Posted on 12/15/2008 8:28:30 AM PST by Sopater
The paradigm has shifted. Dating is dated. Hooking up is here to stay.
(For those over 30 years old: hooking up is a casual sexual encounter with no expectation of future emotional commitment. Think of it as a one-night stand with someone you know.)
According to a report released this spring by Child Trends, a Washington research group, there are now more high school seniors saying that they never date than seniors who say that they date frequently. Apparently, it’s all about the hookup.
When I first heard about hooking up years ago, I figured that it was a fad that would soon fizzle. I was wrong. It seems to be becoming the norm.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The concept of courting has increased as well. While the bad has increased, so has the good.
By the way, I am pretty young, and none of the teens or college kids I know consider “hooking up” as casual sex. Hooking up is also used to mean meeting somebody you like at a dance or bar or whatever and then leaving to go out somewhere.
Maybe in New York it means casual sex, but not here. It is almost related to dating, just happening to meet someone at a place you are interested in; it doesn’t mean you meet and then go back to the apartment for sex.
The “move in and live together arrangement”, (currently popular, and continuing to be so); which has developed over the last 20 years all around the United States of America): imported from Europe/France/ETC. which has been morally decadent for many years ...
It is a degrading way to live; and usually does not end in a successful marriage: the real truth being, It does not please God. It is being deliberately disobedient to His Word and instructions. There is a price to pay and it is costly. God is not mocked.
I remember in high school when dating and going steady were in...lot’s of girls would have to leave school because of ‘urinary infections’ and stuff like that.
Kids having sex, getting pregnant and having abortions, isn’t anything new.
You can also thank all the parents who got divorce and then have no problem moving a shack up right in front of their kids. What a great example! I know many parents that are doing this including my ex who declares he is a “Christian conservative”. I guess he figures because he says she is his “fiancee with no date set” it makes it okay in front of the kids. But he was aways a say as I do not as I do kinda guy.
My high school son is about to ask a girl to a school dance. It will be his first “date”.
My son goes to a Christian private school, so I’m okay with him going to the dance.
So far, we haven’t had to deal with the whole boy/girl issue, but it is fast approaching us.
My son is learning from his friends about some of the problems with dating. I’m encouraging him to just be friends with girls in high school so that he can avoid some of those problems.
Yes you are correct about the 50s. Everybody my age views the 50s through “Leave it to Beaver” colored glasses. The term for that is fiftyism. Gen X and Y had no connection to tradition, the perception of 50s as being like the clean happy Cleaver family is a strong pull, but from what I was told the 60s were the culmination of the gathering immorality of the 50s.
So what I meant was the movement to reverting to the traditions prior to this social upheaval. Such as courting with a chaperon or essentially not being left alone.
Yes, and in 15 years these young women will be asking why there are no responsible young men around. The American people never learn for long.
A lot of this problem is from the lack of polite social settings for young people to have relaxed association. School does NOT count, as it is neither relaxed nor social.
As any dog owner will tell you, if a dog is not able to freely associate with other dogs while it is growing up, it will not know how to behave around them and be a problem—either scared, asocial, or aggressive—likely for the rest of its life. Should that much more be expected from children, who should have even more complicated social relationships?
The truth of this can be found by actually asking children one question: “When was the last time you just sat down and chatted with someone of your own age, of the opposite sex?” For a lot of children, the answer is “never”. Always they are under pressure, there are other things going on, no opportunity to just hang out and make small talk. If anything, they are kept apart based on their gender.
The correct answer is that they should do so regularly. They should feel as relaxed talking with the opposite sex as they do their own sex. Neither scared, indifferent, or aggressive.
As it is, lots, perhaps the majority of children are barely able to see the opposite sex as human, much less as someone they will eventually want to be emotionally close to. This leads to all sorts of social problems down the line.
Strange as this may sound, I don’t think that the problem with casual sex is the result of keeping boys and girls apart. Call me naive...
The new, liberated generation. Ain’t it grand? /sarc
“According to a report released this spring by Child Trends, a Washington research group, there are now more high school seniors saying that they never date than seniors who say that they date frequently. Apparently, it’s all about the hookup.”
The problem with this article is that the writers seem to believe that these teenagers must be either dating or hooking up, and there aren’t any other possibilities (teenagers who are ‘courting’, teenagers who are just single and not having sex, etc) because all teenagers must be sexually active, even if they say they aren’t... *sigh* I hated people like that as a teenager =(
And the problem is, it isn’t even an accurate word.
Hooking up does NOT mean having casual sex in flyover country.
The term is used for almost a casual dating. Some may use it for a casual sexual encounter, but most here don’t.
For a woman in her 50’s, she looks pretty good. A little bit out of my age range, but if I was older and single and walked into that bar, I’d try and chat her up.
But then, I have a thing for bar-loving red-heads (I married one, after all).
I agree.
Being a single guy in his 30’s, albeit with girlfriend, who lives in a group house in Washington, D.C. The group of friends going off and doing things together concept is in full swing, folks usually just pair off or go on a one one one date from that after they get to know each other in a group athmosphere.
The “date” and “courting” as it were is too expensive for kids these days, also way too awkward sometimes. Also a sense of family and community and tradition is needed. With Nuclear families, this is hard to do.
Here in the year 2008, Things are a bit different in the fact that many Boys and Girls are best friends, guys have best female friends, girls have best guy friends and it’s strictly plutonic. Was that how things were in the 50’s? I don’t think so. That changes the dynamic a lot.
I dont deny the occurence of promiscuity in High school, but it is nowhere near the frequency ocurring in college, and I don't think it is particularly higher than it was 10 yrs ago (I have/had 3 teenage girls, so I know of what I speak, to some extent)
"Group dating" was actually pretty big in the 30's and 40's, and IMO the key indice theyre trying to track here is promiscuity, which is totally out of control at the college level, from what I can tell. At the high school level, the trends are not as clear.( In order to "hook up", you need a certain level of personal freedom, more easily obtained at college. )
Good point. Now, I had a best friend who was a girl...and ended up my wife. I liked one of the other girls I was friends with in college as well.
But, I did have girls with home I was truly only friends with and had no interest otherwise. That happens a lot today compared to the past.
Back in the sixties, especially in small towns, parents would generally never even consider their girls getting abortions. There were quite a few shotgun weddings where two “kids” would soon get a crash course in the realities of life. Of course, the parents had to help out a lot and sometimes ended up raising their grandkids - but abortion was rare. Their kids grew up real quick, which served them better in the long run than getting a quick fix to what ailed them.
I live common law and God is OK with it; it’s the worrying about the speck in your brother’s eye, rather than the log in your own-crowd that irks Him the most. His son Jesus told me.
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