Posted on 04/30/2013 6:56:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It is well known that most college students engage at one time or another in what is known as a “hookup” — an emotionless, commitment-free sexual encounter.
Recently I interviewed Donna Freitas, author of The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture Is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.
In our dialogue, we agreed that her book’s subtitle was accurate, but we disagreed as to the cause. Freitas, who holds a Ph.D. in religious studies, blamed it on peer pressure, the sex-drenched social media of young people, and the ubiquity of pornography. I blamed three other culprits: feminism, careerism, and secularism.
I was in college and graduate school during the heyday of modern feminism. And the central message to women was clear as daylight: You are no different from men. Therefore, among other things, you can enjoy sex just like they do — just for the fun of it, and with many partners. The notion that nearly every woman yearns for something deeper when she has sexual intercourse with a man was dismissed as patriarchal propaganda. The culture may tell her to restrict sex to a man who loves her and might even marry her, but the liberated woman knows better: Sex without any emotional ties or possibility of future commitment can be “empowering.” Feminism taught — and professors on the New York Times op-ed page continue to write — that there are no significant natural differences between men and women. Therefore, it is not unique to male nature to want to have sex with many partners. Rather, a “Playboy culture” “pressures” men into having frequent, uncommitted sex. And, to the extent that this is a part of male nature, it is equally true of women’s natures.
Another feminist message to women was that just as a woman can have sex like a man, she can also find a career as life-filling as men do. Therefore, pursuing an “M-R-S” at college is just another residue of patriarchy. Women should be as interested in a career as men are. Any hint of the notion that women want, more than anything else, to marry and make a family is sexist, demeaning, and untrue.
One result is that instead of trying to find a potential husband, young women are under feminist pressure to show that they couldn’t care less about forming an exclusive, let alone permanent, relationship with a man. And this provides another reason for them to engage in non-emotional, commitment-free sex.
The third reason for the hookup culture is the radical secularization of the college campus. The concept of the holy is dead at American campuses; and without the notion of the holy, it is very difficult to make the case for minimizing, let alone avoiding, non-marital sex. Sex, which every great religion seeks to channel into marriage, has no such role in secular thinking. The only issues for students to be aware of when it comes to sex are health and consent. Beyond those two issues, there is not a single reason not to have sex with many people.
That’s why colleges — secular temples that they are — throughout America reinforce the centrality and importance of sex as a mechanical act. There are “sex weeks” at many of our institutions of higher learning that feature demonstrations of sex toys, S&M seminars, porn stars coming to speak, etc.
Feminist teaching about male-female sameness; feminist teaching that women will derive their greatest meaning from career, not from marriage and family; and the complete removal of religious values and teaching from the college campus are, indeed, “leaving a generation unhappy, sexually unfulfilled [certainly most of the women], and confused about intimacy.”
But this is not how Dr. Freitas sees it.
As Emily Esfahani Smith wrote in her review of the book for the Wall Street Journal:
In the book’s conclusion, Ms. Freitas says that she wants young adults to have “good sex,” a category that can include, she suggests, hooking up — as long as students recognize that casual sex is “just one option among many.” Yet this jars with the nearly 200 preceding pages on the corrosive effects of casual sex.
Kudos, then to Dr. Freitas for delineating the tragedy. But I suspect that it is her very Ph.D. that prevents her from understanding either the roots of this human tragedy or its solution. Both would involve the moral and intellectual rejection of the very institution that granted it to her.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio-talk-show host and columnist. His most recent book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He is the founder of Prager University
??? Because people, especially young people, like sex, especially easy sex.
Why do fish swim? Why do birds fly? You have a bunch of 18 to 24 year old kids who are in close proximity and who aren’t under parental supervision for the first time in their lives. Trying to get them into committed relationships at that age and in that situation is like trying to stop the sun from rising.
They also like binge drinking and electronic dance music.
Although I'm not teaching anymore, I'm still around many HS-and-college-age folk socially, and I can tell you that today's easy sex culture tops even the heyday of the 70's (disco, cocaine-parties, etc) in terms of the average number of new partners they'll have each year before committing to someone. It is not unusual to meet a pretty female who will admit to 10+ new partners per year, when you get them in a moment of honesty. (Of course, there are many who could probably boast of nearly-triple-figures annually, too... and I think I know one or two... but have never had the courage or time to ask.)
