The End of Sex?
By Amy Beange
Warning: the following avoids the use of explicit language, but it does include a frank discussion of the sexual practices of university-age students. At FBB we believe understanding modern sexual attitudes is crucial for effective everyday conversations, but at the same time we understand not everyone wants to be involved with this subject. Whether you proceed or not is up to you, but please know that we thank you for your understanding and support.
Several weeks ago, I wrote a blog on the consequences of the birth control pill, a vital component of the sexual revolution. I highlighted the role of the Pill in raising abortion rates—a supposedly reliable form of birth control encourages people to be less discerning in sexual partners and contexts, i.e. having sex with people with whom you would not dream of raising a child and the consequent increase of unwanted pregnancies, given that no artificial method of birth control is 100% effective. I also discussed the lessening of respect for women by men—reliable birth control puts the responsibility of any ensuing pregnancy squarely on the woman’s shoulders (“not my problem, she should have been on the pill”) and encourages casual sexual activity apart from any consideration for long-term relationships.
Having written on the pill, I then wanted to know how the pill and its subsequent sexual revolution is manifested in the lives of young people today? Donna Freitas, who conducted a national study on attitudes toward sex on college campuses and published her results in the 2008 book Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America’s College Campuses, provides part of the answer. In the book she documented her findings about what has come to be referred to as “hookup culture”—the practice of engaging in casual sexual activity, sometimes with anonymous partners, as the predominant way college students engage in sexual activity. Freitas also wrote a follow up in 2013, The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About intimacy, in which she says “over the course of nearly twenty years of teaching, I have never seen young women and men struggle with any other issue the way they are struggling with hookup culture. I care deeply about those living, breathing bodies sitting in front of me in the classroom, and feel a responsibility to take action as best as I can” (p. xiv-xv).
A “hookup” is defined as sexual contact of any kind, ranging from kissing to intercourse, that is engaged in with the explicit understanding that it is casual, meaning it is intended to be an experience entirely free of any sort of emotional attachment; it is a “strings-free” encounter in which anyone who walks away from the experience with a sense of having bonded, or with any sort of romantic attachment, is the loser for having failed to achieve the required level of blasé sophistication.
This is not the “free love” advocated by the ‘60’s sexual revolution where unmarried partners had intercourse or where someone might have a passionate “one-night stand” with a stranger. These encounters allowed for the possibility of spending the night together, conversation in the morning, and potential for arranging further encounters, whereas hookups by definition do not carry such weight.
Because sex is supposed to be “no big deal”, hookups avoid communication between partners—sharing space long enough to warrant saying “good morning” is not part of the deal. This strict avoidance of communication even precludes asking what a partner likes or does not like prior to or during the act. It also demands that neither ask if their partner enjoyed the act, since “worrying about the partner and his or her pleasure will complicate things—so it’s better not to ask” (p. 30).
The appeal of hookups, Freitas reports, is not so much in the act itself as in the talking about it afterward with one’s peers. Since casual sex is what everyone thinks everyone else is doing, engaging in hookups is a way to mark someone as fitting in. The emphasis on the post-encounter reporting over any pleasure experienced in the act is startling. In fact, Freitas reported that in one on one interviews, “the respondents who talked the most openly about sexual encounters were the students who also sounded like they were discussing household chores, and who made hookup culture sound like getting through a required class. Desire, if it was a part of the equation at all, seemed to play only a negligible role. Their reports about sexual intimacy [to me] seemed almost robotic” (p. 12)
Yet human beings are social creatures and find it difficult to eliminate emotions from the act of sex, therefore the requirement of hookups to eliminate emotions so as to appear sophisticated about sex poses a problem. Freitas found that many students didn’t particularly want to have impromptu sex with someone they barely knew. The solution to the tension was found in alcohol. Students eliminated their natural inhibitions about hookups by drinking heavily prior to and during nights out. The state of drunkenness excused them (in their minds) for engaging in behaviour they would not otherwise do. Yet, in reducing inhibitions, drunkenness also led to much sexual contact that was unwanted and left the players feelings used and miserable.
Given the non-communicative and frequently alcohol-soaked nature of hookups, it is no wonder that those who engage in them are lacking in social skills to relate to the opposite sex. Where hookup culture was prevalent, dating was absent. Those on campus who were in exclusive relationships tended to have gotten that way by having had a series of hookups with the same person. Such couples tended to have “fallen into” a relationship rather than having engaged in a meaningful process of getting to know one another in a romantic way. The ability to approach someone of interest, to engage in conversation and ask to spend time together, as well as having a romantic encounter that did not involve alcohol and sexual contact, was lacking.
