October 5, 2009 • 19 mins
There's been a lot of buzz recently about the "hook-up culture" and whether or not it has an effect on women and traditional dating. Tune in for Molly and Cristen's funny, thoughtful take on the topic.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stop Mom? Never told you?
From house Stop works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristin Kristen. What was your
(00:20):
best date ever? My best date ever? UM? If you
really want me to talk about it honestly, I mean, okay,
well what a what a good a good recent first date?
UM that I went on? UM went to dinner, nice
dinner place I really enjoy. And then I went to
(00:41):
the UM a building roof that looks over our beautiful
Atlanta skyline. You can see all the skylines around Atlanta.
Was around sunset. That sounds lovely. It was pretty good.
Have you ever gone to like a soda fountain and
split a Sunday with a boy and you had to
sent two straws? No? But I have you know, eating
spaghetti from the same plate and we actually ended up
(01:03):
eating the same noodle and then it ended in a
kiss that's so adorable. That never happened, remember tended did? Okay?
But do you know how like that sort of presented
in some classic movies? Just the typical date? Oh yeah,
the soda fountain date, the chocolate malt. I'm gonna put
it out there right now that I really want to
go to a soda fountain on a date. Okay, but
do you know that I might never and do you
(01:25):
know why? Because there aren't many soda fountains left that
that could be one factor, But because dating is dead.
That is what I learned this week. I read all
these articles and I know you did too, about how
dating is dead, and now I'll never get to go
to a soda fountains. O Molly, you you can know
what was go to a soda fountain with me might
(01:45):
not be the same and I would want my own malt.
But anyway, that's we can talk about that after the podcast. Okay,
but why is dating dead? Kristen? Why did she send
me all these scary stories that dating is dead? Well, okay,
I was say, you know, dating has changed from back
in the day, you know, the back in the days
(02:05):
of the soda fountains and the and the movies and
the sock cops. But this idea that dating is said
is based on this this buzzword buzz phrase, if you will,
call the hookup culture. Yes, this idea that instead of dating.
People in their twenties and even in their teens and
on college campuses are just having rampant sex and not
(02:30):
going on dating and working working their way up to sex,
which is jumping right in bed and then maybe if
things work out, then you might end up dating. Yeah.
I guess the way it used to go in olden
days is that you meet someone you liked, you accord them,
go on a few dates, and then it would turn
more serious in terms of physical stuff. And I thought
(02:53):
it was interesting, Molly. We found this NPR story on
this idea of the hookup culture, and it traced dating
the rise of dating back to the nineteen forties and
fifties UM, when poor families wouldn't be able to host
a courtship arrangement where the man would come over to
the girl's house and maybe sit in the parlor the centeria,
play the hopsicle hopsicle and uh, and he would actually
(03:17):
take her out of the house tip for activities because
you know, there wasn't room in the in the poor
family's mill house. Yeah, and I think that dating might
be on the way out just because we are in
a recession. It's kind of expensive to go on a date,
dinner in a movie. That's a pricey ticket. Yeah, that
is that is expensive. But let's talk about this idea
of the hookup culture because it's been portrayed as very
(03:38):
alarmous terms, largely by people from our parents generation. Seems
like I remember running across this op ed in the
New York Times last year called the Demise of Dating,
and it uh started off with this definition of hookup culture.
You know, for readers who are over thirty, who were saying, oh,
by the way, I'm talking about hookups and if you
(03:58):
don't know what a hookup is, it's basically having any
kind of physical intimacy with someone that you might not
plan on dating, anything from kissing to the full shebang,
any any any of the basis if you will, first base,
second base. They're even saying that the basis have changed,
So you blow my mind. Yeah, there are a lot
(04:18):
of changes happening in the day's dating world. But the
fact is, is it a change Because then we were
reading about the origin of the term hook up and
it's been around since the seventies. I mean, I appreciate
our parents concerned that we might not be getting our
our money's worth in terms of relationships. But the fact
of that matters is it seems like this has always
been going on and people are just now trying to
put this term on it. Right. Um. And then there's
(04:40):
a book that came out a couple of years ago
by Laura session Step that seemed to really tip off
this whole conversation about the hook up culture. And her
book was called Unhooked, and it was very anti hookup
culture from the perspective that it's harming specifically to young
women who are going out and having sex and then
they're just becoming emotionally damaged from the whole process. And
(05:04):
she even goes on to blame it on the chemical oxytocin,
which I think we've talked about another podcast before, which
is basically this hormone that's released when women have sex
that promotes feelings of connection and attachment. And she's saying that,
you know, we're getting these feelings of connection and feel
good things from sex, whereas men are getting a shot
(05:25):
of testosterone. Um. But so so she's saying that we're
just biologically impaired. Right as soon as we have sex
with someone, we're gonna want to date them, And the
men are going to want to, and thus we are
seeing ourselves up for a world of emotional hurt, world
of pain. So these critics of this UH movement are
almost saying that it's feminism gone too far. Like, yes,
(05:46):
women are told by culture and society that they can
have sex like a man without any feeling, but that
really they can't that, and you know, it might be
going too far in terms of we become really accepting
UH date rape. We all have to get are wrounk
before we can have sex things like that. I mean, yeah,
I think there is a way to look at this
where this kind of culture could be taken too far.
