The fictional man in this transaction isn’t being asked to make an emotional investment, he’s being asked to take enough time to pleasure the fictional woman rather than taking less than 5 minutes of her time to get his ejaculation over with. Shorter, he needs to fulfill his end of the bargain. If the fictional man can’t be arsed to do his part, he should rather book a date with Ms. Michigan and a box of tissues.
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I hear what you are saying. Personally I agree with that and that’s why I would never be part of hookup culture. For me the emotional aspect is part of the sexual chemistry.
But to address the point here - why?
You say he needs to, why? Because it is the right thing to do? If he doesn’t plan on seeing her the worst thing that is going to come about from this is her telling her friends and his pool of potential hookups gets smaller.
You are absolutely right that it’s a shit move, but it’s a fairly logical and straight forward one as well. I’m not some MRA shill, but their concept of it being a numbers game for emotionless sex is pretty spot on.
And like I said above, perhaps there is good sexual chemistry and it becomes a regular thing for a while. Not all hookups are going to be one and done, but even the podcast says that people try to keep repeat hookups to a minimum.
I’m not looking to argue that all men are this way - more that this is an example of what having sex with a stranger might entail. It might be the most awesome experience of your life or the most absolute disappointing. But without some references or knowing the person before getting down to business your are going to be hard pressed to tell.
(3rd edit)
To keep on topic, is hooking up feminist? I’m not sure I’m a good person to answer that. But in human terms if you are comfortable with it (knowing the good and bad of what can be) then sure why not. I think America should strive to be more sexually liberated, but that doesn’t mean you have to have tons of sex just cause. If you want to, go for it - but if you want to be super freaky but only with long term partners there is nothing wrong in that either. No one should shame you for your sexual choices, just realize all choices come with consequences.
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No, because he’s signed up for a mutual transaction. If a man is so selfish to only want to get his rocks off, and not interested in fulfilling the transaction, then he shouldn’t participate. Again, there need not be any sort of emotional investment, as it doesn’t take any investment to figure out how to stimulate a clitoris. Sex can be reasonably mechanical for women, but a man has to be just slightly more interested in something other than his own orgasm for this to be an equal transaction.
To be clear, we’re talking about hypothetical participants here. Hookups aren’t for everyone. You’ve made it clear that it’s not something you’re interested in, and that’s fine. I’m not, either. It would be best for the sake of the conversation to keep personal pronouns out of the discussion unless you are speaking only for yourself.
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I think you would have say that, based on the stipulations you make. Aren’t you asserting that on a whole, everybody (ie, the general culure ) should incorporate the culture of a certain group? Aren’t men a subset of ‘everybody’? The requirements of the asserton and basic math seem to lead to that conclusion, so what did I miss?
What about if we realized that african americans are not super “different” than other people and that you can approach them, talk to them, and be friends with them and its not scary. That sounds to me what it would mean for non-african americans to “be more african american”.
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Everything you’ve written is fully explained in the paragraph you’ve quoted. If men treat women poorly during casual sex, it’s because they’ve been taught that they can. If “Hookup Culture” is to change, it has to be discussed and dissected.
Women are not asking anyone to treat them “special”, but as an equal who is ALSO after release. Your (or any other man’s) belief that having the same expectations as my partner in a sexual encounter is “special treatment” is rooted in sexism, a part of the patriarchal system in which it’s acceptable to use a woman’s body without regard for her as a person.
“Hookup Culture” as it is described IS sexist, but it is not widely practiced nor does it apply to every casual sexual encounter.
Again, if the encounter is about sexual gratification, using your partner isn’t treating each other as objects- it’s one treating the other as an object. Sex, like any other human interaction can be kind without requiring emotional investment, as long as you aren’t dehumanizing your partner.
First, women are not things to be rented or purchased. Second, you’re assuming that women aren’t shoppers with choice and agency of their own. If you can’t be bothered to invest any energy in a first encounter, women certainly don’t have to see it through, and you will earn a reputation.
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Don’t get the culture because I’m old and I’m happy with the person I have in my life and when I was young I hated people and didn’t date much… not really sure I understand why A) Hookup culture is “masculine” B) What young women choose to do or not do sexually needs to be categorized as feminine/not feminine and feminist/not feminist C) Young women, and I swear I can attest to this because I’m old and my family is even older… they were hooking up before feminism and after, just before they didn’t talk about it. So in that case, the action isn’t so much feminist as the freedom to shamelessly talk about it and also not to have to marry a person because you got pregnant and the availability of birth control helps. Yay… we all win.
Lastly, agree with all of the actual article’s points about femmephobia BUT don’t agree with the implication that hooking up is “masculine” and thus women doing it are women hating or something.
Feminist lesbians hooked up with each other back in my day, why shouldn’t the other girls get to join in???
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As for Rob, you’re confusing hooking up with hosing. Hosing is where you don’t give a fuck about the other person and just want to get off even if they die in the process who cares. Ok that’s hyperbole but still, that’s why these people go to lengths to try to avoid emotional connection (not possible for some people such as myself and from your posts I’m guessing it’s not possible or desirable for you either… it’s hard, and i mean this for myself as well, to wrap your head around things people like when they seem utterly unpleasant to oneself).
