Unhooked

[lillibet]

Last week there was an article in the Globe about the book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, which examines "hookup culture" among college-aged women.

A friend asked me what I thought of it and I said that it sounded like the latest "our teenagers are making bad choices!" hullaballoo and that my guess is that there's much more variety among people's experiences than books like this make out.

Today there's an article in Slate that gets at some of the issues I had with the Globe article (and what I can tell from these pieces about the book).

I'd be interested to hear from folks currently in that demographic, or working with same, about how prevalent this "culture" really is and what opinions you have of the phenomenon.

Comments

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

It makes me a little self-conscious to admit that yeah, I probably fell into that demographic and...well, probably still do.

Very few people I knew in college had boyfriends or girlfriends. I never had a boyfriend my entire time in high school or college. I still have a very hard time finding people to date. For me, hook-ups were/are better than nothing. I think both articles do have grains of truth to them. I haven't read the book, so it's tough to slam the first article too much. I think I'd just end up getting depressed or angry by reading the book though, by feeling that it was somehow judging me.

[journeystar.livejournal.com]

I'd say that it is very, very prevalent. I find that in college and a little beyond, it's hard to find someone who will actually call you "girlfriend" or admit in public that they are your "boyfriend." People will say they don't like labels, or that those terms aren't 'modern.'

I think there is a lot of casual sex going on at colleges (duh). Not that there is anything wrong with that at all,as long as it is protected and consensual, and both parties are honest with each other about what they expect to get out of it.

However, I think (from listening to the complaints of my friends who are still in college) a lot of girls participating in these activities will "hookup" with guys in the attempts to get the boy in question to "like them," call them his girlfriend or pursue a serious relationship with her. This almost never happens because neither party communicates their desires accurately to each other. I have a friend who has been trying to find a boyfriend for four years. She's cute, funny, and smart, but she just keeps using sex to try and convince guys to be in a relationship with her and it's backfitring big time.

A little before meeting Frenchy, I went on a few dates with a young man who I was pretty into . He said point blank that he'd like to have a friendship with me that had physical aspects to it, but he wasn't in the market for a relationship. I was impressed by his honesty. I told him that even though I liked him too, I *was* in the market for a relationship, so our desires wouldn't meld so harmoniously, and I didn't think it was a good idea to pursue anything else. We agreeably decided to remain good friends(and still are) and things worked out fine. Ideally, all encounters in the "hookup culture" should work this well, but I think young people are often so afraid of rejection that they can't be this blunt or honest with each other. Honestly, it can be hard to do some times in such emotional situations when you have not yet developed a lot of confidence.

[minkrose]

My mother actually printed out that Globe article and I couldn't get past page two of it. While she knows I'm poly, she seems to believe that it's a phase and that it is utterly impossible to be in an "actually committed" relationship with more than one person. I'm not sure what her motives were for printing out the article but she seemed to believe it was an accurate representation.

I think I technically fall in the realm of the hook-up generation and these articles are so incredibly far from describing my experience that it makes me angry. Not only that, but I can't think of anyone I knew/know in college having only vaguely-connected or anonymous sex. Not only that, but I believe I'd lose the respect of my friends if they thought I was making choices like that!
I never had many Official Boyfriends but I was always clearly in some form of a relationship with someone and it was always long term, even if the friendship lasted longer than the sexual aspects. I also never felt a need to hide my sexual activities behind some term designed to be meaningless.

And now, I'm in a presently-monogamous relationship, with steady & solid love and communication. Even if one wanted to argue that my younger days were wilder, they certainly didn't cripple me or keep me from having committed and meaningful relationships now (though I would argue that all my relationships were meaningful and committed on some level).
It frustrates me to see "my generation" getting this bad reputation of loving anonymous sex. Sure, there are people who do engage in anonymous sex and take drugs without knowing what they are, but that hasn't been MY experience and I really dont think I'm that rare. People may be irresponsible but I've rarely known them to be utterly ignorant of what they're doing. It was the bit in the Globe article with the quote: Aparicio says friends at home think she's weird to be in a monogamous relationship. Nolan's relationship is enough of an anomaly among her friends that she says, "Some of them are curious about it -- like it's something foreign."
WHAT?! None of my friends have this reaction to any of my relationships! "Something FOREIGN"? If anything, they thought I was weird for not being MORE committed.

I think this bothers me most because it gives people an excuse to view my past relationships as meaningless "hook-ups" and to devalue my choices without understanding them. It's hard enough knowing that I'm going to have to clearly explain polyamory any time I bring it up, but to feel that people will assume that I was interested in uncommitted, anonymous hook-ups is even more difficult for me.

Anyway... Hopefully this wasn't too ranty and was interesting.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I think I'd just end up getting depressed or angry by reading the book though, by feeling that it was somehow judging me.

Yeah, it sounds like that might well be the case for me, as well.

It's kind of funny, because I didn't meet J. until I was 28 and that felt positively ancient at the time, but now doesn't seem that late to me. But here I am just having my first kid ten years later, so it's hard to say. As with all aspects of life, we're all on our own schedules.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it can be hard to do some times in such emotional situations when you have not yet developed a lot of confidence.

You said it, sugar! I think that's true regardless of the particular experiences involved in getting to that point.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Hopefully this wasn't too ranty and was interesting.

