The 'Hookup Culture' of my generation...

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Don't fit into too well with them at all. But it was probably a more liberal culture, too.

yes, it was. i finally ok to be me. never felt like that again in a group since those days

I recognize the "hookup" culture - it's been around me all my life, though I've never understood it. To me it seems too emotionally messy, too risky. I've turned down 3 women in the past decade because of the sort of women they were -- (the emotionally risky sort) -- I avoided them because everything one does has consequences. I hold myself to this idea that one must learn from their past experiences to inform the present, avoid anything that doesn't feel right in the long-term. Maybe that's the difference - that people like me hold onto an idea self-discipline and conduct --- one that applies in many areas, not just in the social realm. We humans are very much governed by such memes, which can orchestrate our brain chemistry. It's fair to say it could go the other way, too - that a human may be expressing a genuine existence / interaction in being promiscuous and non-committal. From my vantage point, looking across that large divide in mating habits, it's really quite a difference... and each side is trying to argue it's legitimacy over the other...

I'm a "macaw" in that I only date one woman at a time and I'm rather picky about who I'll let into that part of my life. I can't fathom dealing with 3-4 of them, serial dating, or having any sort of casual sexual relationship.

I wonder what anthropological research has to say about it. It wouldn't surprise me if there are different types/groups of people entirely. I'm sure it varies greatly on a geographic basis.

I'd love to hear in some detail what a person involved in these kinds of casual sexual relationships has to say about it.

Last edited by abyssquick on 14 Jan 2013, 6:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Could be a love vs. "just sex" thing too. Some people (like myself) can't remove love from the equation of sex. At least now... when I was ~18 I was just a horny bugger who just wanted sex. Fulfilling my loins never satisfied a different craving I couldn't understand... the love I felt for my ex did.
Amazing how age can change a person - or solidify them into unchangeable.

Like I said about my old workmates - the same ones constantly hooking up were the same ones who didn't believe in love... as if it doesn't exist or was impossible for them to obtain! I suppose if I were so broken I thought I could never love again, I'd just enjoy getting my weenie wet like the others are.

(Okay - some people will read that as "casual sex people are broken" - that's not what I mean. I'm just trying to understand the thought process of those people who do things differently... maybe explaining my thought process along the way.)

I see it as being partly in relation to the breakdown of a vision in our culture.

Back in the days it could be said that there was a central focus, a central goal to culture. People worked towards that central purpose and goal, because they believed in the purpose of culture, the direction of culture.

My generation is largely disenfranchised by our culture, they seem to think it's pointless. There is not singular direction, or vision for humanities development. No ideal to push forward with. So everyone kind of festers. Satisfaction comes from physical pleasure, not from holding a direction, an ideal, and accomplishing it. This elevates sex to being THE peak experience, THE great accomplishment.

I find this rather insightful.

We're also subjects of protracted adolescence - many of us live at home into our late 20's.

I have considered that "stimulation" in general seems to be the preoccupation of Gen Y - we're the generation raised by TV, video games, movies, computers, the internet - media which are all about being enthralled by stimulation. We've got quite a prevalence of ADHD and Autism - both based in the mind's sensitivity to stimulation. I have suspected short attention spans, if not caused by these media from an early age, are likely exacerbated by them.

We're also a generation prone to fantasy, and to resulting bifurcated lives / personas - as in, "online" (internet) identities which differ substantially from our actual real-world persona. (I was having this conversation recently with an elder, and I found it rather insightful.)

That fantasy disposition contributes to differences in our sexuality as well - Gen Y's understanding of sexuality largely comes from the internet (porn), and so we're also burdened by more objectified, stimulation-based visions of mating which lack emotional involvement. It seems many of us don't get that pornography = fantasy. It's not meant to be realistic, and it's not a tutorial in how humans are supposed to have sex...

How our generation has grown up has shaped attitude towards sex, and it all helps define the nature of the "hookup culture."

Suddenly my life goals of "get really strong at putting things over your head" and "get really awesome at figure skating even though you're 22 and most people quit at your age" seem pretty good.

it's so interesting how these how changed from the 1980s. I remember the original OG subcultures, nowadays i have no idea what
a kid is referring to is punk or goth.

As back in my youth, an older person might refer to a bad person as a "punk".