(06:08):
But Molly, there is you know. Of course, another side
to this argument that Laura Session Step is trying to
spearhead this anti hookup culture thing. We have um third
wave feminists like Jessica Valenti who are saying that Laura
Session Step argument is basically a form of quote unquote
slut shaming, where it turns the women you know, who
are going out and having sex with men who they
(06:30):
want to have sex with into these dirty women who
are just kind of um prostituting themselves out just for
a good time and turning themselves into damaged goods. And
that's a really dangerous, uh, portrayal of women in an
unhealthy perception of sex because the fact of the matter
is we're getting married later than ever. We have this
(06:51):
gap in our mid twenties. I think the average age
for a woman in the US to get married now
is something like twenty six. Um, So are we supposed
to just sit on our hands and wait? No? But okay,
So here's what we did. We want We wanted to
see if dating stead We wanted to explore hookup culture.
And maybe it doesn't even exist. Maybe it's just a
lot of columns, it's a media buzzword. So Kristen, you know,
(07:12):
Kristen loves her facts. Kristen just dug into the world
of research and scholarly journals and so on and so forth,
and couldn't find anything scholarly about hookup culture. Yeah. I
really wanted to find out, like, have there been any
studies to back up this idea that hookups are bad
specifically for women, and whether or not hooks hookups are
(07:37):
degrading this idea of dating, or even in fact, if
this is really happening, right. Yeah, And the one thing
I did want to run across one thing. A single study, okay,
um about hookups in college among women's feelings towards hookups
in college, and it said that women are more likely
(07:58):
than men to regret having hookups a lot of times
because there is alcohol involved and maybe get your beer
goggles on, and then you wake up and you know,
Steve is quite as attractive or appealing as you thought
he was. His name isn't even Steve, and his name
isn't Steve, and you don't know where you are there.
You know, there are a lot of a lot of
(08:18):
complicated layers to this. And on the flip side, men
are more likely to regret in action like not not
taking uh Stacy home is her name? Um? So, A,
we can't find evidence that this is happening more than
it used to, and B we really can't find out
whether or not this is affecting women more than men
(08:41):
because all of these studies and all of these assertions
that are being made are only about the women, right.
It's very anecdotal. Yeah, it's very anecdotal, and I think
it takes away the fact that you know, men somewhere
might have emotions as well. Shocker. Yeah, all these arguments
result um from this idea that women are going to
get attached and then being miserable. It never looks at
(09:03):
the flip side that a man is going to hook
up with a girl and be like, yeah, that's for me.
That never happens according to people in these articles, right,
It's like you said, it's a lot of it's based
on anecdotal evidence, and anecdotally Molly, I would say that
the world of dating has changed a lot because not
necessarily because of hook up culture, but just because of
(09:24):
the way that men and women communicate to date. We
have text messages. You don't have to call someone up,
which is one of the most nerve racking things in
the world in my opinion, to call up the person
who you are early into for the first or second time.
And we also have things like Facebook where you can
get on and you can get this idea of who
the person is. You can see all these like random
(09:46):
photos of them, see their likes, their dislikes, and kind
of figure out who they are before you even have
the chance to go on a date with someone. And
the thing about it is, if there is let's say
that there is this hook up culture um, and it
is ruining dating. I would say that stuff like what
you're talking about with the texting, with the Facebook, what
all of that is eroding is just a man and
(10:07):
a woman's ability to have a conversation and define if
they are dating. I mean, I think that's the thing is,
you know, if you hook up with someone, it's very
hard to have that talk about what it actually is.
But I feel like that's gonna be tough anytime, right,
And I think that framing this whole conversation about the
hook up culture solely from the woman's perspective, it's also
(10:27):
damaging because I think that it has created this over
our arching idea that men want one thing from a woman,
and that's to have sex. Like if if you hook
up with a guy, you know, he's not going to
want to call you the next day, because well, what's
the old saying that our mom has probably told us,
don't you know, don't give away the samples for free
the milk? Yeah, I think you made fun of me
for saying that in another podcast, probably, but there is
(10:50):
that kind of idea that you know, it's it's that
whole slut shaming concept that you know, you go and
you you give the guy you know too much and
he's not gonna want to come back because he's all
he had his fill. And I think that that's a
very um damaging idea for girls to grow up with
an approach men with, because I think it takes away,
(11:10):
you know, the kind of more emotional and personal side
of I think that's true. And you know, like you're saying,
there's a huge double standard where we expect guys to
be these bachelors around town, these kings of the fat houses,
whereas a woman is more likely to be demonized and
have an awful reputation for this. So I mean the
thing the one takeaways you if you don't want to
(11:31):
have that reputation, then be discreet. Yeah, do it if
you don't want to. And the point you made about
reputation is one that um an author called named Kathleen
Bogel made. She was she had an interview with Inside
higher ed dot com and she was saying that the
hook of culture does affect genders differently based on her studies,
(11:51):
and one of the main ways that it does is
the reputation, the differences in reputation that men and women
get from it. Unfortunately, if a woman us out and
hooks up with a lot of different people, she's more
likely to receive some kind of negative label, whereas a
guy is just he's just being a dude, you know's
just he's just a pimp. And secondly, she also makes
(12:12):
the point that she thinks that women aren't getting what
they want from the hook up system, but that might
all go into you know, a woman's mindset if she's
going out, Like, I don't think that the route to
empowerment is necessarily in the bedroom, right, I mean, I
think it can be. But if a woman is going
out to get a boost of self confidence by being
able to sleep with a man and never call him again,
(12:34):
I don't think that that's a very healthy idea either.
