Attn - YoungStrutters - Is dating dead?
phongone
1,652 Posts
So sayeth NPR. I mean "hookups" are cool (when you're in college), but the ladies arent even down with dinner and a movie nowadays? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105008712&sc=fb&cc=fpSex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationshipsby Brenda Wilson Morning Edition, June 8, 2009 ?? The hookup ??? that meeting and mating ritual that started among high school and college students ??? is becoming a trend among young people who have entered the workaday world. For the many who are delaying the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing, hooking up has virtually replaced dating. It is a major shift in the culture over the past few decades, says Kathleen Bogle, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University.Young people during one of the most sexually active periods of their lives aren't necessarily looking for a mate. What used to be a mate-seeking ritual has shifted to hookups: sexual encounters with no strings attached."The idea used to be you are going to date someone that is going to lead to something sexual happening," Bogle says. "In the hookup era, something sexual happens, even though it may be less than sexual intercourse, that may or may not ever lead to dating." Young people from high school on are so preoccupied with friends, getting an education and establishing themselves, they don't make time for relationships.New Goal: Fun, Not Marriage"Going out on a date is a sort of ironic, obsolete type of thing," says 25-year-old Elizabeth Welsh, who graduated from college in 2005 and now lives in Boston. She says that among her friends, dating is a joke. "Going out on a date to dinner and a movie? It's so cliche ??? isn't that funny?" It seems it's far easier to have casual sexual encounters or hookups, though several national surveys of college students found a stalwart 28 percent who remain virgins. The term "hookup" is so vague, however, it might well encompass someone's idea of virginity ??? it involves anything from kissing to fooling around, oral sex and sexual intercourse. "For me, it's been anytime that I was attracted to a guy and we spent the night together," Welsh says. "It has been sex; it has just been some sort of light making out. That's the beautiful thing about the phrase. Whatever happened is hooking up."Bogle interviewed college students on a small and a large campus, as well as recent college graduates, to find out what was going on. The hooking-up phenomena has been traced back to the 1960s and the 1970s, when male and female students were thrown together in apartment-style dormitories, and there was a revolt against strict rules on having a member of the opposite sex in your dorm, lights out and curfews. "What you see on college campuses now, even in some cases Catholic campuses, is that young men and women have unrestricted access to each other," Bogle says. Throw in the heavy drinking that occurs on most campuses, and there are no inhibitions to stand in the way of a hookup.The alumni Bogle spoke with were less into hooking up after leaving college, but she says that's changing. It is catching on among young working adults, mainly because of the Internet and social networks. The Evolution Of DatingDating itself represented a historical change. It evolved out of a courtship ritual where young women entertained gentleman callers, usually in the home, under the watchful eye of a chaperone. At the turn of the 20th century, dating caught on among the poor whose homes were not suitable for entertaining, according to Beth Bailey's history of dating, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America. Young couples would go out for a movie or dinner. The expectation was that dating, as with courtship, would ultimately lead to a relationship, the capstone of which was marriage. Precious few of these young women attended college. According to experts, the main reason hooking up is so popular among young people is that in the United States and other Western countries, the age at which people marry for the first time has been steadily creeping up. As of 2005, in the United States, men married for the first time around the age of 27, and women at about 25 years of age. Bogle says the hookup is what happens when high school seniors and college freshmen suddenly begin to realize they won't be marrying for five, 10 or 15 years.Prioritizing Career And Social LifeMarriage is often the last thing on the minds of young people leaving college today. "My first few years out of college was about trying to get on my feet and having a good time," Welsh says. Dating and a relationship interfered with that. Avery Leake, 25, knows what this is like from the other side. He's in a relationship now, but he says that, in general, most of the young women he used to meet "just wanted sex. They're independent." Being in a relationship was not important to them, especially if it interfered with their careers or their pursuit of advanced degrees, he says. Leake found that he was also up against women who had as much money as he had, if not more, and he says dating had just become too expensive. "You used to be able to get away with paying $30 for a dinner and a movie," Leake says. "Not anymore." Empowerment Or Loss Of Intimacy?A number of experts accept this relaxed attitude toward sex outside of relationships as a natural consequence of the sexual revolution, women's growing independence and the availability of modern contraceptives. But Deborah Roffman, who conducts human sexuality workshops for middle- and high-school-age students and their parents, sees that as a distorted view of liberation."It's not a new model. I think most people would probably look back and agree that this has been a more traditionally, or at least stereotypically, male model," says Roffman. "What I've seen over the last few years is girls adopting a more compartmentalized view, and feeling good and empowered by it." She's not convinced that this is a good thing for women, and says that being able to say yes is only one way of looking at freedom. She would feel much better if young men also were developing a greater capacity for intimacy. Being able to engage in intimate relationships where men and women bring all of themselves to the relationship is the cornerstone of family, Roffman says. But young people like Elizabeth Welsh don't see the hookup as an obstacle to future relationships:"It is a common and easy mistake," Welsh says, "to assume that the value of friendship and those relationship building blocks have no place in longer term relationships."If you're honest and open about what you're doing, and willing to commit to a relationship, she says, a hookup and friendship can be fused into a lifetime partnership. Partnership Still The Ultimate GoalAt 25, May Wilkerson would like a relationship, but not a family ??? not quite yet. She's lived a lot of places: Argentina, Canada and Paris. Wilkerson says she hasn't found much intimacy with the men she's encountered.In New York City, where she moved two years ago, people seem even more emotionally detached, and she thinks it is because so many of the people who come to the big city are focused on success."For many of us, the requisite vulnerability and exposure that comes from being really intimate with someone in a committed sense is kind of threatening." And the thought of being in love with someone, Wilkerson says, "is the most terrifying thing."Yes, she has been in love, but the guy wasn't quite into it. There was one older guy who was serious; he used to bring her cupcakes.