Subcultures helped a lot for me in HS and college. These subcultures are more accepting of those different, and accepted me

I never fell into any group/gang or got schooled on hooking up 101.
So it's all a complete mystery to me. I know it's happening out there, but I've never got an invite.

rabbittss, in my case, the druggies and alcoholics ARE the ones getting jobs and coming to work wasted or hung over, while the straight-edge people can't seem to find jobs. Truly, Ohio is a backwards state.

yeah, what happened? it's all changed. but in a way, the more it changes, the more it stays the same. the fashions are all different but that's about it.

Well if you think hookups/FWBs are bad, how about this:-

The person I've been seeing for the last year - as a FWB as he didn't want a girlfriend type relationship, kindly informed me last Thursday that he didn't fancy me.

We'd been talking about one of his female friends and I asked if he fancied her and he said 'I don't fancy friends'
I said but we're friends aren't we? and he said Yes. Then I said 'So don't you fancy me then?' and he said no!

I said but why are we having sex then?? Don't you find me sexually attractive? To which he said yes he did

I said finding someone sexually attractive is the same thing as fancying them though

He said no, that fancying is what you do when it's your 'dream woman' e.g a pop or film star

I said 'How am I meant to have sex with a person who doesn't fancy me?'
and he replied, 'Easy, you've been doing it for long enough already'

So I told him exactly where to go as I've never been so hurt and humiliated in my life!

People are right when they say FWB relationships are a recipe for disaster

This person had recently even had the nerve to say he loved me so how could he say something so hurtful
as he doesn't fancy me?!

Why even bother to use the 'L' word when you think so little of someone?? I just don't get it!

Where the hell do people get off with being so f-king cruel - that's what I want to know!

And what makes it worse is that after a number of invective-filled emails in which I told him exactly what I think
of him and good luck with his sad, sexless life, he sends a completely unrelated one sending a link to some stuff
he thinks might be useful for the roof of my house, which has a leak!

FFS!

So not only has he no intention of apologising for hurting me so much I wanted to die, he just thinks that he
can carry on as if nothing's happened ie that I'm that desperate that I'll jump at the chance to resume communication
and no doubt sex too by his expectation

Just how low can someone go in humiliating and devaluing another human being - that's what I'd like to know!

The FWB concept was new to me when I started this 'liaison' and the younger generation can keep it - I'd rather be celibate
for the rest of my life than go through the pain this has caused me again!

It seems to be an exercise in showing how little you care and continually upping the 'don't care' ante until there's
literally nothing left.

Wow Nessa, that's outrageous. He said "bad boy s**t" to you, I'm so sorry. The stupid information about leak is typical of the "bad boys". Maybe he read on internet this was a way to be a "a**hole with women but a badass with my bad boy friends", in the section "cool internet answers to women you don't fancy anymore, you awesome badass macho".

Don't answer him again or he'll send you more boring spam.

No, really, he is too pathethic and immature.

I once read a joke before that went something like:
"Women may be able to fake orgasms, but men can fake entire relationships"

I found this humorous on the surface, because I can see it's truth. But it is sad.

Men can fake entire relationships, and it happens alot. This seems like a huge criticsm and hate towards men, and to most women who don't understand why that would be, it can seem terrible.

But being a male who understands the first hand experience all too well, I can identify with it and it saddens me.

I've certainly in the past feigned more interest than I initially had just to get into some relation, because I was essentially starving for relation. When you reach the point of morbid depression concerning loneliness, your willing to put aside alot instincts, alot of innate feelings, just to get rid of that loneliness. The loneliness goes away for a while, for a while your happy because of the change and not being lonely. But then as the novelty of being with somewhere wears off, once the 'chemical high' of new sex and being with someone wears off, your just left with your original feelings about the person.

Which sounds terrible of men, but I'd really like to express that at a certain point for me it literally became a difference between "I am going to kill myself from loneliness, or I am going to make myself like this girl". In ignorance of youth, at the time, you really do believe that you can be happier by forcing yourself to like someone, and you will adapt to it, becoming permanently happier. But I think it does take going through such a thing once to be able to realize, you were just fooling yourself.

From my point of view, which is clearly and obviously a male biased point of view. I see the real root of this as being the double-edge sword for how easy it for women to get in relations.

Women may be able to hookup way easier, but this results in it being far more difficult for them to find someone who actually likes them, and wants to be with them for an extended period of time.

