Posted on 03/09/2007 2:30:28 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
During a class discussion on adolescence, a high school teacher recently asked her students whether they go on dates. We don't "date," the 12th graders reported. We "hook up."
If you're in your 40s, "hooking up" might mean catching a friend downtown for lunch. But to people in their teens or 20s, the phrase often means a casual sexual encounter _ anything from kissing onwards _ with no strings attached.
Now a new book on this not-so-new subject is drawing fire in some quarters for its conclusion: That hookups can be damaging to young women, denying their emotional needs, putting them at risk of depression and even sexually transmitted disease, and making them ill-equipped for real relationships later on.
For that, Laura Sessions Stepp, author of "Unhooked" and a writer for The Washington Post, has been criticized as a throwback to an earlier, restrictive moral climate, an anti-feminist and a tut-tutting mother telling girls not to give the milk away when nobody's bought the cow.
The author "imagines the female body as a thing that can be tarnished by too much use," wrote reviewer Kathy Dobie in Stepp's own paper, and suggested that Stepp was, in one part, trying to "instill sexual shame." For Meghan O'Rourke, literary editor at Slate.com, Stepp is "buying into alarmism about women," and making sex "a bigger, scarier, and more dangerous thing than it already is."
Stepp argues these critics have misconstrued her ideas.
True, she regrets that "dating has gone completely by the boards," replaced by group outings that lead to casual encounters. True, she regrets that oral sex "isn't even considered sex anymore." But she isn't saying girls should not have sex; just that they should have it in the context of a meaningful connection: "I am saying that girls should have choices."
Too often, Stepp argues, girls and young women say proudly that they like the control "hookups" give them _ control over their emotions, their schedules, and freedom to focus on things like schoolwork and career (the students she profiles in her book are high achievers).
But she says they frequently mistake that freedom for empowerment. "I often hear girls say things like, 'We can be as bad as guys now,'" she says. "But I don't think that's what liberation is all about."
Stepp says her book stems from an experience she had almost 10 years ago. She and other parents were summoned to her son's middle school. The principal informed them that all year long, a dozen girls _ ages 13 or 14 _ had been performing oral sex on several boys in the class. (Her own son was not involved.) Stepp wrote about the sex ring in a front-page article for the Post, which led to further research.
She's had her share of positive feedback, including from educators and from young women like those in her book.
One 18-year-old student, who calls herself a feminist, e-mailed her to say she had approached the book warily, but came to believe it "will change the way my generation views sex."
Contacted later by telephone, the student, Liz Funk, said she agreed with Stepp's contention that "real relationships among college students don't really exist anymore."
"If I or my friends had the opportunity for real relationships, we'd take it," says Funk, who attends school in New York City. "But my generation hasn't really been conditioned for it." Hookups, she adds, which she rejected for herself long ago but some of her friends still embrace, "are like Thanksgiving for guys. They don't have to do anything to get sex!" And she bemoans the amount of time fellow students can spend on hookups: "It can be like a full-time job."
Another student, at a small women's college in South Carolina, says the "hookup culture" is not all that pervasive, in her experience.
"I'm aware of it," said Grace Bagwell, 22, a senior at Converse College in Spartansburg, S.C.. "But it's untrue to say women aren't having meaningful relationships at this point. I've been in one for three years, and I have a lot of friends who are getting married or are engaged."
Sociologist Kathleen Bogle has also studied hooking up, which she says dates back to the '80s. She has a book, "Hooking Up," coming out this fall.
"I argue that we shouldn't look at this from a moralistic viewpoint _ as in, our youth is in decline _ and we shouldn't celebrate it either, in a 'Sex in the City' light," says Bogle, who hasn't read Stepp's book. She also believes that it's wrong to assume women aren't hoping for something more from their hookups.
"It's a system for finding relationships _ and there isn't really an alternate system," says Bogle. "It feels like it's the only game in town, and if you don't do it, you're left out." She did find that after college, there was a transition back to traditional dating.
The debate over hooking up _ how prevalent, how harmful _ was neatly displayed not long ago in a high school classroom in Maclean, Va. Nancy Schnog, who teaches a course in adolescence to 12th-graders, was discussing Stepp's findings.
"She hit the nail on the head," one girl said, according to Schnog. "She perfectly described our social climate." Many agreed, but an equally vocal faction argued the opposite. "This is totally overblown," said another girl. "Why do adults always stereotype our generation so negatively?"
