<p>Very interesting NYT piece. </p>
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<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/opinion/13blow.html?_r=1&em]Link[/url”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/opinion/13blow.html?_r=1&em]Link[/url</a>]</p>
<p>That’s sad… :(</p>
<p>Also from the article
And it was ever thus.</p>
<p>Why do the women put up with this “new model”?</p>
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<p>The women are the ones driving it.</p>
<p>^^ Many of the girls not only “put up” with it, they like it, or, initiate it. I don’t really get it, but I’ve read enough and talked to enough kids to know it’s true.</p>
<p>OK, I’ll rephrase!</p>
<p>Why do the women put up with, or even initiate, this “new model”?</p>
<p>I never really dated much even way back when, and none of my friends did either, in the way that I keep hearing about in magazines, TV shows, etc, where one person (usually the man), calls the woman and arranges an outing. It was all much more casual, much like the way “hooking up” is described here. Either that, or after some time as friends, you “got together”. We scoffed at the idea of formal dates, like it was our parents’ generation thing. This “new model” is at least not hypocritical, with the man paying for everything and all that coyness around sex. It doesn’t help women though, if men don’t behave better, and it sounds like they aren’t.</p>
<p>I meant, This “new model” is at least not hypocritical, like the old model of the man paying for everything and all that coyness around sex. Sorry.</p>
<p>Seems like more of a semantic shift than a real change in behavior. Does it really matter if you call it hanging out instead of dating?</p>
<p>Bemoaning the end of dating seems like a cover for moralizing about sex. Physicality is part of getting to know someone in a romantic and sexual relationship, so why not explore things early on as long as you’re safe about it? The first time I went out with my current girlfriend, we went to a concert with a friend of hers and then I stayed over at her place. Were we hanging out, on a date, or hooking up? Why does it matter? Is it better to say we had sex on the first date, or that it was a hookup? The latter doesn’t carry nearly as much judgmental BS for me as the former, so maybe that’s why the term is popular. If you had asked me a few years ago when I was 17 whether I ever dated, I would have said no, but I was frequently hanging out with someone I then started hooking up with… and then we were in a relationship for two years. How is that different from the classic model?</p>
<p>To me, dating conjures images of awkward outings full of cultural baggage about who pays, where you go, what you do, and god forbid you go “too far” too soon. I don’t see the point. A stilted formal system like that doesn’t really seem like the best way to start a healthy relationship or get to know one another.</p>
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<p>I’d like to see numbers. What percentage of college students hook up on gender balanced campuses vrs. campuses w/more females?</p>
<p>I don’t understand why girls want this, either. Is it a grotesque popularity contest?</p>
<p>A lot of women still don’t put up with this behavior.</p>
<p>Pseudonym, the reason some people have a problem with your model for “dating” is because some people think sex should come after you get to know someone and decide if you even like them. Your model seems to be have sex while you get to know someone, and if you end up liking them, that’s cool. </p>
<p>The problem is that this works great for men, but for women, not so much. And yes I know, not all women have a problem with this, but I think some women go along with it because they’ve been told that this is supposed to be normal. I think for a lot of young women, this isn’t really what they want to do, but they are made to feel that there is something wrong with them if they have a problem with random hookups.</p>
<p>I actually agree with Pseudonym that there is more of a semantic difference than real one wrt actual relationships.</p>
<p>Yes, “hanging out” might have replaced “dating”. I think it might be a good thing. I think all the formalities of the boy being a “gentleman”, taking the girl out, paying for dinner, etc. did not necessarily lead to a healthier power equilibrium than getting to know each other while hanging out in a group of friends. And if a relationship becomes physical soon after the couple starts to spend some time alone together, and the girl does not get labeled as a “slut” as a result, that’s also a positive…</p>
<p>I am not a proponent of random hookups or one-night stands at all. I think it is potentially equally damaging for both parties involved. But a healthy trusting relationship can develop without following the traditional courting rituals.</p>
<p>My D1 dates - movies, dinners, with no strings attached. She doesn’t casually meet with up with anybody at parties, or have boys text her to meet at bars last minute. She doesn’t feel obligated to be intimate with anyone when she is out with them. In high school and college her reputation quickly got around, so if anyone is looking for a quick hook up she wouldn’t be high on their list. It is what she wanted and it works for her. It is only recently that she’s had a steady boyfriend.</p>
<p>Pseudonym pretty much sums it up. </p>
<p>The collapse of advanced planning, as mentioned in the article, is significant. Cell phones and IM are obvious factors here, but it seems to me that a busy upbringing filled with scheduled activities has also cut into the need for young people to be proactive about making plans. </p>
<p>Dating, in the formal sense, was already rare in my high school during the mid-1970’s. iI think the main reason was that it was considered uncool; a vestige of the establishment and our parents’ generation. Hooking up wasn’t called hooking up back then, but I remember trying to explain the whole scene to my confused mother who believed in her generation’s dating paradigm. </p>
<p>Imagine the hooking-up culture in the mid-1970’s: no cell phones, no condoms if the girl was on birth control, drinking age 18 in CT, and large keg parties most weekends in my suburban town. Pre-HIV awareness, pre-safe sex, pre-MADD. One big difference I see between then and now is back then, the guys called the shots, and my impression now is that the young women are in charge. </p>
<p>I read something about the dating culture at Princeton a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly, the students were quoted as saying they didn’t have time for formal dates. They were busy with their school stuff and their activities and it was inconvenient to try to align schedules with a prospective date in advance. Hooking up was considered to be convenient and efficient, with no time-consuming commitments to deal with afterwards. (And I don’t mean to imply that this sentiment existed only at this institution; the article was specifically about Princeton.)</p>
<p>It’s interesting that we have time for the individual and the group, but not for the couple. I wonder if there is a parallel with the present state of many marriages.</p>
<p>And I agree that kids have been brainwashed that this all normal and as it should be. Many aspects of the hook-up culture are emotionally unhealthy. Good points, nngmm.</p>
<p>I agree that all this seems like more of a semantic shift than a real change in behavior. This is nothing that wasn’t going on when most of us were in college. I do agree that there is less advance planning than there used to be. No more call by Wednesday night to make plans for Saturday, Tuesday for Friday type of thing, exception being if there’s someone at a distance you want to see.</p>
<p>So there is no more casual sex on campus today than there was twenty or thirty years ago?</p>
<p>Somehow young men have conned many young women into becoming unpaid porn stars. From the tarty outfits to the waxing to the sex–except now they give it away without even getting two good dinners out of it. Dumb</p>
<p>I have a daughter and a son, so I’ve seen both sides of this. I really think you need to give the girls a lot more credit for this behavior. I remember when my son was in 7th grade. I consider myself pretty tuned in- but the content of messages from girls I saw was absolutely shocking. These boys were WAY behind the girls in their development. No one was being “conned”…</p>