Frankie Cocozza has apparently bedded 67 girls, and his father’s proud of him for it. So why is it that in today’s modern, sexually liberated world we don’t hear women making the same claims?

It can’t be that they’re not sleeping around. I am absolutely positive that Frankie’s 67 conquests weren’t all innocent first-timers, or serial monogamists. So if some women are revelling in the delights of a promiscuous life, why isn’t it something they boast about? Why don’t we hear proud parents saying: “That’s our Jessica – 184 men in one month! Always knew she had it in her.”

Frankie got back from a night out in Malia to find he had seven girls’ names tattooed on him bum…

The difference is: whilst men and women feel equally free to go out and get some (lots, even), for women to appear attractive they have to keep quiet about how much sex they’ve had. Men, on the other hand, can boast and lie all they like and, despite appearing distasteful or disease-ridden, they get away with it without a permanently tainted character.

Take Page 3 girls, for instance. What makes them attractive (apart from their most obvious assets) is that the accompanying blurb draws a non-sexual cloak over their sexiness. Rather than reading about Chloe’s bedroom antics, she reveals her fears that David Cameron has underestimated public feeling in Europe. In Cosmo, however, women get to see equivalent pin-up shots of guys like Mark Wright, and read: “This babe should be Mr Wrong with his bad-boy ways, but he’s so “Wright:” gorgeous, sexy, well dressed…” Not a sausage about his political opinions.

Frankie with yet another conquest

Maybe women are just better at not letting their sex lives dominate their identity. Maybe The Sun has teamed up with some ultimate authority to make sure women get involved with politics by sticking it onto a pair of breasts. Maybe that’s why our Cabinet is still so male-dominated.

I’m mostly joking. This situation is almost certainly the lingering hangover of centuries of oppressive religious and social constructions of gender that propagate female chastity. Our world is still shockingly sexist, and I for one hope that this continues to change.