“Oh, so you’re waiting for marriage?”
“No, no it’s not that.” It’s really not.
“So, what, you want it to be with someone you love?”
“Yeah.” Shoot, how do I make that sound better?
“I mean, you know, I just don’t want it to be with a random person.”
“Oh, OK cool.”
Maybe it’s because we’re in a college town with a LOT of hot people. Maybe it’s the sexually liberated students taking advantage of door locks. Or maybe it’s just a generation of emotionally uncommitted and horny people.
Whatever the reason is, the fact is simple: It’s embarrassing to admit that you don’t want to hook up with strangers.
Somewhere along the line, non-casual sex became taboo.
We live in an era where it’s more intimate to hold someone’s hand than it is to have sex.
How did we get here?
We took the Tinder train.
The rise of hook-up culture, sustained by dating apps, is prominent on college campuses like UF.
“When students arrive on campus, they don’t just encounter the opportunity to hook up, they are also immersed in a culture that endorses and facilitates hookups,” Lisa Wade, a sociology professor at Occidental college said in “What’s So Cultural about Hook-Up Culture.”
Not only is it easy to find casual sex, but it’s also become almost entirely socially acceptable.
Part of the reason hooking up is so readily accepted at college is because they align with the liberal values of sexual freedom, especially for the females.
From the female perspective, emotionless hook-ups can feel powerful. There’s a presumption that women get emotional, attached and hurt in relationships. If you take the feelings away from the equation, you become more powerful. You can’t get hurt. The freedom of casual sexual relationships feels like a step toward equality. You’re finally doing what men have been doing freely for ages.
However, not all women want that choice, no matter how liberating it is. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, “among participants who were asked to characterize the morning after a hookup, 82 percent of men and 57 percent of women were generally glad they had done it.” If you’re one of the 57%, and you want casual sex, that’s amazing. The choice is yours.
However, I think that the normalized–– almost institutionalized–– mentality toward no commitment and no feelings is depriving some people of relationships they’re too embarrassed to admit wanting. Sociocultural factors such as sexism, porn and dating apps have made sex seem as casual as a workout. It’s not, and it doesn’t have to be.
Sex can be a big deal. It’s the closest you can physically be to someone, and it’s not unreasonable to want to be just as emotionally close. Some people need time to feel comfortable, to trust someone, with their body.
Also, sex makes babies; living, breathing, actual babies. The chances of convincing my Tinder match to pay child support aren’t that favorable.
Either way, the choice is yours, and it’s respected. But, if you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite belong in the Tinder era, consider waiting for the sex you actually want to have rather than having the sex that’s expected of you.