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    Article for Human Sexuality Class :-)

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    17 views5 pages

    Boys On The Side-5

    Uploaded by

    Diego Vazquez-Gomez
    Article for Human Sexuality Class :-)

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 5
    Bera Re a rec aa college campuses has been viewed, in many quarters, as socially corrosive and ultimately toxic to women, who seemingly have Tittle choice but to participate. Actually, it is an engine of female Pee eC ora Sires ee erent og oe rea peratnn Con mnt cee Pere er et cr see Re Pee og rg a cept me). The men atthe party lashed the snapshot atthe womes ‘and the women barely bothered to roll their eyes. These were not hey were already several years out of college and of the much maligned hookup culture that, over the past 15 years eee nner ase asc had alveady seen the photo five times before her boyfriend Meee errs ee “dalrendy suggested twice that night that they goto astuip cub, Sern ca Reet seas Stren ed PCE Lees had gone to visit the business school because a friend nad described the women there as the most sexually agres- sive he had ever met, Many of them had been molded on trading floors or in investment banks with male-female ra- tiosss terrifying es 50-to4, so they had learned to keep pace swith the boys. Women told mestories of being hit on at work by “EDR” (finance douche bags) who hadn't even bothered to takeoff their wedding rings, or sitting through Monday- morning meotings that started with stories about who had banged whom (or what) that weekend, In their decade or 0 of working, they had been routinely hazed by male col- leagues sowing them ever more baroque porn downloaded oneeliphones, Snowbolowing was nothing o them. “in fac, { found barely anyone who even noticed the vul- gavty anymore, until I came across a new student. She had rived to weeks earlier ftom Argentina. She and stood by the bar at one point and watched aywoman put her hand on ‘a guy’s inner thigh, shortly before they disappeared togeth- et In another cornet ofthe room, a beautiful Asian woman Jn her second year at school was entertaining the shx guys around her with her best imitation ofan Asian prosticute— ‘000, you s0 big. Me love you long time”—winning the “Tucker Max showdown before any oftheguyshad even tried to make a move on her. (She eventually chose the shortest sguyin the group to go home with, because, she Iter told me, he seemed lke het be the bestin bed.) Here in America, the girs they give up their mouth, their athelrtits? the Argentinean sad tome, panctuating exch ‘with the appropriate land motion, “before they even know the guy T's like, Hello? ‘Hello You wanna hook up? ‘Sure! “They are so aggressive! Do they have hearts of steel or some- thing? In my country, agi] ike this would be desperate, Or prostitute” ‘0 there we have it, America has unseated the Scandi- navian countries for the ttle of Basiest Say. We are, in the ‘world'sestimation, anation ofprosttutesAnd not even pros- tigtes with hearts of gold. Ts that so bad? Oris there, maybe, a different way to ana- Iyze the scene that hed just unfolded Admittedly, what the ‘Awgentinean and Thad just witnessed fils the nightmares of those who lament the evil hookup culture: ubiquitous porn, young women so inured to ubiguitous porn that they don't bother to protest, young women behaving exactly like feat boys, and no one guarding the virtues ofhonor, chivalry, or ceven lasting love, It's sexcal culture lamented by, among others, Caitlin Planagn in the pages of this magazine as Wells in her nostalgia-drenched new book, Girt Land. Like many other crtis, lanegan pine for an earlier time, when fathers protected “innocent” gies from “punks” and preda- tors, and when girls understood it was their role to also pro- tect themselves. Girl Land, like so auch writing about young women and sexuality, concentrates on what hes been lost, The central argument holds that women have effectively been duped by ‘tsextal revolution that persuaded them to trade away the protections of (and from) young men. In return they were Tefteven mote vulnerable and exploited than before, Sexual Tiberation, goes the argument, primarily iberated men-—to actas cas, using women for thei own pleasures and taking 6 SEPTEMBER 2012 THB ATLANTIC no responsibility for the emotional wreckage that their be- havior created. The men hold all the cards, and the women ‘pucup with it because now it's too late to zip it back up, s0 they don't havea choice, But this analysis downplays the unbelievable gains women have lately made, and, more important, it forgets how much those gains depend