<p>I’m surprised no one started a thread on this article in the Times today:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/fashion/sex-on-campus-she-can-play-that-game-too.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/fashion/sex-on-campus-she-can-play-that-game-too.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp</a></p>
<p>Is this truly the norm, or just something written to get everyone all riled up?</p>
<p>
[quote]
These women said they saw building their r</p>
<p>raneck, when I was in college in the 80s many many people had one night stands on occasion. That’s what we called them. Nobody said “hooking up.” (was that invented on MTV?) So the idea behind “hooking up” is not new, and we aren’t cute for thinking it is. On the other hand, while casual sex was plentiful, so was dating one special person. Most of those who had one night stands also ended up in significant relationships. I married someone I met in college, and so did many many others I knew. The way it’s reported, it sounds like students don’t have real relationships anymore. That could be true, but it also could be bogus. It could just be in certain populations. But it does sound different and perhaps frightening to those of us who grew up a few decades ago.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is easily dismissed by a flippant remark about an MRS degree. We aren’t that shallow.</p>
<p>I firmly believe the whole “hook-up culture” is overblown. If you listen to many alarmists, college is just one giant orgy. IME (and that’s all I can draw off), steady dating is very common.</p>
<p>What I personally have seen is that people in hook up type situations will sometimes skip straight to a full blown relationship, skipping the more traditional dating process. I have also found that people keep relationships quiet until they are on a firm footing. It makes it difficult to see, from an outside perspective, who is actually in a relationship or not.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is that finding and getting married to one’s college/HS sweetheart is becoming less common due to increased educational/career requirements and differing perceptions of “early/late marriage” depending on generation, geographic region and/or subculture.</p>
<p>For instance, it seems early marriage and getting married to one’s college/HS sweethearts is much more common in rural areas…especially in the South and parts of the Midwest whereas it’s much less common in the urban NE. </p>
<p>Regarding the latter, it was actually strongly looked down upon in my HS and among many parents as a “distraction” from academics and preparing for one’s career. </p>
<p>Only HS classmates I knew who married early were folks from highly religious families where early marriages were common/accepted, did so due to getting/getting someone pregnant, or rushed into marriage for the wrong reasons. The ones in the latter two groups usually ended up getting divorced within 5-8 years. </p>
<p>From what I see with my and younger generations, people are still getting married…they’re just meeting SOs and getting married later than in past generations.</p>
<p>I agree with romani. Are there people in college whose primary mode of intimacy is casual sex? Of course. Are there plenty of people who are in steady, monogamous relationships? Of course. Are there plenty of people in between? Also yes.</p>
<p>The way I see it, the only thing you can really do, be it for yourself, for your friends, or for your children, is to know how to have sex and/or relationships safely (and I mean that physically but also emotionally). Most people I know have tried a casual hookup or two and found it emotionally unfulfilling, so they decided not to pursue any more. I think the whole scare about how somehow (presumably heterosexual) young college-aged women are only buying into the hookup culture because it’s their only option is patently ridiculous and has been completely unsupported by all of my friends’ experiences.</p>
<p>College men want to have casual sex, and women want romance, right? Increasingly, however, women are the ones looking to hook up.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/fashion/sex-on-campus-she-can-play-that-game-too.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/fashion/sex-on-campus-she-can-play-that-game-too.html</a></p>
<p>I just read that in the Paper; thanks for posting. Very depressing article, I think. My niece was a student at Penn recently. I was surprised at the enormous amount or partying at an Ivy League school. I never thought about some of the underlying reasons for all that partying at the time.</p>
<p>I think it’s a great thing.</p>
<p>As I said on the other forum with this, I think it’s over-blown, and frankly- who cares! </p>
<p>It’s seriously like we’re surprised that <em>gasp</em> women have a sex drive, too!</p>
<p>Seriously, we- as a nation- care wayyyy too much about what goes on in a woman’s vagina.</p>
<p>ETA: I’ve also (personally) found it pretty rare that people who wanted a relationship were unable to find one. College is not the orgy that alarmists make it out to be.</p>
<p>The age of female maturation has dropped from 16 to 13 in the past 100 years, and the average age of (first) marriage has risen from 21 to 27. So the periods for non-marital sex has increased from five years to 14 years.</p>
<p>What do you expect women to do during that period?</p>
<p>I think people’s sex lives are their business, and I don’t care who is or isn’t hooking up</p>
<p>Articles like this, as a father of daughters, make me see how society continues to think about women as though they’re lesser creatures. I call it the “how she looks” syndrome. Have you ever watched a talk show where a male guest is asked about how he chose his suit and who did his hair? Ever seen or read a discussion of how the male news readers look - often really bad - in those suits and ugly ties? </p>
<p>The underlying social premise in the NYT piece is that a woman’s sexuality is somehow more “precious”.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think Lergnom makes good points. I think this has been true for centuries and across cultures. Could it be a fundamental principal of evolution?</p>
<p>*Western cultures. </p>
<p>There are plenty where a woman’s sexuality is not somehow more “precious” as we define it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Only on the part of males.</p>
<p>
</a></p>
<p>impossible, multiple CC posters tell me that men are single handedly causing people to “hook up”</p>
<p>I don’t know how it is in general. At Penn, it seems the dynamics is driven by men and women adapting to it. I would applaud if it is more of a women’s choice.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If they are truly strong and independent, they should stick to their gun and demand the kind of relationship they want rather than stop expecting and let guys decide.</p>
<p>It’s not that women’s sexuality is more precious. Women MAY seek out emotional connection more than men. IF that’s the case, hooking up shortchanges women not strengthens them. Truly independent women should know and pursue what they want. This article and the article/letter by a Yale senior from a few months ago seem to expose women assuming doing what men do is liberation. A bit stupid?</p>
<p>My take on this was negative and sad for both genders. I hope these young people figure it out eventually. </p>
<p>It seems like some people who do what it takes to get into these schools haven’t spend enough time just hanging out with friends or dating and learning that loving someone means putting their interests ahead of your own. When two people do that for each other, you have a loving relationship. </p>
<p>If you’ve spent your whole life achieving to get to the next level, and you view relationships from the point of view of time management or economics, then you really haven’t spent any time on love part . </p>
<p>Loving is a learned skill. Erich Fromm wrote a great book on the subject.</p>