CarrieT Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Interesting article here - clickety. Guess what - "Not only are more college students hooking up -- kissing, making out and having sex -- but these experiences often leave them feeling empty, sad and regretful." No surprise; if only they could be taught as much before making the mistakes they will regret. 2
Pompeii Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Is this really anything new? I always hear all these "boomers" talk about how my generation thinks that they reinvented the wheel on sex and sexual practices. As a current college student, I've seen and felt the effects firsthand. Everybody wants to hookup. It makes them seem liberated, empowered, and a whole menagerie of other powerful cliches. If you're not participating in it, you feel worthless, broken, defective, etc. It makes you wonder why you're not attractive. I think the hookup culture does far more "damage" to girls than guys. Most of the guy friends I know that hookup with girls seem to be more emotionally stable than the girls I know that actively do it. Maybe it has to do with the intended outcome. As a whole, I see guys using hooking up as a way to feel more powerful, more masculine. As a whole, I see girls using hooking up as a way to attempt to snare a guy into a relationship or a fwb situation. Still, I don't see much of any way out of this. Traditional courtship is pretty much dead a lot of guys follow the "why buy the cow when you get the milk for free philosophy". It's pretty much a race to the bottom as a whole for society. Hooking up has made things very obfuscated when it comes to exclusivity and "dating". Is hooking up "dating"? Or something else? It really sucks feeling this huge pressure to be sexually experienced. It's just not something that I can step up to. 3
HoneyBadgerDontCare Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 I still pissed that I missed out on it. Just go to a bar.
Robert Z Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Interesting article here - clickety. Guess what - "Not only are more college students hooking up -- kissing, making out and having sex -- but these experiences often leave them feeling empty, sad and regretful." No surprise; if only they could be taught as much before making the mistakes they will regret. Well, if we can take it to mean anything at all. Freitas's book is partially based on the results of an earlier Internet survey she conducted of 2,500 U.S. college students at secular public, secular private and Catholic universities. Of the 557 male and female students who responded to a question asking how they felt the morning after a hookup, 41% of those expressed sadness, regret and ambivalence. The problem, contends Freitas, is a culture that overwhelmingly pressures young men and women to have meaningless hookups -- even though they might not enjoy it. Young adults and a hookup culture - CNN.com Born in Rhode Island, Donna received her B.A. in philosophy and Spanish from Georgetown University and her Ph.D. in religion from Catholic University. Donna Freitas | Authors | Macmillan So we have an unscientific survey taken by a nonscientist with a degree in religion, and taken among students likely prone to guilt complexes due to their upbringing. I'm afraid that in scientific terms, this is nothing but gossip.
USMCHokie Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Just go to a bar. I've never had much luck at those establishments.
fortyninethousand322 Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Never heard of the hookup culture, except for internet articles about it. Never experienced it, never saw it. 1
carhill Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 No surprise. I think I figured that out at 12 or 13, back in the early 70's. The older kids were into 'free love', along with some pretty interesting drugs. What's old is new again, save for the back seat at the drive-in. That's pretty much dead. 3
ImperfectionisBeauty Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Why is that news?? Did you never hook up as a college aged person?? I highly doubt that.
carhill Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Personally, I was aware it (free love) went on from a young age but never participated. Didn't do drugs/alcohol either. Missed out on a lot of, well, stuff. No regrets though. Life is good.
USMCHokie Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Why is that news?? Did you never hook up as a college aged person?? I highly doubt that. I did not. 2
fortyninethousand322 Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Why is that news?? Did you never hook up as a college aged person?? I highly doubt that. I did not. Nor I. Not sure if I should be happy about that or extremely displeased. Looking at it now, I probably should have hooked up at least 5-7 times. Assuming anyone was interested, which I doubt they were. Not hooking up often means you're damaged goods... 1
ImperfectionisBeauty Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Nor I. Not sure if I should be happy about that or extremely displeased. Looking at it now, I probably should have hooked up at least 5-7 times. Assuming anyone was interested, which I doubt they were. Not hooking up often means you're damaged goods... I mean I didn't hook up until I was 21 but once I started I didn't stop.. I mean I guess I understand because I know I've felt bad and sad and empty but I don't think that's news worthy lol
USMCHokie Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Not hooking up often means you're damaged goods... My 20's would have been vastly different, and I would have turned out differently than I am now. 2
fortyninethousand322 Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 I mean I didn't hook up until I was 21 but once I started I didn't stop.. I mean I guess I understand because I know I've felt bad and sad and empty but I don't think that's news worthy lol Well I think that's the norm, people hooking up. Not hooking up is usually seen as weird and shameful...
fortyninethousand322 Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 My 20's would have been vastly different, and I would have turned out differently than I am now. You and I both...