The good news is that there is also no shortage of girls (and guys!) in that age group who will recoil at the idea of having more than 5-10 partners in a lifetime, so don't let the media, or my anecdotal information, make you think that they are ALL running to weekly orgies, either. Your grandchild is probably one of the good ones... but by age 24 has probably also had more partners than you did in your lifetime, if you were an average Boomer.
(And add in the thorough destruction of the notion of personal responsibility in our culture.)
yes
“I’m not into that one night thing. I think you should get to know someone, maybe fall in love; before you USE and DEGRADE them.” ;) Steve Martin.
When I was in College I was lectured about the “hook up” culture and declining morals and I laughed and told her (a Baby Boomer) what I am about to tell you....
Serial monogamy was the name of the game after Herpes and AIDS - and while there were certainly SOME cads and sluts - nobody I knew seemed to be getting the kind of action you are talking about (10-100 partners in a year). Most people I saw ‘on the make’ were either looking for their next monogamous partner, looking to cheat upon their monogamous partner, or trying to fool someone that they were a potential monogamous partner but really only looking to ‘score’.
Stupidest question ever asked?
Imagine a collegiate Bill Clinton trying to wet his willie.
There is nothing more sure than espousing liberalism to a 19 year old girl that could get him laid.
It IS that simple.
The resulting baby boom party years are still going on.
They also like booze, drugs, and putting more effort into Facebook relationships than real ones. This generation will win the hotly contested prize for The Greatest Failed Generation in our history. Mark that down.
Was nearby a college campus the other day, and saw a big outcome of the more-sex/less-love at schools: A block away from campus, total convenience, a pregnancy “crisis” center.
Anyone who thinks this hasn’t been going on for years is delusional. Although over exaggerated, the theme in Animal House has a lot of truth in it, going back to the 60s and overall, but more quietly, a long time before that. I witnessed this on a more quiet level during the sex-segregated dorm days in the late 60s and then again in the enlisted military barracks I lived in. Sex and the urge to merge have been around since the beginning of time and when you collect crowds of hormonal young people together, things happen.
If it was truly a crisis pregnancy center that seeks to preserve babies’ lives, that is better than an abortion clinic. Planned Parenthood has been setting up shop near schools.
My grandfather, a WWII Marine said that things were so crazy you had to wake up and introduce yourself to whoever was beside you in bed. He had to black out the tattoo of a woman’s name who he didn’t even remember. He said the prostitutes were mad as hell because of all the ‘amateurs’ GIVING IT AWAY.
Most of them haven’t been under parental supervision since they were handed off to the public “education” system.
Well, I'm sure that every young generation has been evaluated as the "laziest, least-working, least-dedicated, etc etc, EVER" by its predecessors. All the way back to "Og have no respect for elder. Sit all day and draw on cave wall!"
There are a few disruptors. The ubiquitous presence of cell phones has changed the dynamic of personal interaction. I watched "The Breakfast Club" (a 'coming of age' movie popular when *I* was part of the lazy, slack, no-working, etc etc etc generation) with my wife. Her comment was "Had this movie been made today, the kids would have sat there, surfed all day on their cell phones, then gone home having said nothing to anyone. The End." A good point, sez me.
The "Look-at-me-ism" of Facebook has never been available, either. I'm wondering what will happen when the kids of today try to get a 'real' job at age 35, and their employer pulls up photos of the naked keg stands they did in HS at age 17. The internet never forgets.
I thank God every day that Facebook wasn't around when I was that age, who knows what would have been posted. :-)
I'm interested to see what the blowback to all this is, as well. I'm guessing that "Privacy" will be a #1 topic, in the generation to come.
All those liberal men were a joke in a variety of ways. Can you say spineless? Yep. Even when I was 20 years old, I could tell the Democrat/liberal men were just wussies with no brain and no spine and usually were quite misogynistic (often were complete hypocrites) without gentlemen manners.
My conservative man has--spine, gonads, intelligence, independence, gentleman manners (in which he still displays each day even though we have been married decades). Most importantly he has my deep respect and lil' ole' me ;-).
My read of it was it was directed toward abortion, equating pregnancy with the term “crisis”. It just sounds Rahmemanualish to me, to have folks walking in the door with crisis for which they have a final solution.
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