Our culture has this setup where, women are supposed to look pretty and desirable, and then men approach. Men then try to impress, men put on a show to validate themselves. The problem with this, only a small percentage of males know how to do this with any effectiveness. Which results in a small percentage of men being able to get lots of sex, from multiple girls, and making girls seem disposable to them, resulting in girls feeling disposable to men. The men who have the skills to pick up women also have a tendency to have sex with girls way below their standards, just because they like sex.

This makes women fall in love with, and expect a man, who can swoon them, sweep them off their feet. Girls then hold out for this, having sex with the slu*ty men who are apt at doing such a thing, and have thus begun to see women as disposable because of it.

This leaves alot of men with no chance. The bar has been raised by a small percentage of men, the rest of which can never attain. Women hold out for these men. Leaving lots of men horribly lonely and isolated. Such men will then jump at whatever chance they get.

Given this set up, I've always felt the solution was more equality in the cultural expectations of seduction. Women need to seek out, pick out and seduce men as actively as men try to seduce women. Women need to stop waiting for, and expecting to be swooned. Women need to see the qualities in men that are beautiful, besides their ability to swoon, and be attracted to them for that. Women need to basically be doing what men have been having to do for thousands of years to get sex. I think if women themselves picked out men, and went after them, this would even the odds much more. It would allow men, who previously would not have gotten attention for their lack of swooning skills, to now get attention. To not feel as desperate, lonely, and not make decisions out of such things.

Of course, I am aware I put the solution to that entirely on women, I warned you this was a biased explanation. I am male, I can't help but think that. But more than just being biased towards males, I would like to think I am biased to gender equality. I personally think this goes both ways. I think men need to be more emotional and more domestic, take on roles women once carried. Conversely women need to be more pro-active in choosing and seducing mates, not just waiting for what comes and swoons them. More equality in roles is what I see as needing ot happen, and I see this role of the 'seducer' is still largely placed entirely on men, which is causing disruption to natural dynamics in things which result from seduction.

Which I am not saying you just waited to be swooned, I have no idea the dynamics of your relation. Most of what I have just said is based off observations and experiences of my personal life, not any interpretation or assumption of yours. It's just I thought this viewpoint I had based off my observations and experiences, may be applicable to your experience in some way so I decided to share it.

It is complete BS that he did that. But I can also relate to his emotions far too well.

As an aspie/female my experience seems opposite this. Most people our age that I'm around want to find a partner and settle down. My ideal is to be without much commitment to others because it's so much stress and it's unpredictable. I'm unpredictable. I will likely move around quite a bit in the next five to ten(maybe more) years for school. Even after that, I don't see myself looking for someone to be permanently in my life like that. Maybe my friends, even now when I make a friend I feel connected in a deep and meaningful way that grows stronger all of the time. But romantic partners, something just doesn't click. I don't want to be tied down or have someone bound to me when they make life decisions.

And maybe it was part of growing up into a weird dating life where, from a young age, it was just about sex to me. Sex was sex and romance wasn't my thing. Sex CAN be a visceral thing for me, if I'm high(I'm mainly referring to weed when I say high) or if it's with a close close friend, but in general sex isn't a visceral thing for me, it's a physical thing and it's not much more than that.


Actually, some find it weird but for me, interactions with friends, even intellectual conversations, are simultaneously visceral for me. My FRIENDS are people I grow to love and have a ceaseless feeling of fondness for. I've made friends on WP that I want to be in contact with until I'm old and useless to the world.

Yet I don't feel that way about the kind of relationship I have with my girlfriend. I see us being friends for as long as we possibly can but we're never going to live together or get married or adopt kids together.

I don't know. That is looked down on, I'm called a slut and told I lack something essential to having a worthwhile life. People take their extremely common values and project all of their insecurity onto me and I just have to shrug it off.

So what if sex doesn't mean anything to me?

And I greatly appreciate the friends I have who don't have moral or ethical opinions about what my dating/sex life is like, or anyone who doesn't offer up their snarky or judgemental or passive aggressive crap.

I wish I could escape that without having to be very secretive and dodge questions/lie etc. People talking about romantic relationships A LOT and I assume it's because it's maybe the most common way we interact with another human beings once we're adults. I wish it were super common to just be okay with what others do as long as they aren't hurting anyone.

And I wish it were easier for all of us to find what makes us happy in life and rainbows and MLP and probably a kitten or two and my post is making no sense now. ^_^

Another email has arrived today:-

"have you calmed down yet?
& would that stuff be any good for your roof?"

He seems to be living in a parallel universe or something!