Hook-Up Culture
It's Not Such A Bad Thing.
"What we have seen in American culture is not the erosion of morality, but rather a culminating defeat against a negative social construct that punishes healthy human behavior."
The other day I was listening to Talk Of The Nation with Neil Conan. His guest that afternoon was Laura Sessions Stepp, the author of Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both. Stepp denounces what she calls the "hook-up culture" as being poisonous for the emotional and mental health of women.Has she considered that uneven expectations among ascribed gender roles is a boon for males and that in the end, it all balances out? Seriously, my biggest problem with her supporting evidence is that she uses case studies from stupid girls. By stupid girls I mean the ones that are easily manipulated by cunt-hunting club-hopping assholes who feign emotion and actively use deception for the purposes of sex acquisition. Perhaps fair criticism can be made about about the woman who particpate in such interpersonal fallacies, but it is not forgivable when some gel-haired douchebag preys upon a woman's emotional frailty to gain access to her Rosy Mound. Women have a responsibility to themselves to be more cautious and to learn the distinctions between earnestness and smarminess.When women are tricked into giving up sex under false pretenses, males too bare responsibility for their actions, and they deserve equitable admonishment.* The website says that "The Rosy Mound is open year ‘round".Stepp argues that women who are willing participants in the hookup culture contribute to a broader cultural phenomenon that facilitates a male’s ability to treat women like meat. The economic principles of the free market (or rather the free meat market) does tend to favor women who are kind enough to know that Blue Balling isn't a sport that men enjoy.
But Stepp refuses to acknowledge that there are many emotionally healthy women who are willing participants in the hookup culture who want the same things as the male participants. A woman whom partakes in casual sex is not necessarily being tricked or duped; a male does not necessarily have to propose false pretenses to convince a woman to enter a mutually beneficial sexual arraignment.
I happen to believe that people in this generation who are in their 20s value emotionally healthy relationships with reciprocal respect and admiration at least as much or perhaps more so than previous generations. But, I also believe that our generation appreciates the rarity of such premium quality human relationships. We have grown up watching divorces; we have grown up watching dysfunctional relationships and broken marriages preserved for the wrong reasons. As a result, many members of my generation have high hopes and low expectations about what we can expect from a significant other, or at least many of us know that we can’t thrust upon one person all of our hopes for happiness and fulfillment. Each of us wants to end up with someone who is right for us, but some of us are fine making due with less through our youth, especially since many of us are focused on career development and since many of us find ourselves enriched by platonic friendships. Many folks these days accept the terms of less comprehensive romantic relationships the same way we might drive a noisy sub-compact through grad school with the hopes of one day owning a Mercedes Benz. For me personally, I see the emotionally healthy relationship not as a vehicle toward happiness, but rather as a destination along a rich and full life journey.There looms another important question: If neither party is deceptive or misleading about his or her intentions and they both want the same thing, why shouldn’t they hook-up? For many, the hook-up culture is a welcome alternative to the joyless puritanical Youth Group culture American's endured through the 1950s and 1990s.Bare with me. Courtships that center around a non-romantic and mutually beneficial sexual relationship existed long before the terms “hook-up”, “fuck-friend”, “bed-buddy” and other variations. But over the years, the viewpoint that sex and love can be different thing has become more prevalent.Ms. Stepp appears to be totally closed to the idea that all along throughout our history that guys and gals have been pursuing primarily sexual relationships but ascribing erroneous meaning and false emotion to it for no better reason than to adhere to puritanical cultural expectations.What we have seen in American culture is not the erosion of morality, but rather a culminating defeat against a negative social construct that punishes healthy human behavior. Attitudes are embracing the possibility that perhaps it is more healthy to go through life without the expectation that every person we kiss and every person we date is really a candidate for marriage.
Another problem I have with Stepp's argument is that she looks at the "Hook-Up Culture" through the lens of American culture. To apply narrowly embraced puritanical social values to a global phenomenon of human interaction is just as ignorant as touting American Exceptionalisim as a basis for regime change in nations that jingoistic sociopaths consider primitive.
Western Europe has more relaxed attitudes about sex and relationships and none of the hazardous symptoms of cultural demise that Stepp predicts for our own culture have yet taken place. In fact, the Euro is up along with foreign investment in the E.U. nations, so it appears that Dutch sex shows and horny Frenchman are not negatively impacting the value of European currency not has it caused the other half of the Western World to sink into Dante’s’ Inferno.
Inversely, many Islamic nations is the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia whom embrace values similar to Ms. Stepp remain, lets say, states of concern.
Thats right, I went there. Which side of the culture war are you on now?
Laura Stepp: In need of a good rogering.
Any volunteers?
----------------------------------------
Posts
