A Disconnect on Hooking Up

new york times ^ | 3/6/07 | STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

[Flavius]

When Laura Sessions Stepp warned of the potentially damaging effects of "hooking up" in a new book, some people scoffed -- particularly those who believe they were unscathed by their own unfettered years of casual sex.

Others, though, were incensed.

In "Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both" (Riverhead), Ms. Sessions Stepp, a Washington Post reporter, writes about how smart, ambitious young women do emotional damage to themselves by getting physical -- making out to having sex -- with men they are not dating or may have met for the first time.

In the book, which she based on her reporting over the years and a two-year study of nine high school and college students, age 15 to 21, Ms. Sessions Stepp, 55, concludes that such encounters have largely replaced dating among high school and college students across the country.

[Flavius]

how to go through contortions to explain a slut

[ASA Vet]

They were there, but were doing the football jocks not you.
If you see them now, you'd be glad they didn't even know you existed.

[Gorzaloon]

They were there, but were doing the football jocks not you.

If you see them now, you'd be glad they didn't even know you existed.

AMEN!

I used to leave Class reunions in such a spirit of rejoicing. Plus, the ones who DID date me took care of themselves.

Oh, what schadenfreud...

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

They weren't ladies. They were called cockroaches. When the lights are off they will do anything and everything. When a light was switched on, they ran for cover and denied everything.

You missed nothing.

[plan2succeed.org]

Perhaps it's the way it is in college because that's the way it is in high school.

The Cuddle Puddle of Stuyvesant High School - "Researchers find it shocking that 11 percent of American girls between 15 and 19 claim to have same-sex encounters. Clearly they’ve never observed the social rituals of the pansexual, bi-queer, metroflexible New York teen."

SafeLibraries.org - Are Children Safe in Public Libraries?

[Gingersnap]

I read this book and if it's about sluts, people should remember that every one them is somebody's little girl.

The women is this book are upper middle class achievers going to prestige schools. They aren't bad girls, they are girls who don't feel that they can say "No" in a college culture that would punish them for that. In their world, being sexual is a way of demonstrating feminism and freedom. They don't have a framework for chastity that doesn't include ridicule.

Almost all of the "lesbians" on college campuses are actually straight girls who either pretend to have sex with their roommates or who allow themselves to be be mistaken for lesbians in order to avoid the hookup culture. Lesbians can't be criticized for anything in colleges and so they are never questioned or socially punished for not hooking up.

[AU72]

I used to leave Class reunions in such a spirit of rejoicing.

The nerds and the spases would show up in stretch limos and the jocks would drive their auto-body shop trucks.

[ASA Vet]

Never went to one of their reunions, but maybe I'll go to the next one.
(Just to show the new trophy wife what old people look like.)

[Dont Mention the War]

They aren't bad girls, they are girls who don't feel that they can say "No" in a college culture that would punish them for that.

This can only be true if said girls accept literally any and every guy that propositions them. The fat and "ugly" college guys aren't getting sex from these girls.

[toast]

accept literally any and every guy that propositions them.

They can still dismiss those that are not in their league. But if they repeatedly turn down guys that are at or above an acceptable level defined by their friends, they may labelled.

[ApplegateRanch]

I read this book and if it's about sluts, people should remember that every one them is somebody's little girl...who was sorely in need of the missing moral instruction, adult supervision, and the occasional whopping correction from a caring parent.

Mostly unwed sluts raising sluts, regardless of socio-economic level. Or, does money make one "nice", and lack of it make one "bad"?

Sluts usually don't become sluts on their own; they're raised that way, so that "somebody" whose little girl she is has only to look in the mirror for whom to blame.

If they don't like the appelation, they shouldn't have enabled her to be one.

When the 'feel bad' term fits, liberals outlaw the term; we don't. /rant>