The NYTimes is convulsing in the throes of a fit of intense prissiness:
Until recently, those who studied the rise of hookup culture had generally assumed that it was driven by men, and that women were reluctant participants, more interested in romance than in casual sexual encounters. But there is an increasing realization that young women are propelling it, too.
Yes, this is Earth-shattering news for the backwards and frumpy authors of the stupid rag: women enjoy sex, too.
But wait, even scarier realizations were to follow:
Almost universally, the women said they did not plan to marry until their late 20s or early 30s.
Yes, women are actually intelligent. Who could have known? They are finally clocking on to the idea that getting married at 19 is about the dumbest thing you can do. (Please do not argue with me about this unless you are a woman who got married at 19 like I did.)
And here comes the most terrifying news of all:
In this context, some women, like A., seized the opportunity to have sex without relationships, preferring “hookup buddies” (regular sexual partners with little emotional commitment) to boyfriends. Others longed for boyfriends and deeper attachment.
Yes, different women have different preferences. One cannot make pronouncements about what all women in the world want and avoid looking like a total idiot. This is truly tragic. The universe has turned out to be more complex than NYTimes is ready to digest.
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// Until recently, those who studied the rise of hookup culture had generally assumed that it was driven by men, and that women were reluctant participants, more interested in romance than in casual sexual encounters
According to those studying people, then why were women doing casual sexual encounters, instead of romance? Because women are stupid *that* much? There are many young men interested in romance, so why waste time on “players”, if one wants romance? One can’t really study gender prior to beginning to control their own sexism.
Btw, I have never seen any hookup culture anywhere. Even at high school people were or seriously dating or alone. Probably it can be seen at some clubs in Israel too, but I never visited, so don’t know for sure.
In addition, USA is a big country with many young people living on campuses away from home. In Israel university students are older, after army service, which also makes people more mature, and many live at home or rent a room in a flat. USA seems to have much more of “campus culture”: this (supposedly widely spread ? is it really in your eyes?) hookup culture, sport teams, etc.
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“According to those studying people, then why were women doing casual sexual encounters, instead of romance? Because women are stupid *that* much? There are many young men interested in romance, so why waste time on “players”, if one wants romance? One can’t really study gender prior to beginning to control their own sexism.”
– Exactly.
“Btw, I have never seen any hookup culture anywhere. Even at high school people were or seriously dating or alone.”
– Me neither, to be honest. After working at 4 universities in different parts of the continent, I still have no idea where journalists are finding all that hookup culture. I think it’s mostly a fantasy of middle-aged sexually deprived people. 🙂
“USA seems to have much more of “campus culture”: this (supposedly widely spread ? is it really in your eyes?) hookup culture, sport teams, etc.”
– I’m sure there are a few people who go to college only to booze and party but the majority of students I met both as a student and as a teacher are not like that at all. Most have at least one job aside from school and most seem either to have a steady partner or to want one. We get to talk a lot about our personal lives in language courses and I think it’s significant that nobody ever asked me “So how do you say “hookup” in Spanish?” Not even among students who asked me how to say “I need to pimp my ride” (that was at Yale.) 🙂 🙂 It doesn’t mean anything obscene, by the way.
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A really good post on the same subject: “First of all, only a certain type of woman is ever interviewed. The newest offering from the NYT starts out: “At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior–”
Stop right there. Why are they always “slim” and “pretty”? Why are they always middle-/upper-class? Why are they always white? In fact, why are these stories only ever written about women, and not about men? How do men feel about casual sex? (You might think the answer is obvious, but that’s just because you haven’t talked to enough men.)” http://freethoughtblogs.com/brutereason/2013/07/16/what-we-write-about-when-we-write-about-hookups/
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The article in your post doesn’t talk only about middle-/upper-class, as I quoted below.
I do not like the alcohol thing in all this. As one commented (and I agree with most of it):
This is merely acting out behavior by overwhelmed children. One understands the need for intimacy in these young adults, but engaging in this conduct while impaired is sad. There is nothing good that will come out of this behavior. If they want to be future leaders, they should display courage. DO IT SOBER!!!!!! This way, you are aware of your feelings and emotions and FEARS. Know who you are with, it’s much more exciting. Even if it doesn’t evolve into a long term commitment. These girls are pathetic.
If one is too wasted, how can she always take care even of condoms? One girl in the article talked about being half unconscious.
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This is a lot more complicated than just having willpower not to drink alcohol. All of these “DO IT SOBER!!!!!!” admonishments are extremely childish and useless. Many people are so sexually repressed that they can’t contemplate getting intimate without alcohol. Yelling at them to stop drinking will not help in the least. Yeah, it would be fantastic if they could avoid alcohol. World peace would also be quite amazing. Reality is more complicated, though.
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Now I am reading the articlle and there are some interesting bits:
many of the Penn women said that warnings not to become overly involved in a relationship came not from feminists, but from their parents, who urged them to be independent.
“That’s one thing that my mom has always instilled in me: ‘Make decisions for yourself, not for a guy,’ ” one senior at Penn said.
But the parents didn’t mean “do H-up instead” neither, I suppose. Interesting what parents see as a realistic solution? Stay a virgin?
There are some disturbing aspects, though:
1 – Part of the reason men aren’t as focused on pleasing women in hookups, Dr. England said, is the lingering sexual double standard, which sometimes causes men to disrespect women precisely for hooking up with them.
2 – technology has made it easier to spread gossip. One woman recalled a guy showing her an e-mail he had received on his fraternity Listserv, in which another guy described having sex with a girl in the bathroom at a club.