Hooking up implies you’re going to get off. If you don’t it’s failed hook up. So basically more men suck at hooking up I guess? Like most things that men are truly shitty at, if you look deeply, misogyny is usually around there somewhere. A lot of guys think they are amazing in bed because women tend to just kind of say something nice because an ego bruised man who knows where you sleep is a threat much worse than a lazy lover. If women were honest about that, more of us would die.
Emotions only have to do with anything for people who confuse their emotions with sex, and sex with emotions. It’s not about caring, it’s about not being useless and failing at the job you volunteered for IMO.
Maybe more women hooking up and talking about it would be actually just the thing to make it more fun.
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Indeed. If you show up opening night and your performance is sub-par, the management of the theatre reserves the right to cancel the rest of your run.
In certain circumstances, you may be asked to leave at intermission.
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Unfortunately, respecting consent is not something the college bros are known for. The sexual liberation of women has been wonderful and glorious for some, but has also created a whole slew of excuses that rapists and batterers use. For instance, NFL player Zeke Elliott’s legal team submitted a brief which suggested that he couldn’t be guilty of beating his girlfriend because she had enjoyed rough sex in the past. And the amount of women whose allegations are dismissed because they chose to imbibe alcohol in the presence of men is staggering.
The hookup culture has been positive for some women but it has been very negative for others.
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You had to add a lot to my point to find something to disagree with there.
First, may I express my dismay that hooking up is considered stereotypically masculine. The ratio of men pursuing sex outside of relationships may be higher than the ratio of women doing the same, but in either case it’s not terribly high.
Nor, when I last checked, had that ratio changed much over time. The last time I could be bothered to look up statistics (about a decade ago), the amount of casual sex by both men and women had remained nearly the same since the 80’s, despite claims to the contrary.
Apparently rise of hookup culture is one of these stories that is too juicy to mess up with facts…
Anyway, people take their cues from what they perceive as popular culture. I think more than a few men and women’s lives would be improved if popular culture better echoed our somewhat less “exciting” realities.
Maybe it’s a reaction to when when popular culture refused to acknowledge hookups existed, also to deleterious results. But the “reaction” has been going on 30 years now…
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I think you’re misinterpreting feminist on sex. Sex that is in the service of men’s needs is sexist. Sex where both partners feel validated and cared for is not. Too much of the former was happening in the 60s and 70s. [ETA - to fix my meaning]
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We’re not property, hun. We’re people.
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Yes! I realized when I scrolled down! Fixed it now! Thanks for catching my dumbitude!
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former and latter are the two I go back to check every time I use em. I have about a 50/50 rate off the top of my own head. y/w.
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I strongly suspect that you are letting a (pretty widely held) distaste for casual sex color your view of the participants.
If we take sex/gender out of the equation, would you be making the same “what do you expect?” argument when people decry utterly selfish behaviour in a game of tennis or chess between strangers?
We should no more accept sociopathic impulses from participants in hook-ups than we should accept such behaviour in any other shared activities between strangers.
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You’ll notice my phrasing “often”. : ) Not always. For example, Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer are feminists I consider sex-positive - while, of course, both can be considered problematic in other areas such as trans rights and intersectionality. Such is the nature of social growth.
Andrea Dworkin, on the other hand, is a very influential feminist of her time who I think it’s reasonable to consider sex-negative to a demonizing degree. In fact, just negative in many ways, however helpful her critiques have been. I think a review of other female feminists would find some agreement with this view.
Also, perhaps this statement of mine should be clearer: “And of course to be fair, it was still a bit of a mess too.” I meant the period of the 1960s and 1970s. Not that we’re in a paradise today of course. : ) But it seems easier today at least for women to feel more joy and less shame in getting whatever sex (or lack of sex) they want, and I think that’s quite a positive improvement.
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At the risk at stating the obvious, the ratio of men pursuing sex outside of relationships with success cannot be higher than the ratio of women doing the same, or the excess men would all need to be gay. Heterosexual hook-ups normally involve roughly the same number of men and women.
Now, it looks that I am just being funny in the paragraph above but it is actually a remark that is often stated in studies of sexual behavior: the numbers do not add up. And that is, in itself, an important point: women and men do not do what they say they do. And if we cannot trust people to tell us what they do, maybe we should not trust them when they tell us the effects of what they pretend they did. Maybe men do not find casual sex as enjoyable and empowering as they say and dito for women.
Yes and no. A game like tennis is a rigidly structured activity that most people know the rules of, so meeting up for a match is going to involve a fairly standard sequence of events. Based on the ever growing list of categories on PornHub sex has an amazingly broad range.
I agree with this, but again what is the repercussion? I imagine as our world becomes more connected and sexually open hookup/dating apps basically create the feedback needed to maintain the implied social contract. Please don’t mistake that I’m trying to imply that anything other than a tiny percentage of people (more than likely vastly male) would treat their partners in a shitty way. At the same time however without any working knowledge of your potential partner you are simply playing the odds.
Friend with benefits seems more reasonable as both parties involved have previous knowledge of the other and more than likely have overlapping social or work connections/interactions.
