Comments on: Thoughts on the “hookup culture,” or what I learned from my high school diary

By: Anelle

Anelle — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:35:00 +0000

I just spent the day reading all of these different essays on hookinup and i like yours a lot because u shot things straight and didn’t try to place moral judgement either way. Another good one I read is :
http://thosegirlsarewild.com/2010/03/casual-sex-hooking-up-f-buddies-etc/

because it doesn’t just say what’s right or wrong it says how to do casual sex right

I really hated: http://somesectionsofthemiddleclass.blogspot.com/2010/02/in-which-rachel-simmons-fucks-up-but.html
because it was so rude to rachel who wasn’t trying to be rude to anyone to begin with.

By: The Hook-Up Culture & Honesty

The Hook-Up Culture & Honesty — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:38:54 +0000

[...] Where this gets sticky is in the conditioning on how to feel about hook-ups and boyfriends. Girl-Drive sums this up beautifully in her post on the matter “If we’re told that casual sex is [...]

By: Robin Shapiro

Robin Shapiro — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:30:24 +0000

Great essay! I’m 54, was committed to a jerk in high school, had open relationships, some casual and some not until I wanted a monogamous marriage in my 30′s, and have had a great marriage for 18 years.
Communication is the key. Knowing what you want and seeking that, up front, worked for me. Sometimes it was sex. Sometimes it was friendship with sex. And when I was ready for exclusivity, I found a man who said up front that he wanted a long term relationship.
As a therapist, I’ve met teen-aged boys who wanted serious girlfriends and girls who didn’t want a serious boyfriend. I caution all dating people that their hearts often follow their “parts”, so be careful who you have sex with. And I’ve told girls that they, who have more capacity for attachment, may want more from a guy who is just a sex-buddy. If you want more, start with that on the table. At any age.

By: Esau

Esau — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:17:04 +0000

Nona, be careful what you wish for. If a boy’s authority figures are telling him one thing, and the girls around him are effectively telling him the opposite, then the result can be very, very bad for everyone, innocent bystanders included.

You might wish for boy’s authority figures — parents, coaches, rabbis, etc. — to try to instill a value like “treat girls well and with respect” or even “try to be honest and communicate” in their young charges. However, any boy who follows those values at a young age, say 14-22, and who doesn’t happen to be handsome, popular or athletic, will almost certainly find, in modern America, that treating girls with respect and trying to be honest and communicative will _not_ help him get laid; and, worse, he will sooner or later figure out that following these values is hurting his chances for having anything like a normal life (for any young man, a normal life includes at least some sex).

Past this point, once he makes the realization that he’s been lied to and that following the rules has actually degraded his life, many things can happen and very few of them will be good. He has a very good chance to become resentful, bitter, and to some extent misogynistic. He may learn how to disguise his bitterness and become outwardly charming, but with misogyny still underneath he could then be very dangerous. He could decide to just drop out of the whole corrupt (as he’s experienced it) system, or become fodder for one or another kind of cult (PUA’s, Republicans, etc.). I could go on, but the list is not good, not good, not good.

So, please be careful in what you wish for. If girls and young women, even of high-school age, are rewarding one kind of behavior in boys, then you DO NOT want authority to tell those boys that the path to a good life is through a different, incompatible behavior. Only disaster and heartache will follow from that kind of betrayal of trust.

By: Nona

Nona — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:15:52 +0000

@Esau–to be clear, I just meant that *in high school* I went for those kind of boys. The guy I’m with now is pretty opposite from that noncommittal, bad-boy prototype. And I don’t think high school girls are the ones responsible for making guys treat girls like human beings (aside from being honest with themselves, but that comes with emotional maturity, as I said in the post). I think parents/teachers/mentors are responsible for not winking at them in that “boys will be boys” way and instead emphasizing communication and honesty.

By: Esau

Esau — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:44:00 +0000

” I didn’t even mention that, which is that so many girls (including me) specifically go for the guys who don’t want commitment. ”

I think it’s very gutsy for you to be able to admit this out in public (though you might find yourself being drummed out of the feminist corps for doing so). Be aware, though, that you’re somewhat contradicting yourself from earlier, where you wrote:

“Amanda, meanwhile, says we need to stop making women shoulder the burden of keeping men in check, and concentration on getting “boys to appreciate girls more as human beings.” A-fucking-men. (No pun intended.)”

There are a lot of different kinds of boys in the world, some will appreciate you as human beings and some will not. If you choose to grant your favor to the latter over the former, then, well, you’ve chosen and it has nothing to do with getting boys to behave differently. In fact, if you favor those who refuse to commit over those who might cherish you, then guess which behavior you’ve been teaching boys to follow?

So, as far as “getting boys to appreciate girls more as human beings” you should realize that it is _you_ who is doing exactly the opposite. Think on that for a while.

By: Miranda

Miranda — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:48:40 +0000

I love this post!

By: How Feminism Got Drunk and Hooked Up With a Loser | Hooking Up Smart

How Feminism Got Drunk and Hooked Up With a Loser | Hooking Up Smart — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:32:55 +0000

[...] Willis Aronowitz writes on GirlDrive: I knew how it felt to agonize over a text message. I knew how much it hurt to hear that the guy [...]

By: westwood

westwood — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:14:22 +0000

You make a tremendous amount of sense, in absolutely the best way.

I would like to play devil’s advocate and say something controversial, but alas, your tent is too neatly woven for me to rain out your parade.

By: AntoniaF

AntoniaF — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:39:26 +0000

This is incredibly well-said. It’s ridiculous that people won’t admit that teenagers deserve a sex life. Of course there are varying degrees of maturity, but bottom line, sex is invariably going to be part of a young person’s life.