Is the idea that the girl should hold out still pretty prevalent in today's society?

The theory seems to be that if you give it (sex) up too soon in a relationship, the guy will take off. He’s gotten what he wanted. He’s no longer interested in you. Not only that, but he won. As if it’s the girl’s job to keep her cootchie all virginal and if she can’t do that, then some guy got over on her. She’s spoiled now; a bad girl.

I thought this idea had gone the way of the dodo back in the 60’s but I see women here—middle aged women—offering this advice all the time. They tell younger women they gave out sex too early and that’s why the boy left them. It makes me feel like some time warp occurred and I’m back in the 50s.

Am I completely out of step? Is this the conventional wisdom these days? Have women once again lost the right to be sexual beings without being considered loose? Are we back to the times where the women keep it locked up and the men have to try to break open the box, and no longer need to stop themselves, since that is their nature? It’s women’s responsibility to hold them back?

Or did this never go away? It’s always been like this? Women need to trap capture a man, and men have to get sex without getting captured? It all seems so dehumanizing to me. Men are expected to be assholes if it is the women’s sole responsibility to guard the honey pot. Demeaning, too. To both women and men.

Someone please tell me I’m missing the point, and that I’m not, somehow, stuck in the wrong future by some horrible accident.