The Hook-Up Culture and Why It's Damaging

Recently, I've been reading the book Unhooked by Laura Sessions Stepp.

Essentially, it breaks down all the societal issues we have discussed on various and sundry other blogs, primarily the ways in which a hyper-sexual society combined with a perverse corruption of first-wave feminism have created massive confusion for young women.

"Hooking-up", as defined by Stepp, is the practice of having some sort of intimate contact with the opposite sex in lieu of anything resembling a romantic relationship. My only criticism of the text is that it focuses narrowly, mostly on upper-middle class young heterosexual females who attend exclusively private schools. She does pull in one example from the black community, to her credit.

And her primary thesis is that today's children are so driven by their parents to succeed; that so many parents micromanage their children's lives that they find themselves utterly without the time, nor the inclination for love. They separate love from sex, or at least try to, and many fail miserably.

Towards the tail end of the book, Stepp discusses what mothers, daughters, sons, brothers, and all of us can do to end this tailspin that young girls (16-20 year old demographic) can do to avoid the confusion that seems to plague them.

I quote directly and add my own insights.

1. A guy can make you feel valuable, but it's not the guy that makes you feel valuable, rather it's yourself. You are in charge of your own life and you and only you can make yourself feel as though you have self-worth
2. Don't let men have what you've got until you, and they, know who you are.
3. Explore your feminine side beyond the black lace bra. Don't be afraid of conventional feminine norms like having the door opened for you.
   
4. Admit it, the bar scene is for men. You'll never meet anyone decent at a club
5. Love won't change you; it will just make you more of who you are. This is what I take potential resonance with, since we seem to teach our young women that love is this life changing (which it is) experience, but we seem to have drifted away from the concept of delayed gratification. Love is not a snap of the fingers; it takes time and work and effort.
6. The past is prologue. Let it go. We could all use a dose of that.
7. Breaking up is hard to do--but instructive. We seem to have inundated our young girls of a fear of breaking up, realizing that pain within a constructive means is very instructive, rather than destructive.
8. Even with a good guy, you'll still need friends. We all need a support network beyond our primary partner.
9. Think erotic, rather than pornographic. You don't need to perform a simulated sex act to get a decent man, indeed, that's probably the way to find the worst sort of man for you.
10. Sex always has meaning, even when it is "meaningless". That more than anything is what we have desensitized our youth through our sex-pervasive culture, particular in the media.

Stepp continues forward for this point onward, but her points are made well and well taken. I hope the next generation will discover the fine art of romancing, rather than going for the cheap theatrics of being with the next person just to not have to be alone.