Hooking up will make you unfit for love. Well, if you're a girl, at least.

I just came across this article in the WaPo ("Love's Labor's Lost" by Laura Sessions Stepp) about why "hook-up culture" is detrimental to college students... though apparently according to this author it's mostly a problem for young women, who are fundamentally damaged and hurt by it (naturally). I thought it was interesting in light of certain discussions that have been going on at Hamilton as of late *ahem*, and that I would share my thoughts on it.

So far as I can tell, this lady's general argument is that not having serious, committed, "boyfriend-girlfriend" relationships (let's just point out up front that this article is ridiculously heteronormative) in college makes young women ill-prepared for getting married and making babies (No, seriously, she says: "These things [the ability to compromise, care for another person, be emotionally intimate, etc., which she implies can only be gained through dating?] are essential to being happily married and raising children, both of which young women say they want someday.")

First, she claims that hooking-up happens because "being emotionally dependent on a lover is what scares these young women the most" due to modern upbringing that encourages women to be independent. Women are then unsatisfied, however, because they don't get "adored" by men like they need to be. Now granted, I agree that it's bad if anyone (young women included) fears emotional intimacy to the point where they can't get close to someone when they want to. What I find offensive and just plain untrue about her argument is that it implies that young women all secretly want to be "adored" and doted on by some guy (any guy!), but that they're just afraid of love because some naughty feminists taught them to be independent.

Why isn't it just possible that college-aged women happen to be as interested in having fun as college-aged men have always been ("boys will be boys," right?!), and that now the culture allows them to do so without being called sluts (well, at least not as much)? I don't think that most women who are hooking up have completely written off the possibility of a relationship from their mind if they found the right person(though some have, and that's fine), they're just not obsessed with defining themselves through a relationship with a man.

Not that there aren't many issues to be found with the way "hook-up culture" operates at colleges... but I don't think that it's a tragedy just because not all girls are obsessed with being in relationships when they don't really want to be... Okay, I've ranted. Thoughts?