on sexual liberation. Single young women in their sexual prime—that is, their 20s and ‘carly 30s, the same age as the women at the business-school party-are for the frst time in history more successful, on average, than the single young men around them, They fare more likely to have a college degree and, in aggregate, they make more money. What makes this remarkable de- ‘velopment possible is not just the pill or egal abortion but the whole new landscape of sexual freedom-the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don't derail education or career. To putit erudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture, And to a surprising degree, it is women ‘not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in ‘school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their suc~ cess, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college tris these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role ‘an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promis ng future. He BUSINESS-scHOOL WouEN Imet were in’an Fic ecco them t tolerate high degrees of sexual crudeness, and they were also a decade past the tentative explorations of their freshman year. But they are merely the most purified ‘sample of a much larger group of empowered college-sge ‘women. Even freshmen and sophomores are not nearly 25, ‘vulnerable as we imagine them tobe. Onaimild fall afternoon in 201, Isat in a courtyard with some undergradates at Yale to ask about their romantic lives. A few months earlier, a group Rather than of mostly feminist-minded stu- i dents had Bled a Title 1X complaint struggling 7 against the university for tolerating, get into a “hostile sexual environment on relationships,” —campus”” The students specifically Remstrong set 2010 incident when men- bers of the Delta Kappa Epsilon reported, Farry sod outers Be dorms chanting "No means yes! Yeo women “had means anall” 1 heard this phrase to work to before, from the business-school students, of eourse:on springbreak, they had played agamecalled “dirty rounds —something like charades, exceptinstead ofaeting out movie or booktitle, they acted out sex slogans like the one above, or terms like pink sock Gvhatyour anus looks like after too much anal sex).Butthe Yale undergraduates had not reached that level of blithe- ness. They were incensed, The week before T attived, an Unrelated group of students ran a letter in the campus pa- per complaining that the heart ofthe problem was "Yale's avoid them.” sexual culture” itself, that the “hookup culture is fertile ‘ground for acts of sexual selfishness, insensitivity, cruelty and me ‘AtYale I heard stories like the ones Thad read in many journalistic accounts ofthe hookup culture. One sorority girl, ‘junior with a beutiful tn, long dark hair, and a great fig~ ture, whom PU call Tal, told me that freshman year she, like many of her peets, was high on her frst taste of the hookap culture and didn't want a boyfriend. “It was empowering, to have that kind of control she recalls. “Guys were texting and calling me all the time, and I was turning them down. 1 really enjoyed it! Thad these options to hook up ifT wanted them, and no one would judge me fort.” Butthen, sometime during sophomore year, her feelings changed. She got tired of relationships that just faded away, “no end, no be Like many of the other college women I talked with, Teli and her friends seemed much more sexally experienced and knowing than my friends at college. They were as blasé about blow jabs and anal sex as the one girl [remember from iy junior year whom we all considered destined for a tragic ‘early marriage or an asylum. But they were also more inno- ‘cent. When I asked Tali what she really wanted, she didn't say anything about commitment or marriage or a return toa more chivalrous age. "Some guy to askmeoutonadateto the frozen-yogurt place," she said. That’sit. A $3 date. ‘But the sods-fountain nostalgia of this answer quickly dissipated when I asked Tali and her peers a related ques- tion: Did they want the hookup culture to go away—might they prefer the mores of an earlier age, with formal dat ing and slightly more obvious rules? ‘This question, each time, prompted « look of horror. Reform the culture, may- be, teach women to “advocate for themselves”—a phrase Theard many times—but ond it? Never. Even one of the women who had initiated the Title [X complaint, Alexan- dra Brodsky, felt this way. “I would never comedown onthe hookup culture; she said. “Plenty of women enjay having casual sex.” size the frustration that results from transient sexual encounters, stripped of true intimacy: "Alot of [boys] jiast want to hook up with you and