Why 'hooking up' has become so prevalent on campus
thestar.com
thestar.com
People out of college hook up also, so this seems to be the new way people get to know each other and decide if they want a relationship. It certainly is not unique to the under 21 crowd.
And perhaps your physical self as well.
"It has ... been named a reason for the illusionary popular support that kept the communist regime in the Soviet Union, as many opposed the regime but assumed that others were supporters of it. Thus, most people were afraid to voice their opposition"
http://quandyfactory.com/blog/54/shared_awareness_a_better_w...
[ note: I say this from a USA-centric perspective, not hating on cultures that still practice this in a respectful manner. By 'this,' I mean 'arranged marriage,' not 'stoning to death.' ]
False dichotomy much?
Rather than making short and harsh comments, you could frame them in a less accusatory fashion that doesn't look like you are just making the comment to hate on people and pass judgement (on large swaths of -- essentially -- faceless people, no less) in a public manner to satisfy some sort of inner urge.
If you really feel that relationships that start out based on sex always end up in failure, you could have framed that comment in a much better light that would have spawned actual discussion.
Really, though, I don't care what people do, as long as it's not in my face and doesn't affect me. I'm five years out of college, so I don't really care that much. I think it's a shame what a farce college has become for most American students, but that problem comes from a lot of factors, most of which have nothing to do with sex.
I didn't say it does.
Having a one-night-stand is stupid. Does it make someone a whore who should be ostracized? No. Is it a behavior that, in my estimation, a rational person would be ashamed of? Yes. Is it worse than the worst or stupidest thing I've done? Probably not.
please provide a rational derivation of this shame.
Interpretation: So you would never date someone that slept with someone else?
Am I missing a few steps here? I never remotely implied that.
Or I'm way off, in which case, on with your argument :)
In any event, I wrote an essay about modern sexual culture in response to "The New Dating Game" in the Weekly Standard: http://jseliger.com/2010/05/05/the-weekly-standard-on-the-ne... . Birth control and contraceptive availability has lowered the cost of sex for women; there are more women than men on college campuses; men as a group have a higher preference for hooking up than women; people tend to feel like others have been pre-selected on college campuses, as Kathleen Bogle argues in her book Hooking Up, which is a sociological study on the issue. Taken together, these technological and social trends lead toward hooking up.
Pluralistic ignorance might play a small part but is hardly the dominant factor. And the study relies on the notoriously unreliable self-reporting feature: people might report they want a relationship, until it's late, and they've been drinking, and they spy an attractive stranger, and so on. Dan Ariely talks about the difference between our "cold" selves and "hot" selves in the chapter "The Influence of Arousal" from Predictably Irrational, which is another recommended book.
I always assumed it was much simpler than that: although you'd prefer to be in a relationship with someone you are absolutely crazy about, this isn't always possible. So in the absence of that people like to drink and hookup. Hardly newsworthy.
[Edit: As acerbic and judgmental as this comment sounds, I admit freely that I was one of those social retards at ages 17-20, although I didn't hook up-- little interest and even less ability.]