<p>I was definitively off the market by 1980, and at least in my world “dating” was a pretty anachronistic term then. What’s more, as applied to anyone out of high school it certainly implied sex, at least if you said that two people were “dating”. Simply “going on a date” would have been ambiguous. But that didn’t happen much – I could probably count the number of “first dates” I had on my fingers, and lots of those were artificial situations like someone’s prom. It would be wrong to say that I expected girls to “put out” on the first date if they expected a second; it would be correct to say that after high school I can’t remember ever having sex with someone who didn’t have sex with me at the first meaningful opportunity. Girls made up their minds pretty quickly, in my experience, and didn’t change them, at least not without lots and lots of water going under the bridge.</p>
<p>I was still very much and very active in the market in 1980 (married years later at 27), and I had plenty of dates, which I and most people I knew still called “dates;” i.e., a man whom I met called me up, asked me to dinner, picked me up and brought me home. No sex involved on dates. In fact, when one began a romantic (sexual) relationship with a man, getting together with him then stopped being referred to as “dating.”</p>
<p>Actually divorce is initiated by the female.</p>
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<p>Having been at the University of Texas Austin in 1970, I can’t agree that there was (or is) a regional difference in “that” behavior. At least after HS (1968), the availability of the Pill brought about a spectrum of choices concerning “that behavior.”</p>
<p>Isn’t the “lonely” senior female at least in part due to the fact that in the college years as a generalization guys look down in age for females and females look up in age?</p>
<p>Well, regional can refer to other parts of the world too. We have a lot of Chinese and Indian immigrants with more traditional values. I knew a girl from one of the Caribbean island and she was dating a friend of mine (US) and he had had sex before while she hadn’t and she couldn’t get over it. She married someone from home. I thought that they made a great couple and things were working out until they talked about “it”. I didn’t know that the Caribbean Islands were so conservative in that area.</p>
<p>I had heard that the reason women file more often than men is because it is used as a negotiating point in divorce proceedings. The husband lets the wife file because it makes her “look” better (like he was the wrongdoer of the couple).</p>
<p>Bay-- with NY adopting “no fault” in 2010, now all 50 states have “no fault” divorces.
Wrongdoing is not required.</p>
<p>At least inTexas, only something less than 10% of divorces involve anything but an uncontested (no fault) divorce. But, the “contested” divorces seem to cluster in the higher SES couples. In my experience, a large percentage of these are contested over property issues since Texas is a community property state.</p>
<p>I question that the 90% female filing among college educated couples is by negotiated agreement to let either party look better.</p>
<p>I find this insistence that nothing has changed to be rather odd. </p>
<p>I graduated high school in 1986. The AIDS scare, reality, was just starting. Nobody knew, at that time, what was happening, only that it was sexually transmitted and that people were dying. Nobody knew about safer sex then, either.</p>
<p>We were not all falling into bed at the time. I also lost several very good friends to AIDS, before the cocktail became available, and I don’t think casual sex is some innocuous danger free pastime to be engaged in in a bathroom anymore than I think experimenting with marijuana is the same as smoking heroin.</p>
<p>I taught my daughters to make sure they and their sex partners were tested BEFORE they engaged in safer sex in the context of a relationship. The “receive” in penetration is at a much higher risk, even in the context of safer sex, than is the penetrator.</p>
<p>This is also just a scientific reality and not a “moral” or religious position.</p>
<p>Look, it is also true that college educated women benefit tremendously by putting off marriage until they are in their 30s and they are the only demographic that benefits from this. Economically and in other ways all other demographics lose when women wait to marry to their thirties. </p>
<p>So, it’s not as if I’m advocating virginity til marriage or early marriage. I am simply advocating responsible sex practices. It doesn’t make you “cool” to put yourself at risk unneccesarily, imho. But, when you are raised by hippies, you don’t see this stuff as particularly “cool” anyway. Just childish and uninformed.</p>
<p>Where were these girls when I was in college? Part of going to a place with a 15% female population (25% by weight) is that they hold all the power.</p>
<p>As a side note, it’s time to have another “no glove, no love” talk with the kiddos. The wife has been seeing a spike in the herpes/HPV/chlamydia rates in sexually active HS and college age kids.</p>
<p>It is weird hearing the older crowd making sweeping generalizations about my generation that, in my social circle, I know to be patently untrue. I don’t think I know anyone who thinks they need to “put out” on a first date in order to get a second, or who think “having sex” and “dating” are the same thing-- HAVING SEX is having sex, dating is just dating, now in this day and age you might also be having sex with someone you are just dating, which I think is newer, but that doesn’t mean that’s all “dating” entails. I think for many people one takes the place of the other for a period of time, but I really think that’s a phase that passes from what I have witnessed in my peers.</p>
