Sex and those swollen ankles

Is it my imagination, or do women take sex a lot more seriously than men? I heard about a study some researchers did on a university campus in America. They got a good-looking man to approach 50 women on campus and ask each woman if she would have sex with him that night. Apparently the poor dude got 45 nos, three slaps in the face and two charges of sexual harassment.

Then they got a good-looking woman to approach 50 men on the same campus, asking the same question: "Will you have sex with me tonight?"

Altogether she got 62 resounding yesses. Which was surprising, since she only asked 50 men. The 12 extra yeses came from all the guy's friends, who asked if they could come along too.

And that's not the only example that comes to mind. Let's look at prostitution for a moment. If we had to compare the number of female prostitutes in the world with the number of male ones, I don't think our numbers would come anywhere close. And that's not because men aren't willing to be prostitutes. Hell, I know at least a dozen guys who would kill to be paid for sex.

It's more a demand thing. If there were more women out there wanting to pay to have casual sex, the men would be there in less than a heartbeat, ready to lie back and think of England. But that's just not how women operate.

Of course there are exceptions, but for most women, sex has meaning and importance and a whole string of morals and emotions attached to it. Why is that, you have to wonder?

One theory I have is that maybe men and women have differing attitudes towards sex because of the consequences. If you take Aids and crabs and all those other sexually-transmitted diseases out of the equation for a moment, the consequences of sex have the potential to be more serious and life-changing for a woman.

While it's certainly a miracle and a wonder of nature, being pregnant and giving birth isn't the most fun you can have. Swollen ankles, weird cravings, ruined breasts, and let's not even get started on that whole having to pee every three seconds thing, or the fact that your body is no longer your own.

When you look at it that way, it's no wonder women take sex so seriously.

What are the physical consequences of having sex for a guy? So you might have to change the odd noxious nappy. Throw in some serious sleep deprivation, and then there are the swimming lessons, birthday parties and school concerts that land on the day of the Currie Cup final. Hardly disastrous in comparison.

And I'm sorry, but being out of pocket for nappies and schooling, or child support hardly counts as a physical consequence, even if it does cause you some pain in the wallet area.

What if we had to reverse the roles? Imagine if every time a man had sex there was a chance (even just a small one) that he might fall pregnant, and then over a period of nine months his balls would balloon to the size of a watermelon (who knows, that could be how it might work), and then he'd be forced to squeeze a baby out of somewhere (I don't even want to hazard a guess where). After which he'd have to let the thing suck on his nipples every three hours or so for the next year?

If that had to happen, I can't say for sure, but I'm willing to bet that men would also suddenly begin to take sex a whole lot more seriously.