then never talk to you again... and they don'tcare!” one woman complains to Kath~ Teen Bogle in Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus, “hat might not stop you [from hooking up,] be- ccauise you think: ‘This time it might be different?” From her interviews with 76 college students, Bogle also deduces that the double standard is alive and well. Men tally "fuck points” ‘on their frat-house bulletin boards. Women who sleep with “too many” men are called “houserats” or “laxtitutes” (aterm ‘of art denoting women whe sleep with several guys on thela- ‘rosse tear) or are deemed “HEI? meaning "hot for a hook- up” but definitely not for anything more, The hookup culture, writes Bogle, is a “battle of the sexes” in which women want relationships and men want “no strings attached.” ‘Bat it turns out that these sorts of spotlight interviews cean be misleading, Talk to an individual 19-year-old woman, ‘such as Tali on a given day, and she may give you an earful of girl trouble. But as her girlfriend might tell her after a teary B 0oxs AnouT THE hookup culture tend to empha- night, you have to get some perspective. Zoom out, and you see that for most women, the hookup cultureis ike an island they visit, mostly during thetr college years and even then only when they are bored or experimenting or don’t know any better, But itis not a placo where they drown. The sexual culture may be more coarse these days, but young women are more than adequately equipped to handle it, becase un- like the women in earlier ages, they have more-important things on their minds, such as good grades and internships and job interviews and a financial ture of their own. The most patient and thorough research about the hookup cul- tutre shows that over the long run, Some women — women benefit greatly from living had fake in a world where they can have boyfriends, sexual adventure without commit Whom they, ™extorall that much shane, and where they can enter into tempo- considered fauy relationships that dont get in sub-marriage the way of future success quality. “I In 2004, Elizabeth Armstrong, dlon't want ‘hens soloist at ndiana Un versity, and Laura Hamilton, anyone else to young graduate student, set out to influence do a study on sexual abuse in col- what Ido after lege students relationships. They Igraduate,” applied for permission tointeview ‘women onasingle floor of what was known asa “party dorm” ata state tuniversityin the Midwest. About two-thirds of the students ‘ae from what they ealled “more privileged” backgrounds, ‘meaning they had financial support from their parents, who ‘were probably college-educated themselves, A third came from less privileged families; they supported themselves and were probably the frst in thir family to go to college. ‘The researchers found their first day of interviewing so enlightening that they decided to ask the administration if they could stay on campus for four years and track the 82 ‘women’s omantic lives, ‘Women in the dorm coraplained to the researchers about the double standard, about being called sluts about not being treated with respect, But what emerged from four years of| resesrch was the sense that hooking up was part of larger romantic strategy, part of what Armstrong came to think of asa “sexual carees For an upwardly mobile, ambitious young woman, hookups were away todip intorelationships ‘without disrupting her self-development or schoolwork Hookups functioned as a “delay tactic,” Armstrong writes, because the Immediate priority for the privileged women at east, was setting themselves up fora career. “if Twant to ‘meintain the lifestyle that ve grown up with,” one woman told Armstrong, “I have to work. I just don't see myself be- 1g someone who marries young and lives off of some boy's noney! Or from another woman: “I want to get seeure in a city and in job ...7m not in any hurry atall, As longas Pa married by 30, Pm good.” “The women still had to deal with the old-fashioned bur- den of protecting their personal reputations, bt in the long, ‘view, what they really wanted to protect was their ature professional eputations, “Rather than strugulingto get into THR ATLANTIC SEPTEMBER 201267 relationships?" Armstrong reported, women “had to work to avoid them” (One woman lied to an interested guy, portray ing herselfas “extremely conservative” to avoid dating him.) ‘Many did not want a relationship to steal time away from their feiendships or studying. ‘Armstrong and Hamilton had come looking for sexual victims. Instead, at this university, and even more so at other, more prestigious universities they studied, they found the ‘opposite: women who were managing their romantic lives Tike savvy