“They’re not afraid to use names,” she said of the men, adding, “I’m sure there’s been a story about me on a Listserv. It happens to everyone.”
And, for readers, who don’t want to read the entire long article, it presents some statistics:
For all the focus on hookups, campuses are not sexual free-for-alls, at Penn or elsewhere. At colleges nationally, by senior year, 4 in 10 students are either virgins or have had intercourse with only one person, according to the Online College Social Life Survey. Nearly 3 in 10 said that they had never had a hookup in college. Meanwhile, 20 percent of women and a quarter of men said they had hooked up with 10 or more people.
For me, one of the more interesting aspects was the class division:
In one study, conducted with Laura Hamilton, now a professor at the University of California, Merced, Dr. Armstrong followed roughly 50 women from their freshman year at Indiana University in 2004 until the end of their college careers. They found that the women from wealthier backgrounds were much more likely to hook up, more interested in postponing adult responsibilities and warier of serious romantic commitment than their less-affluent classmates.
The women from less-privileged backgrounds looked at their classmates who got drunk and hooked up as immature.
What do you think of it?
// They are finally clocking on to the idea that getting married at 19 is about the dumbest thing you can do.
One women in the article talked about marrying at 23. Is this a bad idea too?
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“Part of the reason men aren’t as focused on pleasing women in hookups, Dr. England said, is the lingering sexual double standard, which sometimes causes men to disrespect women precisely for hooking up with them.”
– From my own personal experience, men are obsessed with pleasing women and would happily sacrifice their own enjoyment for the sake of satisfying a woman. The real problem is that in the US culture men are just very bad at it.
“In one study, conducted with Laura Hamilton, now a professor at the University of California, Merced, Dr. Armstrong followed roughly 50 women from their freshman year at Indiana University in 2004 until the end of their college careers. They found that the women from wealthier backgrounds were much more likely to hook up, more interested in postponing adult responsibilities and warier of serious romantic commitment than their less-affluent classmates.”
– I’ve been at two schools for the ultra-rich. Never saw anything of the kind. Not even remotely. Women from rich families are very conflicted about ex and carry an enormous legacy of sexual repression. Remember that most of them have mothers who know nothing of any aspect of life other than a marriage. A single marriage normally, as well.
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“At colleges nationally, by senior year, 4 in 10 students are either virgins or have had intercourse with only one person, according to the Online College Social Life Survey. Nearly 3 in 10 said that they had never had a hookup in college. Meanwhile, 20 percent of women and a quarter of men said they had hooked up with 10 or more people.”
– Let’s keep in mind that these are the same people who dogs keep eating their homework and whose grandmas all die right around midterms. What people say and what actually is are very very different things. This is why all of these “studies” are useless.
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// Many people are so sexually repressed that they can’t contemplate getting intimate without alcohol.
What if somebody can’t or “can’t” without alcohol even in a (somewhat) serious or constant relationship? Is the answer in drinking each time one has sex?
I would guess it’s more the desire to avoid responsibility than pure sexual repression. The fear of being mature to admit to oneself: “I am choosing this behavior and taking all adult responsibility about any complications, such as bad gossip, STDs, unwanted pregnancy if a condom breaks, etc.” I would also guess that many young people aren’t consciously thinking about all the risks, and then deciding that the rewards are greater and they are ready to take the risks. If one is mature enough to take those real risks and has already slept many times with different people, why should the imagined repression (meaning, it’s in one’s brain, not something “physical” or “real” like STD or a rumor) make one be drunk *every* time?
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The use of the word “mature” in the context of discussing alcoholism is decidedly immature. 🙂 On a serious note, many people have psychological issues and those are very very real to the people who have them. Alcoholism has nothing to do with responsibility or age or anything of the kind.
I suggest we avoid passing judgment on people who use the coping mechanisms they need to use in order to deal with their lives.
I once mentioned this person I used to know who kicked a heroin addiction. Obviously, that necessitated years of intense therapy. Once he told the therapist that he could not believe how stupid he had been to give several years of his life to heroin. The therapist told him to stop berating himself and instead consider that he did exactly what he needed to do to face life at that point.
The idea that people who drink or smoke or take drugs or overeat do so because they are weak or irresponsible is a deeply puritanical, highly aggressive approach that allows one to unleash one’s anger onto others through this socially acceptable vent. In reality, however, there is little difference between this coping mechanism and the one used by the addicts one berates.
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Is drinking every time one plans to hook up called alcoholism? I don’t call it so and wasn’t talking about heroin addictions or overeating. Was specifically talking about people who drink a lot each time before hooking up.
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Terminology is not important. What matters is that we are talking about a coping mechanism and it makes little sense to compete whose coping mechanisms are better or “more mature.”
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AM wrote about this article too and thinks many young men become ready for a good relationship later, after college:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/17/women-want-good-boyfriends-not-just-any-boyfriends/
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It’s rare that anybody can defeat NYT in the degree and number of patriarchal stereotypes per inch of text but this person has accomplished that feat. Wow. Ross Douthat can take a break, there is a new enforcer of gender stereotypes in town.
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This comment to the original article blames the controlling parents:
I’m not sure it’s the feminists. I think the ‘go it alone’ message comes from Mom and Dad. It allows the parents to retain control over the child. Throw in a little spending money from Pops along with the paid-for college tuition and the control is complete. No need to upset the apple cart with a son-in-law in waiting. The hook-ups simply aren’t discussed on the paid-for visits home. Good luck, girls.
If one applies the argument to boys’ parents too, is it like Soviet parents stereotype?
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The sexual acting out is a way to break free from parental control. The generation of parents who encourage it doesn’t exist yet on this culture. 🙂
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