USMCHokie Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Well I think that's the norm, people hooking up. Not hooking up is usually seen as weird and shameful... Because it reflects the perception of a lack of desirability, i.e., no one wants to hook up with you. 2
Pompeii Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Because it reflects the perception of a lack of desirability, i.e., no one wants to hook up with you. That's the one feeling I hate.
DannyMason Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Never heard of the hookup culture, except for internet articles about it. Never experienced it, never saw it. I can say the same and I've been in college for almost 8 years. If I didn't occasionally pass the odd used condom discarded along the sidewalk or in the parking lot, I'd never have reason to believe anyone at my school is having sex at all.
Els Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 Never had a casual hookup, never regretted not hooking up. Interestingly, that correlates with the premise of the OP. FWIW, I don't think the OP is saying that casual sex is wrong - just that she wishes teens had better sexual education so that they could make informed choices about sex. I could be wrong. 1
MissBee Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 I never did subscribe to the "hook up" culture in college...and I was in college not that long ago. People did. People talked about walks of shame and the like...but it just didn't appeal to me. I think I may have kissed a guy on the first night of meeting and maybe he copped a feel...but to this day I have yet to meet someone and have sex with them upon first meeting and certainly haven't participated in an entire culture of it. My roommate however does this, and I honestly think it's a cultural thing as well. It's odd, seems like it's the in thing that she does and all her friends do it, but it was news to me. She is also very insecure and so are all of her friends and although they are in their twenties and are professional students at an ivy league school, it's like they still subscribe to these "popular girl" high school mentalities that are really juvenile. Sometimes when American women, esp, are saying they feel all liberated sexually, I'm like are you really? Is having sex with randoms who you don't know from a can of paint who often objectify you liberating? I'm not sure how...but alright. Most of the people I know hooking up, like my roommate, seem regretful about it or have horror stories or it's just this emptiness of them hooking up with people they can't even keep count of every weekend and trying to attach some kind of worthiness to it...and to what end? Most of them actually want boyfriends but all they get are one night stands smh. I don't think one needs to be in a relationship to have sex. But, I guess I don't find it enjoyable to practice hooking up. I'm far too paranoid about diseases and unplanned pregnancy and just too picky anyway to do it, but to each her own. 2
USMCHokie Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 ...and trying to attach some kind of worthiness to it...and to what end? It's an effort to gain social standing. By being the person who "hooks up," you gain status amongst peers. At a young age, people don't really have any way of differentiating themselves through accomplishment, so sex is often an easy and tangible way of assigning "social worth" to someone.
MissBee Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 It's an effort to gain social standing. By being the person who "hooks up," you gain status amongst peers. At a young age, people don't really have any way of differentiating themselves through accomplishment, so sex is often an easy and tangible way of assigning "social worth" to someone. Smh. Well it's a flawed plan. As most of these hook up girls I know, like my roommate, hook up then worry about if everyone will think they are wh*res or not. The drama I see her go through, hooking up then wondering if people are talking really doesn't seem to help with social standing. Anyway, only certain kinds of "young people" do this. By and large, it seems those with their heads screwed on find other ways to gain social standing. This also only helps guys frankly, as for girls, more often than not the more hooks up they do doesn't lead to greater social standing but often backfires into them being considered skanky.
USMCHokie Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 This also only helps guys frankly, as for girls, more often than not the more hooks up they do doesn't lead to greater social standing but often backfires into them being considered skanky. Agreed. It greatly enhances the social standing of men while women tend to be used as the means to that end. But for women, that "social standing" comes in the form of being showered with attention. And attention from bad people is better than no attention at all...
Emilia Posted May 17, 2013 Posted May 17, 2013 My 20's would have been vastly different, and I would have turned out differently than I am now. It's not too late. I went a bit crazy in my early 30s after my divorce as I had spent almost all of my 20s married. It was great fun. Who says you can only go crazy in college. Or get external validation at college. 1
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