What the hook-up culture has done to women.

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I was an atheist at the time but I did not see the value of sleeping around risking disease and pregnancies.
They seem to think it’s worth all of that. I really don’t know why. They act as though, as soon as a girl, or boy for that matter, turn a certain age, they have to “do it.” It’s ridiculous. There is no age limit on virginity. There are plenty of women, and men, who remain virgins all of their lives. Sex is the least important thing in a life. No. There is something wrong, seriously wrong, with those who think everyone needs to be disgustingly obsessed with it. Really, it was designed by God to be shared between a man and a woman, within the sacredness of marriage. That’s it. I always say, Adam and Eve were good enough for each other, and they were all they had as the first husband and wife. I don’t feel a temporary physical pleasure is worth the negative after effects. It’s over rated. I, personally, would much rather light scented candles and relax in a nice warm bubblebath. There’s complete indulgence for you, and without the bad after effects. I AM a single woman, in my forties, and I don’t need sex. Why bother? I don’t even like it, hate it actually (long story of a past life I don’t want to be asked about), and I can certainly and would rather do without it.
 
They seem to think it’s worth all of that. I really don’t know why. They act as though, as soon as a girl, or boy for that matter, turn a certain age, they have to “do it.” It’s ridiculous. There is no age limit on virginity. There are plenty of women, and men, who remain virgins all of their lives. Sex is the least important thing in a life. No. There is something wrong, seriously wrong, with those who think everyone needs to be disgustingly obsessed with it. Really, it was designed by God to be shared between a man and a woman, within the sacredness of marriage. That’s it. I always say, Adam and Eve were good enough for each other, and they were all they had as the first husband and wife. I don’t feel a temporary physical pleasure is worth the negative after effects. It’s over rated. I, personally, would much rather light scented candles and relax in a nice warm bubblebath. There’s complete indulgence for you, and without the bad after effects. I AM a single woman, in my forties, and I don’t need sex. Why bother? I don’t even like it, hate it actually (long story of a past life I don’t want to be asked about), and I can certainly and would rather do without it.
I thought I was abnormal for thinking this way but as I grew older, I met a lot of people who shared my view.

I personally prefer good food, a cozy home and interesting books I could lose my mind in than meaningless sex with lots of random people.
 
Same here. It was unthinkable to my doctor that I was in my late teens and still a virgin.

I was an atheist at the time but I did not see the value of sleeping around risking disease and pregnancies. Face it, so called protection isn’t foolproof and neither do birth control pills work 100% of the time. It was just not prudent for me to sleep around.
I experienced the same thing. When I went for my first gynecological visit at 18, the doctor was absolutely shocked when I revealed I was not sexually active (I’m 29 now).

I didn’t have any moral views on it, but it didn’t seem smart to me to have sex with strangers, or acquaintances, or even friends, with the risks involved. At the very least, wait until you were in a committed enough relationship where you knew that if you got pregnant, the guy would stick around and most likely not be a deadbeat dad.
 
That is quite odd.

In my country, it’s pretty normal for late teens/early adults to be virgins. Not that we are so pure, but most of us generally assume everyone is a virgin unless they say something. People also tend to lose their virginity much later, I assume (excluding lgbt).
 
This is what boils my blood. 100% the woman’s fault. So what if sons act like this :rolleyes:
What you aren’t grasping is that women are the gatekeepers to sex. When females guard their virtue, men don’t get any unless they get married or pay for it. Men were always easily corrupted, but held in check by women who realized that their sexuality is valuable and they weren’t giving it away for free. They kept their would be promiscuous sisters in check with good old fashioned shame.

While “slut shaming” still exists, it is much less effective thanks to the hookup culture which feminism enabled. It remains, however, a phenomenon of women attacking other women. A study was recently done that showed 2/3 of slut shaming on social media is done by women. So while I don’t blame you for being angry, I respectfully suggest it is misguided.
 
:rolleyes:
What you aren’t grasping is that women are the gatekeepers to sex. When females guard their virtue, men don’t get any unless they get married or pay for it. Men were always easily corrupted, but held in check by women who realized that their sexuality is valuable and they weren’t giving it away for free. They kept their would be promiscuous sisters in check with good old fashioned shame.

