Why Doesn’t Justin Bieber Get Shamed Like Taylor Swift?

It seems that hopping from one romantic partner to another is perfectly acceptable in our society — that is if you’re a guy, of course. If you want evidence, you need only look to the highly scrutinized culture of celebrity relationships. Specifically, high-profile headline-makers Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, who provide a perfect microcosm of this sexist double standard.

Back in June, Swift suddenly split from her partner of 15 months, Scottish DJ Calvin Harris. Two weeks later — while the public was still speculating on their separation — Swift was spotted getting cozy at the Met Gala with her current boyfriend, actor Tom Hiddleston. The pair soon became “Hiddleswift” to a fixated public, but not without the 26-year-old songbird getting some serious heat for having the “nerve” to move onto another love interest so … swiftly.

Swift’s back-to-back romances even spawned a Twitter hashtag, #IDumpedTaylorSwiftBecause, which became a repository for sexist snark — and vocal feminists. The misogyny became so brutal that Amber Rose, notorious shaming target and founder of the Amber Rose Slut Walk, felt the need to come forward to defend Swift. In an interview with the Daily Beast, Rose said the backlash was because, for a woman, moving on so quickly is “unheard of, and she’s acting very ‘slutty’ and for some reason needs time to ‘let her p***y rest. That’s how people look at it, and it’s just like, hell no! If I’m done, why do I have to sit in the house and be lonely?”

Fast-forward to earlier this month, when Bieber lit up Instagram by posting a series of photos of himself hanging out with 17-year-old model Sofia Richie (daughter of Lionel) in Tokyo. His Instagram is now deleted, because the photos drove Beliebers to spew venom at Richie — literally, in Internet terms. Fans barraged both Bieber’s and Richie’s accounts with hateful comments and accusations of Richie being a “snake” — complete with snake emoticons — for simply spending time with the star.

But Bieber seemed to move on even more quickly than Swift — just a week later he was spotted jetting off to the U.K. to spend time with another pretty young thing, model Bronte Blampied. (For the record, it’s still on with Richie.) Instead of inciting Internet ire, as Swift did, Beiber was free to play the field. No slut-shaming. No bullying hash tags. No need for anyone to come to his defense.

So why the double standard? According to Slate, new research confirms that slut-shaming is a sexist thing reserved just for women, and it’s deeply ingrained in the psyches of both males and females. And the article points out that it’s not just men who are judging and shaming women for moving on too quickly or for being sexually permissive: “Promiscuous women can’t get a break — even from other promiscuous women,” the article says.

In the study referenced by the Daily Beast (conducted by Cornell University researchers and published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships), a woman with 20 sexual partners was viewed as “less competent, emotionally stable, warm, and dominant” than a woman with just two partners. A man with 20 partners, on the other hand, was seen as “more competent and emotionally stable” than his less-experienced counterpart. This assessment came from both male and female participants. The Daily Beast quoted UCLA sociologist Jessica Carbino as saying, in regard to the findings, “men and women both agree that men should actively pursue female partners and that women should be passive recipients to their advances,” and that “when women do not adhere to these scripts they are viewed negatively.”

“There is a simple reason why female celebrities get treated in this way,” says James Preece, a prominent U.K. dating expert and dating coach. “It’s because men (and quite often women) find their behavior threatening. We are conditioned to believe that men should have the sexual power, and when a woman starts taking control, it confuses the balance. It makes the men worry that they’ll never be attractive enough to get the women they lust after. Women get upset because these women are taking the attention away from them and they know they can’t compete,” Preece tells Yahoo Style.

“Times are changing, and we are all free to date anyone we choose as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone,” says Preece. Free in a literal sense, yes. But in the court of public opinion? Not quite yet.

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