The absence of such skills would be less problematic if students by and large felt satisfied with their sexual encounters in the hookup context. But Freitas discovered discrepancies in students’ thinking. They said sexual intimacy was the primary way to faster attachment, yet believed hookups were supposed to be void of attachment; they engaged in hookups to feel close to someone, yet acknowledged hookups made them feel lonelier. They said hookups were just about sex, yet they also said sex is not purely physical. They spoke of hooking up as something that just happened (implying a lack of agency), yet also expressed regret about at least some of their hookups. All of this implied that for many students, hookups do not give them the intimacy they actually want. But because hooking up appears to be the only available option, students who might like an alternative simply are not equipped to find one.
Hookup culture has outworkings specific to the genders. For hookup culture, i.e. ultra-casual sex, to work there must be a disengagement from the whole person and an emphasis on the physical and sexual attributes of a person. The scripts for such behavior are found in the realm of pornography with their scenarios of dominant men in power opposite provocatively dressed, submissive women. The ubiquitous nature of porn today has had the effect of normalizing casual encounters and sexually provocative behaviour, and college women emulate these scripts through participation in theme parties that they attend while attired like the porn stars.
Today, being uncomfortable with porn is taken as being uncomfortable with your sexuality; being unempowered, uptight and repressed. Going along with it is considered healthy. Pornography has also had the effect of shifting expectations about real world encounters, normalizing sexual behaviour that might be unpleasant or degrading for women and further contributes toward the dividing of sexual activity from tenderness, emotional attachment, consideration, and romance.
For boys, hookup culture has a different effect. While emotions are frowned on in the act of hooking up, the girls at least have the freedom afterword to discuss feelings about sex and relationships with one another, whereas the boys do not. The expectation is that casual sex is their Shangri La. Since hookups are expected and social status is strengthened through bragging about who a guy slept with and how hot she was, the guys feel great pressure to conform to “a culture of pretend, where ‘acting like a guy’ is a learned skill that has little to do with how a man really feels about women, sex and relationships…[it] leaves young men forced to act like someone they are not” (102-3). Any sort of romantic yearning or desire for a loving long-term relationship or expression of dissatisfaction with hooking up is buried by the pressure felt to participate simply as a means of being accepted and “being a man”. Freitas writes that, “in my interviews and conversations with men, it seemed that hookup culture did not so much cater to heterosexual men and male desire as it did to male anxieties about living up to so much sexual expectation” (105). In fact, “many students felt embarrassed about their romantic yearnings, especially men. Their fantasies about romance often remained unfulfilled wishes for them while on campus’ (p. 165). This disjunction between the desire for romance and the need to be accepted within guy culture, it must be noted, is duplicated on campuses comprising thousands of unattached young ladies.
All of this points to a culture where, in their attempts to get what they really want—intimacy—young people engage in behaviour that specifically eliminates the elements necessary to obtain it, i.e., a firm belief that sex does matter, that romance is good and communication with a partner is vital.
Given that hookup culture goes so much against the natural human desire for intimacy, attachment, belonging, and the desire to be known, it is inevitable that there would be a backlash against it, and Freitas describes the formation of student-led campus societies “dedicated to affirming the importance of the family, marriage, and a proper understanding for the role of sex and sexuality…that provide social support…for those committed to these values, and promote intellectual engagement to further discussion…of this ethic” (Anscombe Society, Princeton University). While these societies tend to be oriented around an explicitly Christian point of view, Freitas offers some ways in which the views they promote might be modified so as to appeal to those who aren’t interested in saving sex for marriage, but who want better options than hookup culture.
That many young people who do not identify as Christians still reject hookups argues that because humans are made in the image of God that image-ness can only be suppressed so far. If we are not designed for casual sexual encounters, dissatisfaction will become evident regardless of one’s professed religious convictions. This provides a point of entry into the conversation for Christ followers. Since our task is to translate the message of the gospel in ways that people can understand, a young person participating in hookups might benefit from a frank conversation about their level of satisfaction with such behaviour. Any hint of dissatisfaction is an open door to examine the premise of hookups, which is that sex does not mean all that much or that humans can effectively sever emotions from actions.
Perhaps there is merit in the idea that humans are integrated wholes with bodies and spirits that are indivisible. This could naturally lead into an explanation of the view that humans are created in the image of a personal God who created sex as a powerful bonding agent, meant for the binding together of men and women in intimate, whole-person relationships. Such an approach to sexual ethics may be more compelling than the common approach in evangelical circles to emphasize the sin of sex outside marriage combined with warnings about the dangers of pregnancy and STIs. If we want a hearing with those who have different views about sexuality, we must anchor our sexual ethic in a larger framework of the goodness of the created order, highlighting how God’s revelation about sex dovetails well with our lived experiences.