Not at all and yes, very :) Thanks!

[muffyjo]

As I often do, I switch the terms "boys" for "girls" in the article. "Some boys can handle this; others … are exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually by it." - yeah, I think that's probably true. But you wouldn't say it that way if it was really about boys, right? And what's with the change in reference from women to girls? Girls are little and vulnerable, while women are adults. I think the analysis of the author's slant says a lot about what she thinks of her own experiences and casts aspersions on her telling of what's really happening.

I think it says a lot about the competitive culture we engender earlier on and I think it says a lot about how superficial the expectations we place on each other can be during some very vulnerable years for both men and women.

I think we are fooling ourselves to believe that sex or no sex is going to solve the bigger picture of how to relate meaningfully with each other or to being honest with ourselves. Now THOSE are classes worth taking. The idea of courting someone, getting to know them, wanting to connect...those are the skills that need more focus. Sex is sex. It has been a road to intimacy for many, many generations but I think that maybe that's what's changing. Something that used to have a very intimate meaning is now being seen for the act it is and only has meaning if the people involved in it give it context.

And I think it doesn't HAVE to mean that. I think it's important that people, individuals, provide the context with each other. And if they want a real relationship, they need to make the time for it, nurture it and invest in making it real. There's no getting over the teenage testing period - I think it's important to learn your boundaries and I think it's important to teach people to be safe (use birth control, use condoms, get tested regularly...) and that making mistakes is part of the process. If they learn in college that meaningless hookups aren't fulfilling, maybe they'll figure out how to change that or how to ask the questions that will help them prevent that from happening again.

You can't protect people from themselves. And much like any experience, some people can learn from others' mistakes, some have to live through them themselves.

[billmarrs.livejournal.com]

Without reading the article (I'll try to make time late) or ever having lived a "hookup" lifestyle myself; my reaction to this is that it's some kind of backlash against women breaking traditional gender roles. Our culture is still hung-up on the idea that women are the ones who want a relationship, marriage, etc. While men are expected to sleep around. So, if women just want to have sex, it's somehow not OK and people scrutinize it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/urban_faerie_/]

As for my own experience, I did both the hookup and the serious dating thing in college and let me tell you that the emotionally abusive long term relationship I was in during college was way more damaging to me than the handful of awkward hookups with over eager college boys. While the relationship landed me in thearpy and destroyed friendships, all the hookups did was yield some embarassing eye contact avoiding aerobics in the dining hall. If anything the hookups taught me a lot about myself and what I want in another person. They taught me a lot about what I like and dislike in bed, and not to settle down with the first shmuck who pays attention to me. It taught me that I don't owe anything to anyone, and if I don't like what's going on in a relationship, no matter how casual it is, I can get up and walk away.

Yes, there were one or two of those guys who I made the mistake of thinking had relationship potential, but again, those encounters taught me valuable lessons about when to let go, and when it feels right as opposed to when you're forcing it.

But let's be serious, most of the time the reason why I was hooking up with those guys and not trying to date them was because they weren't boyfriend material in the first place and I knew it.

The author expresses concern about hooking up delaying dating and marriage, but why is delaying marriage such a bad thing? Would she rather we raced into a long term commitment with no life experience? She also sort of pooh poohs the very real concern that a serious boyfriend would take time away form a woman's studies, sports, careeers and friends. I think that is a true and serious concern. We are a generation of women who watched our moms talk the talk of feminisim but never quite walk the walk. My mom gave up everything to be a wife and mother and now that her children are grown up she's frustrated with her life. I think a lot of women our age saw that and vowed never to let our dreams take a backseat to being in a relationship. Why give everything up for a guy, especially when relationships can be so fleeting when we are young?

I feel that the reasons behind the hookup culture are twofold. Number one, being sexually open is less stigmatized now, so now we can all sleep around a little wihout fear of losing our credability. That part is pure opportunity. I'm sure if women my mom's age had the chance to experiment outside of a traditional relationship they would have. Number two, we are a generation that has watched 50% of our parents divorce. After that were aren't willing to rush into relationships. We think we can avoid being hurt and having our whole lives fall apart when a relationship ends if we can compartmentalize love/sex/and relationships.

What irritates me is that we live in a world where women pursue education, careers, and sports just as aggressively as men, but we're still expected to "get our fragile little feelings hurt" over sex. If we can run businesses and countries with men without breaking a sweat, why are we expected to behave with fragility when sex gets involved? Trust me, 9 times out of 10 we aren't sitting at home by the phone wating for that guy we took home after too many tequila shots to call. Although some people don't believe it, most of the time we're relaistic enough to know that a long term relationship isn't going to come from casual sex and if we're pursuing casual sex in the first place, a relationship probably isn't what we're looking for.

I think some people have to let go of the idea that the woman is always the one being manipulated in the situation. I've seen men strung along by women as well but somhow, nobody fears for their long term damage when that happens. Why is that? Why is it that in that entire article about college kids hooking up, most of it is focused on the impact on girls? Why is nobody writing articles about how sad it is that we're raising a generation of young men who'd rather eat nails than be seen in public with a woman they are fucking? Why is that not news? Because this article is based on the idea that women *need* relationships and men don't. While I think the article makes many good points, I'm just so very tired of that same old perspective on sex and relationships.