<p>In my experience, a lot of people get to college and start making proclaimations that our generation doesn’t date and times have changed and blah blah blah, and by the time they get to the end of college, or graduate and start in the work world, suddenly dating makes a comeback. I think dating-- TRULY dating-- is less popular with the college crowd these days as they just have other focuses at that time, but I don’t think it’s gone away altogether and I don’t think young people at large are running around having sex with everybody they have dinner with with no expectation of judgment, from themselves or others. I DO think that the fact that college kids are so focused on school and career and less on marriage until later years means there may be fewer dating prospects for college girls, especially the seniors who no longer have older boys to date-- but that is a temporary condition that I think largely disappears for most within a year or two of graduating.</p>
<p>I am nearing 25 and I see my friends largely splitting into two distinct groups-- those of us who are settling down and are no longer partying or hooking up, and those of us that still are. The couple girls I know that are still partying and hooking up are lonely and lost and confused and don’t know what to do with themselves. I think they are growing out of this behavior and don’t know what to grow into now instead. I really think that while there have been some cultural shifts, it is not nearly as large of a change as what we are talking about here.</p>
Perhaps the shift is a timing shift–as you suggest, people are delaying when they begin to seriously look for a mate until they are out of school. This may make a lot of sense, since it reduces the risk of long-distance relationships.</p>
<p>There are a lot of different experiences for sure. In my office, sometimes an engineer goes to India for several weeks to meet the person that their parents have picked for a pre-arranged marriage. Not a lot of talk on CC about that approach.</p>
<p>As I have said, my daughters have never encountered any difficulty finding young men who are interested in dating (and by dating, I mean dating) or relationships.</p>
<p>The CDC stats for new HIV infections for the total white heterosexual population in the US in 2010 disclose that there were 620 males and 1300 females. According to the 2010 census there are 196,000,000 non hispanic/latino whites in the US. Do the math. </p>
<p>With the use of condoms, heterosexual sex is not statistically a high risk activity in 2013. More US males die each year from unintentional drowning.</p>
<p>I stressed mutual “sexual safety,” but whether or not to engage in consensual sex is largely a matter of personal choice (which can be a matter of moral, religious or many other factors).</p>
<p>I agree, 07, but if you look at the APA study I posted a while back, those engaging in “hook ups” which include penetration are only using condoms 46% of the time. Latex condoms are not effective when not used.</p>
<p>poetgrl-- needless to say the APA spot lights the connection between alcohol/drug use and not using condoms. My agenda of “sexual safety” always includes being sober/straight when having sex.</p>
<p>In any event, if a person has to be trashed to have sex, in or out of a relationship including marriage, that person just might have a couple of problems.</p>
<p>Yup, glad I didn’t post today’s thoughts before Ema joined us. Glad to hear from her.</p>
<p>We’re not all exactly the same age here. I was in college before the AIDS mess. And etc. In the large group I was closest to, most of the women were not on regular b/c, proclaimed they weren’t going to have sex with anyone-- and went ahead and did, routinely enough. I once counted the number who’d had abortions. This has never been easy.</p>
<p>But I want to point out that my mother had sex before marriage and my grandmother had to push up her own wedding date. C’mon, these things have been happening. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean I believe gals should agree at each opportunity. But think about how our ideas, responses, our protectiveness- or the the certainty women mostly want relationships, notions of certain emotional distress, etc-- all take us back to a time when women were limited in their options (dare I say, purposely?) Possessions or extensions. Not equals or comparable. The wording paints women back into a corner. Think about it.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago, we were talking about Sheryl Sandberg. Look at us now. Which is it going to be?</p>
<p>There are plenty of options between hookups and being limited in their options.</p>
<p>I don’t think being Sheryl Sandberg means having indiscriminate sex without a relationship. I’m not sure how those two are being put together by you, but she doesn’t have a chapter, “The Importance of Hooking Up with Guys” in her book.</p>
<p>I’m not one defining “hookup generation” as promiscuity, picking up strangers and/or unsafe sex. I think those are left-field insertions here. Extreme depictions that make it hard to negotiate the discussion. </p>
<p>Does a woman get to decide whether she wants to have sex- or not? Is she constrained to certain circumstances which some here think are ok? Does that make sense?</p>
<p>Do we still perceive things, frame them, in “traditional” ways that allow men to make choices, restrict women to the nurturer, monogamous roles? “She needs permanence” or “She’s more liable to get hurt” or “He needs/wants to ‘respect’ her” are not necessarily reflective of where many women are, today. </p>
<p>In that respect, then there’s Sandberg telling them to lean in. Fly, don’t be artificially (including culturally) constrained. -NOT have wanton sex in bars with no protection. Not promiscuity. Not trading sex for popularity or to fill some emotional void. That’s the false distinction.</p>