She couldn't work up an interest in him. Today, Wilkerson says people hook up via the Internet and text messaging. "What that means is that you have contact with many, many more people, but each of those relationships takes up a little bit less of your life. That fragmentation of the social world creates a lot of loneliness."Hooking up started before the Internet and social networks, but the technology is extending the lifestyle way beyond the campus. Deborah Roffman says no one is offering this generation guidance on how to manage what is essentially a new stage in life.The dilemma for this generation is how to learn about intimacy, she says: "How am I going to have a series of relationships that are going to be healthy for me and others, and going to prepare me" for settling down with one person? Wilkerson doesn't really focus on the concerns of people like Roffman, who fear that hooking up doesn't bode well for the future of young people. She thinks young people will be able to sort it out for themselves."We all attended health class in middle school and high school. We know about condoms and sexually transmitted disease. Sex is fun, and a lot of people would argue that it is a physical need. It's a healthy activity."
She couldn't work up an interest in him. Today, Wilkerson says people hook up via the Internet and text messaging. "What that means is that you have contact with many, many more people, but each of those relationships takes up a little bit less of your life. That fragmentation of the social world creates a lot of loneliness."Hooking up started before the Internet and social networks, but the technology is extending the lifestyle way beyond the campus. Deborah Roffman says no one is offering this generation guidance on how to manage what is essentially a new stage in life.The dilemma for this generation is how to learn about intimacy, she says: "How am I going to have a series of relationships that are going to be healthy for me and others, and going to prepare me" for settling down with one person? Wilkerson doesn't really focus on the concerns of people like Roffman, who fear that hooking up doesn't bode well for the future of young people. She thinks young people will be able to sort it out for themselves."We all attended health class in middle school and high school. We know about condoms and sexually transmitted disease. Sex is fun, and a lot of people would argue that it is a physical need. It's a healthy activity."
Comments
It may have been relevant fifty years ago, but I doubt there are that many more young people having casual sex now then there were ten or twenty years ago.
but you GOTTA call it a "date" to keep from falling into the...
E-stalking moves revealed!
Nah, but all that stuff changed shit completely. I mean, there's no "girl what are you into" shit anymore because you can just peep her page and be like "oh so you like lil wayne huh."
I hear what you're saying, but I don't think the word "date" should be used in this instance. Date without the romantic is like sun without the shine.
an appointment?
This is clever, but I don't think I could get away with asking one of my guy friends to be my "date". I usually say something like "Dude, you're definitely down, right? Don't be bitching out on me." Sometimes they do anyway, though.
Bunch of bitches.
Pretendate
this isn't to say i prefer hooking up, because i don't, i'd just prefer "hanging out" getting to know someone. but then again i wouldn't really date/hanging out with someone i didn't have a connection with straight off the bat, so it'd never be as formal as a "dating" in my eyes.
i can respect that
"dates" can make ya nervous, so its good to see it in that light
but i dont want to get so casual that everything starts to SLIIIIIDE into "friendzone" territory
I mean, you don't take your average floozy on a date. Separates the women from the girls, as it were...
Floozy = drinks
Real Date = Entertainment/Dinner/Drinks
it would seem there are a tonne of floozies in Aus, cos just drinks would be a pretty typical date.haha. oooof. Although in my case, i'm usually entertainment enough, so maybe i make it a real date!hahaha! ok, so not really.
From what i know, around these parts, things are pretty laxed between both aus guys and girls so i only really know of a minority of friends who have had the "woo-ing" kind of dates (like fancy dinner and fancy drinks etc). usually it is "beeries and chow".hahaha. so romanic!
old school dating may be dead/dying but i do think there is a place for new school/"hanging out" without making it solely about the hook up. Even tho, i do feel that the kids of today are a new scary breed of sluzz, so i can only really see things getting worse!!
Ill take a "Floozy" out to just kick it and shit, w/out any expectations.
Ill also "hangout" w/ someone who has "wifey" potential.
No big deal..IMO.
As long as they get drunk......
Like 2ply says, nothing new about this.
No doubt today, just like the old days, one partner is giving more meaning to the SEWNSA than the other.
Agreed.
This is one of my favorite parts about Brasil, that there's really very little awkwardness around dating. I really couldn't stand the excessively casual CA style that makes dating some kind of heavy, serious, committed thing.