While “slut shaming” still exists, it is much less effective thanks to the hookup culture which feminism enabled. It remains, however, a phenomenon of women attacking other women. A study was recently done that showed 2/3 of slut shaming on social media is done by women. So while I don’t blame you for being angry, I respectfully suggest it is misguided.
Determine what your values are and live them. That’s really all there is to it. No premarital sex is not one of my (or most people’s) values, so I don’t live it. But men who espouse that view and then blame their lack of virtue on the availability of sex are niether moral nor respectable. Personal responsibility and such. Besides, there’s a lot of overlap between the people who insist women are responsible for enforcing sexual morality on men and those who say that men are natural, god given leaders. That doesn’t sound like an effective, strong, or respectable leader to me.:rolleyes:

You’re absolutely right about slut shaming though. Men really don’t care if a woman is easy or not, but other women are vicious in the face of competition. Women who complain that “sluts” get all of the attention are the female counterparts to the men who whine that nice guys finish last. A lot of that rhetoric is driven by frustration and loneliness.
 
In the linked article, Anne Maloney does not seem to be engaged in any shaming. What she says is this:

“I continue to be struck by how unfree these students feel. Once the culture embraced non-marital sex and made it the norm, women who do not want to have casual sex often feel like outcasts, like weirdos. College is the last place where one wants to feel like an utter misfit; couple that with the fact that first year students are away from home for the first time—lonely, vulnerable, insecure—and you have the recipe for meaningless sexual encounters followed by anxiety and depression.”

The whole point of the hook up culture, especially on a college campus, is to enable casual sex, or at least foreplay, fueled by alcohol. The culture and the alcohol makes sex more likely and makes non-consensual sex more likely as well. At the same time, universities are insisting that all sex must be totally consensual from start to finish, but that everyone has a right to freely engage in sex. But what starts out as consensual can easily turn non-consensual, as is apparent from some of the anecdotes.
 
"It is no coincidence that the top two prescribed drugs at our state university’s health center are anti-depressants and the birth-control pill.

  1. College students have other problems aside from their love lives: problems with parents (check out all the threads on CAF from college-age young adults who feel miserable about being stuck living at home), money problems (those student loans you may have heard of), plus just the burden of dealing with academics on a much higher level than they have ever had to deal with, and then anxiety about getting a job to pay of those student loans. I remember lots of stress over deadlines and exams as an undergraduate, with occasional full-on despair, without there being any man problems involved. There are plenty of academic programs that are specifically designed to “weed out” large numbers of students early on. It’s stressful and demoralizing being “weeded out.” College is just HARD at times.
I ran into an extreme version of this in grad school–over-work, stress, lack of support from faculty, self-doubt, etc–even while enjoying a chaste romance and then otherwise blissful newlywed years with my new husband. I bailed out of my grad program with an MA, not the doctorate I had come for. Later on, I discovered that a lot of people find grad school miserable–it wasn’t just me. An internet buddy of mine refers to her grad school time as “the therapy years.”
  1. SAHMs aren’t amazingly happy as a group.
“According to a Gallup poll released last week, mothers who don’t work outside the home were far more likely to be depressed, with 28 percent reporting depression, compared with 17 percent of working mothers, and also 17 percent of working women who don’t have children. In fact, stay-at-home moms fare worse than these two groups by every emotional measure in the survey, reporting more anger, sadness, stress, and worry. They were more likely to describe themselves as struggling and suffering and less likely to see themselves as “thriving.””

slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/05/why_stay_at_home_mothers_are_more_depressed_than_working_moms_.html

The fact that a person is sad does not necessarily demonstrate that they are doing the wrong thing.

Also, it’s not hard to find SAHMs on anti-depressants:

"As I laid out our respective breakfasts, my inquisitive 4-year-old glanced at the pile of pills on my placemat.

"“What’s that one?” she asked, her mouth full of Cheerios.

"“Vitamin D. It helps keep me healthy, especially in winter.”

"“And that one?”