At the University of Maryland, Robin Sawyer, who teaches a course on sexuality, finds Stepp's book pretty much on target.
"Men have always hooked up," says Sawyer. "What you are seeing now is a desire of women to act in a masculine way, without being judged a whore." He also finds that the "hookup" vocabulary softens the impact of the behavior. "'I hooked up with someone' sounds a lot better than 'I had oral sex with someone whose name I don't even know,'" says Sawyer, who is mentioned in Stepp's book.
"Can you generalize from a few women? If you can find a criticism, it is probably that," Sawyer said. "But her thesis is pretty accurate. This is not your grandparents' generation."
I dunno. I can't say I have ever encountered it. Maybe we just have very different experiences.
That being said, on balance I find Southern California women a lot more relaxed and nyc women to be more uptight, as a general principle. Then again, nyc is more uptight than SoCal all around, so there you go! ;-)
Whores aren't necessarily bad women. They walk a very unconventional path that leads most of them to problems, no question. There's a lot worse things a woman can do than sell her body, though I can't say I approve of the practice.
It seemed to be more the case in Hollywood, and the SF bay area. Both have statistically higher percentages of the population spring-loaded to the full auto pissed position.
There aren't that many well paying career paths for a victim our our public school system...
THis dates way before Bill Clinton. Come one.
"Sorry. But a whore is a whore is a whore."
Updated to contemporary kid speak: "A ho is a ho is a ho."
That's true. San Francisco is very much like a little Manhattan - a lot of professional people wrapped up the day's business. The 5:00 am shift at the equity trading firm upstairs in my building (men and women alike) routinely closes the elevator door in my face in their hurry to get to work - but I don't attribute it to malice or even rudeness. They are just stuck in their heads - same as the women who snap at men who open doors for them. Unless your male presence is sufficient to snap her out of her default reaction, that's what you'll get.
As for the mean women who don't appreciate holding a door or offering a seat, I'd honestly like to hear more about it from some guys who have encountered it. I'd like to hear details if anyone remembers them. Just curious, not a challenge in any way.
I think this is very true. As I said in an earlier post, don't ever apologize for being masculine and a man. That's not a license to be a boor or act rudely, of course. Nor is it a license to creep women out. Just be confident and masculine, positive and genuinely comfortable and happy.
A lot of things in life fall into place for a man when he just approaches life in a confident, masculine manner. Anything less just isn't really notable in a man - other men will look past him, and more than a few women can be quite vicious (at times) in letting a man now it.
That's unusual, as I have found women in SoCal to be very relaxed and approachable, as opposed to the terminally uptight women in nyc. I suppose our experiences are just different.
Yea, while I tend to find that level of self absorption unappealing, in itself it is seldom a sign of true malice.
Honestly, I just don't let uptight people into my life. Problem solved. :-)
Even during the time this type of behavior was at its peak, mostly I got a smile and/or a nod.
What almost invariably gets a laugh is when I hurry to step on the mat of an automatic door, look the woman in the eye, and say something like "And they say Chivalry is dead!"
Sometimes it will even start a short casual conversation.
There you go. I couldn't imagine it being all that bad. Most of it is how you carry yourself, and a portion of it has to do with whatever the woman brings to the table - good or bad.
Yep, true.
I suppose. People who know me know that I'm safe to vent on, perhaps some others are sensitive enough to know they can let off a little steam in my general direction?
When you are raising girls, all men are pigs until they've proved otherwise.
Your first comment was that these girls who hooked up were whores. There would be no whores without the whoremongers and pimps. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Men (as a group) are quick to blame women and slow to take responsibility, it's a fact of life. Men who claim differently are liars. Sorry you don't wish to acknowledge the truth about the origin of the gender wars.
Men wanted to be free of responsibility and now they don't like result, which is a lot of selfish irresponsible b!tches that act a lot like men.
Could be. My own personal demeanor is good natured, smiling, affable but with a low BS tolerance. People I know may ask my opinion now and then, but they don't vent in my direction.
It's probably because soon into the venting, I tell them to just go take care of business, and not just talk about it. :-)
I can be a gruff little fella, I admit.
After around 5 dates I walked her back to the dorm and said goodnight. I started to walk away when she grabbed me and kissed me passionately. She said that if I didn't kiss her that night she was going do it. After that our relationship became even more wonderful.
Those were great times falling in love with someone you really cared about!
LOL!
I do admit, I can be a gruff little fella. Gruff beyond my 39 years. :-)
Go get 'em!!
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