headhunters. “The ambitious women caleulate that having a relationship would be like s four-credit class, and they don’t always lave time for it,so instead they opt for alighter hookup” Armstrong told me. ‘The women described boyfriends as "too greedy” and relationships as “too involved” One woman “with no short- age of admirers” explained, “1 know this sounds really pa- thetic and you probably think I am lying, but there are so many other things going on right now that its really not something high up on my list. I know that’s such a lame. ass excuse, but i's true?” The women wanted to study or hang out with friends or just be “100 percent selfish,” as one said, “L have the rest of my life to devote to a husband or kids or my job” Some even purposely had what one ight think of as fake boyfriends, whom they considered sub-marriage quality, and weren't genuinely attached to. “He fits my needs now, because I don't want to get married now} one said, "I don’t want anyone else to influence what Ido after I graduate.” ‘The most revealing parts of the study emerge from the interviews with the less privileged women. They came to college mostly with boyfriends back home and the expecta- tion of living life similar to their parents, piloting toward an early marriage. They were still fairly conservative and found the hookup culture initially alienating ("those rich bitches are way slutty” is how Armstrong summarizes their attitude). They felt trapped between the choice of marry- ing the kind of disastrous hometown guy who never gets off the couch, and will steal their eredit eard—or joining a sex. ual enlture that made them uncomfortable. The ones who chose the first option were considered the dorm tragedies, ‘women who had succumbed to some Victorian-style delu- sion, “She would always talk about how she couldn't wait to get married and have babies,” one woman said about her ‘working-class friend, “It was just like, Whoa. ’m 18... Slow down, You know? Thenshe just crazy dropped out of school and wouldn’t contact any of us... The way Isce itis thatshe's from a really staall town, and that’s what everyone in her town does... [they] get married and have babies” ‘Most of the women considered success stories by their dormmates had a revelation and revised their plan, setting, ‘themselves on what was universally considered the path to success, “Now I'm like, I don’t even need to be getting mar ried yet [or] have hids;” one of the less privileged women told the researchers in her senior yeat, “All of [my brother's} friends, 17-to-20-year-old gels, hve their... abies, and I’m like, Oh my Gad ... Now Pll be able to do something else for a couple years before I settle down ... before I worry about kkids? The hookup culture opened her horizons. She could study and work and date, and live on temporary intimacy. 58 SEPTHADER 2012 THE ATLANTIC She could find her way to professional suceess, and then get married. OBS THIS MEAN that in the interim years, women are living a depraved, libertine existence, contribut- ing to the breakdown of social order? Hardly. Infact, ‘women have vastly more control over their actions and ap: petites than we have been led to believe. You could even say that whet defines this era is an unusual amount of sexual control and planning. Since 2005, Paula England, a soct- ologist at New York University, has been collecting data from an online survey about hookups. She is up to about 20,000 responses~che largest sample to date. In her survey, college seniors report an average of 79 hookups over four ‘years, but « median of only five. “Hookups” do not neces- sarily involve sex; students are instructed to use whatever definition their friends use.) This confirms what other sur- veys have found: people at either end of the scale are skew- ing the numbers, Researchers guess that about a quarter ‘of college kids skip out on the hookup culture altogether, while a similar number participate with gusto—about 10 hookups or more (the laxtitutes?), For the majority in the middle, the hookup cultures a place to visit freshman year, or whenever you feel like it, or after you've been through breakup, saye England. Most important, hookups haven't wrecked the capacity for intimacy. In England’s survey, 74 percent of women and about an equal number of men say they've had a relationship in college that lasted atleast six months. The broad When they do hook wp, the 7 ‘weepy-woman stereotype doesn't ce od Haun aumbers of men and swomen—about halfreport to Bng- having more ind that they enjoyed their latest sexis just |hookup “very much.” About 66 per wrong? centof women say they wanted their foeneners most recent hookup to turn into beg