"“Fish oil. It’s good for my hair, my nails, and my brain.”

"“What about the little white one?” She pointed to the tiny anti-depressant. I paused.

"“That’s also for my brain. It … it helps me.”

““What I couldn’t say to my daughter – yet – was that that little anti-depressant has made it possible for me to love being a stay-at-home mother.””

babble.com/mom/stay-at-home-mom-dealing-with-depression/
 
Would fathers and mothers or brothers and sisters approve of their daughters behaving this way?

Then why does it happen? It happens because it’s a peer environment. Lord of the flies. There are no mature adults around. What kind of adult wants to be a gynecologist in a college town?:hmmm: What kind of adult owned the “easy in” bar? Who would want to live and teach in an environment where young adults are away from home for the first time and very impressionable?

Colleges are getting a reputation as places to be avoided by anyone who has self respect.

College is now a place of intolerance, anger, depression and immaturity.

I think by now everyone knows that colleges are the places where atheists, socialists and men of questionable character go to make a living.
Broad brush much?
 
What you aren’t grasping is that women are the gatekeepers to sex. When females guard their virtue, men don’t get any unless they get married or pay for it. Men were always easily corrupted, but held in check by women who realized that their sexuality is valuable and they weren’t giving it away for free. They kept their would be promiscuous sisters in check with good old fashioned shame.
Everybody of both sexes gets to be the gatekeeper of who gets to have sex with them.

Are you really asserting that men are incapable of ever saying no to sex? That’s both unfair to men and false, I think.

Also, come to think of it, when you say “men don’t get any unless they get married or pay for it,” you’re forgetting rapists and child molesters.
 
Aw…but Xan, that sounds an awful lot like responsibility.
Yep.

Imagine if instead of saying, “Lord, make me pure, but not yet!” St. Augustine had said, “Lord, I’ll be pure if all of the women get pure first!”

Not very impressive.
 
Yep.

Imagine if instead of saying, “Lord, make me pure, but not yet!” St. Augustine had said, “Lord, I’ll be pure if all of the women get pure first!”

Not very impressive.
The idea that we are slaves to whatever “everyone else” is doing is very juvenile. And it’s easily proven false with all of the non/former drinkers, smokers, and gamblers in the world. Something like 75% of Americans are overweight or obese, but what about the ones who aren’t, or who were but got healthy? Every vegetarian and vegan has to turn down what everyone else considers normal and even essential several times a day. And believe it or not, there are adult virgins (on purpose) out there too! We’re all adults here.

Besides, if you’re hoping for a devout, chaste man to build a Catholic family with, who are you looking for? The guy who made a commitment, avoided compromising situations, told dates and girlfriends ‘no’ upfront, and made his values known to potential romantic partners; or the guy who never even had a chance in the first place?
 
What you aren’t grasping is that women are the gatekeepers to sex. When females guard their virtue, men don’t get any unless they get married or pay for it. Men were always easily corrupted, but held in check by women who realized that their sexuality is valuable and they weren’t giving it away for free. They kept their would be promiscuous sisters in check with good old fashioned shame.

While “slut shaming” still exists, it is much less effective thanks to the hookup culture which feminism enabled. It remains, however, a phenomenon of women attacking other women. A study was recently done that showed 2/3 of slut shaming on social media is done by women. So while I don’t blame you for being angry, I respectfully suggest it is misguided.
I say bull excrement on this.

Really.

Both men and women sin if they have sex outside of marriage. Just because a woman says yes to sin does not mean a man should too. The sin is on both and the man does not get excused.

The Church has in no way excused men from the sin of fornication just because they had sex with prostitutes or with willing women.

Blaming women for men’s sin will not fly with God. It has not worked for Adam and I doubt it will work for men now.
 
To stay sane and to keep clear of the depths of ultimate despair, I have to believe that this “hook-up culture” business is in large part a media creation. To have been too young for the so-called “sexual recolution,” and then to have been too old for this … No. There is a level of cruelty past which I have to pretend–in order to remain non-suicidal–that God would not go.

And, truth be told, this is a subject that many muckraking journalists feel compelled to elaborate on past the point of all believability. I tend to believe (and as I’ve said, to keep body & soul together I HAVE to believe) that actual contemporary college life is pretty far from what the more salacious journalists would have us believe.
 
To stay sane and to keep clear of the depths of ultimate despair, I have to believe that this “hook-up culture” business is in large part a media creation. To have been too young for the so-called “sexual recolution,” and then to have been too old for this … No. There is a level of cruelty past which I have to pretend–in order to remain non-suicidal–that God would not go.

And, truth be told, this is a subject that many muckraking journalists feel compelled to elaborate on past the point of all believability. I tend to believe (and as I’ve said, to keep body & soul together I HAVE to believe) that actual contemporary college life is pretty far from what the more salacious journalists would have us believe.
I think that on a large enough college campus, you can find whatever you go looking for.
 
To stay sane and to keep clear of the depths of ultimate despair, I have to believe that this “hook-up culture” business is in large part a media creation. To have been too young for the so-called “sexual recolution,” and then to have been too old for this … No. There is a level of cruelty past which I have to pretend–in order to remain non-suicidal–that God would not go.

And, truth be told, this is a subject that many muckraking journalists feel compelled to elaborate on past the point of all believability. I tend to believe (and as I’ve said, to keep body & soul together I HAVE to believe) that actual contemporary college life is pretty far from what the more salacious journalists would have us believe.
I would hope for it to be only a media creation. Yet Ms. Maloney who wrote the article, seems to find it in place on her own college campus. Having gone to college long before a hook up culture was invented, I have no idea what the current situation might be. Maybe it’s getting better. I first heard of that type of college culture in reading “I am Charlotte Simmons,” by Tom Wolfe, an old guy like me. He says he researched the novel extensively. I passed the book on to a younger friend of mine, who in his high school and military years had been quite promiscuous. He never returned the book; he told me he had developed a sort of empathy with Charlotte, seeing, perhaps, things from a woman’s point of view that was new to him.
 
To stay sane and to keep clear of the depths of ultimate despair, I have to believe that this “hook-up culture” business is in large part a media creation. To have been too young for the so-called “sexual recolution,” and then to have been too old for this … No. There is a level of cruelty past which I have to pretend–in order to remain non-suicidal–that God would not go.

And, truth be told, this is a subject that many muckraking journalists feel compelled to elaborate on past the point of all believability. I tend to believe (and as I’ve said, to keep body & soul together I HAVE to believe) that actual contemporary college life is pretty far from what the more salacious journalists would have us believe.
I think it’s real but I think it’s contained within a certain subset of campus life. The vast majority of college students really are there to learn skills to do a job and move on with life.
 
They seem to think it’s worth all of that. I really don’t know why. They act as though, as soon as a girl, or boy for that matter, turn a certain age, they have to “do it.” It’s ridiculous. There is no age limit on virginity. There are plenty of women, and men, who remain virgins all of their lives. Sex is the least important thing in a life. No. There is something wrong, seriously wrong, with those who think everyone needs to be disgustingly obsessed with it. Really, it was designed by God to be shared between a man and a woman, within the sacredness of marriage. That’s it. I always say, Adam and Eve were good enough for each other, and they were all they had as the first husband and wife. I don’t feel a temporary physical pleasure is worth the negative after effects. It’s over rated. I, personally, would much rather light scented candles and relax in a nice warm bubblebath. There’s complete indulgence for you, and without the bad after effects. I AM a single woman, in my forties, and I don’t need sex. Why bother? I don’t even like it, hate it actually (long story of a past life I don’t want to be asked about), and I can certainly and would rather do without it.
All single people are called to chastity. As a media professional, I have watched as TV shows, movies and even songs have turned up the volume on “any kind of sex is OK, just do it.” There’s a price to pay, especially spiritually, when we sin against our own bodies.

Men and women need to wake up and realize, they don’t need to do what the world is doing. Momentary pleasure is not worth it. Men - respect women and create and earn trust and friendship. Women, do the same. Respect each other. Be willing to be a gift to each other. Love, true love, is what matters. Families are the building block of any society.

Best,
Ed
 
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