aay are rar something mar but 58 percent of nen say the same—not avast differ- less likely ‘ence, considering the cultural panic it about the demise of chivalry and is than their seo , parents were comsesuonces for vomen. And in fact, the broad inference that young people are having more sex—and not just coarser sex—is just wrong; ‘teenagers today, for instance, are far less likely than their parents were to have sex or get pregnant. Between 1988 and 2010, the percentage of teenage girls having sex dropped from 37 to 27, according ta the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By many measures, the behavior of young people can even look like areturn to a more innocent to have sex or get pregnant. ge "Almost all ofthe college women Armstrong and Hemil- ton interviewed assumed they would get married, and were looking forward to it. In England’ survey, about 90 percent, ofthe college kids, male and female, have sad they want to set mazvied. One of the great crime stories of the past 20 years, meanivhileis the dramatic deline ofrspe and seaal assult, Between 1993 and 2008, the rate of those crimes against fe- males dropped by 70 percent nationelly. When women were ‘fnancally dependent on men, leaving an abusive situation ‘was much harder for them. But now women who i earlier tras might have stayed in such relationships can leave or, nore often, kek men out ofthe house. Women, argues Mike Moles, criminologist atthe Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, “have achieved a great deal more power. And that ‘makes them alot harder to vietimize” ‘We've landed in an era thathas produced anew breed of female sexual creature, one who acknowledges the eternal SRinerability of women but, rather than cave in or trap her Sifin the bel jr, instend looks that vulnerability square in the face and then manipulates it in unexpected, and some- mes hilarious, ways. In the fall of 2010, Karen Owen, 2 event graduate of Duke University, became momentarily Famous when her friends leaked her pornographic Power Point presentation cataloging her sexual exploits with 18 Duke athletes, whom she identified by mame, skill, and pe nis size ("while he bad girth on his side, the subject was Foverely lacking, in length"). in Owen's hands, scenes of potential humilition were transformed into punch lines, {Cevimm tell me about how much you like big, black cocks” Subject 6, a baseball player, told her. “But, ve never even hooked up with ablack rian!” she told him. “Oh... well just pretend like you have,” he responded. “Ummm ok. Fike big, black... cocks) ‘The 2012 successor to the iconic single-girl show of a decade ago, Sex and the City, i Girls, anew HIRO series cre- Sted by the indie actress/filmmaker Lena Dunbar, who pays the main character, Hannah, When Hannah has 8% eae is not wearing a Cartie Bradshaw-style $200 couture bra and rolling in silk sheets, but hiking her shirt up over ally flesh loose enough that her boyfriend, Adam, can grab itby the fistful, In one scene they attempt analsex: "That fealo awful” In another, Adam spins a ridiewlously degra ing fantasy about Hannah as an t-year-old hooker wth a “fucking Cabbage Patch lunch box” Bannsh plays long, reluctantly. But when they're done, she 1 pean’ feel deep remorse or have to detox with her filfriends or call the police. She makesajoke about the IL yearold, whieh he doesn’t get, and then goes frome to rock out with her roommate to Swedish pop stat Robyn's “Dancing on My Own.” 7yFSannah’s charmed but falling-apart life, her encoun- tore with Adam countas “experience” fodder forthe memoir She half jokingly tells her parents will make her “the voice sf ther] generation.” She is our eres Portnoy, entitled and arcicsistic enough to obsess about precisely how she gots off (adam, meanwhile, plays the role ofthe Pumpkin, or the Silgrim, of the Monkey, the love or ust objects from Philip ‘Roul's Portnay’s Complaint-all merely props in Portnoy’s Tong and comical sexual journey!) The suspense in the 5e- ree enot driven by the usual rom-com mystery-will she or Won't che get her mant—because she snags him pretty early nthe serfes, Instead it’s driven by the uncertainty of an- ips career will she or won't she fulfil her potential and ecomea great writer? When, ia theseason nse, Adam asks GALLERY Shortcut by Gi wy Billout to move in, she rejects him. We're left to believe that one ronson is because she's afraid he might getin the way of het ‘bigger plans to be a writer. “There is no retreating from the hookup cultreto an earlier age, whenayoungman showedupatthefront door withabaxof chocolates for his sweetheart, and her father eyed hire

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