But I don't think that there's anything wrong with you know,
a woman going out and hooking up with someone because
you know, she does want maybe she's got a little
well some pent up needs and yeah, and it's just
scratch right. But I think the other good point that
Kathleen Vogel made is that everyone overestimates what their peers
(12:57):
are doing. And I think that's very important. Like let's
say you look into this podcast, you hear that there's
this hook up culture. You're like, holy crap, I'm not
hooking up. I gotta go out there and hook up.
Bogel says, you know that's what everyone thinks. You just
need to slow your role that not everyone is out
there hooking up. And I think, you know, I remember
being in college and watching sex in the city. And
if that's what you think every woman is out there doing,
(13:19):
then yeah, like a lonely Friday night is going to
sing pretty lame. Yeah, but that's not it's not a reality. Yeah,
and Paris have been terrified about this idea of the
hook up culture because they're thinking that teams are going
out and having all the sex. But the fact of
the matter is, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
teams are actually having less sex than they used to.
Not to say that they aren't being intimate in other ways,
(13:42):
but those stats are actually down. Emily, I also found
an ABC pole on the average number of sex partners
in the men and women in America have, and the
average for both men and women was thirteen. Okay, all right,
but then if you break it down by gender, men
reporting an average of twenty partners and women are reporting
(14:03):
an average of six, and that's a mighty big gap, Molly.
So somebody's lying, yeah, there are those guys having all
that sex with, Yeah, you are all those girls not
having all that sex with. But I think that these
stats go to show that idea that you were saying
that you know, you don't have to there is no
magical number, like you don't have to worry about what
other people are doing if you're doing it enough or
(14:26):
doing it too much. But in terms of things being different,
in terms of these numbers being the result of a
hook up culture or not a hook up culture, what
do you think, Kristen? Do hook ups exist? Yes? I
mean I think though, like you said, Molly, this is
something that's been going on for decades now, and we
just come up with a clever little phrase for it
(14:47):
that strikes fear into the hearts of you know, conservatives
and many parents across across a great country. But is
it as damaging and particularly harmful for women as everyone's
saying it is. I don't think so. But I think
that I think it's these conversations that are, you know,
(15:09):
positioning women as the victims in the so called hook
up culture that's the most damaging aspect of this, I
think that going back to this idea of communication that
you brought up, like the men and women are having
a harder time communicating. I think that's the thing that
we need to think about more than how much sex
we're having, Like whether or not after sex, if you
do like someone, if you can't ask them out to
dinner afterwards and have an honest conversation about you know,
(15:32):
who you are as people, and whether or not you
like each other, and whether or not you want to
continue seeing each other rather than um having this what
I think a very antiquated idea of oh, women should
just have sex like a man. What does that even
mean anyway? Yeah, I think it's time to change the conversation.
I like it. I think that's the perfect note to
end on. Kristen. Yes, let's change the conversation, and Molly,
(15:53):
let's also let's also ask our listeners to uh the
same question. Do you guys think that there is a
hook up culture out there? Do you think that it
is damaging two women? Do you think that this is
a silly notion that people have just cooked up? Have
never been to a soda fountain? Have you ever been
to a soda fountain. Would you like to take Molly
to a soda fountain sometime? Um? Let us know your thoughts. Yeah,
(16:16):
And speaking of people who let us know their thoughts, um,
let's do a little listener mail. So, Kristen, this is
in response to the podcast is Menstruation the Last Taboo?
And we got tons of emails. We'll we'll never get
to all of them, but there was one recurring theme
above all on all the emails that we got. Are
(16:39):
you talking about menstrual cups? Molly, You ladies out there
love your menstrul cups? And I vow to you ladies
who love your menstrual cups that we will definitely revisit
the topic of menstrul cups? How many times we say
menstruall cups and this listener mail, so I'm gonna try
and say the menstrual cups as many times as I
got an email praising the menstrual cup because a lot
(17:01):
women seem to love their menstrual cups and they want
the whole world to know. So that's why I'm saying
menstrual cups. And we do want to give a shout
out to the girls that glad rags who emailed us
about menstrual cups. Yeah, in addition to a whole lot
of other alternative menstrual products. I'm going to read part
of their email about things that they're interested in. The
reason they rose because they were disappointed that we weren't
(17:21):
mentioning menstrual cups. In fact, alternative menstrual products in the
discussion becoming more comfortable with menstrual cycles ALTERNTI menstral products
include things like menstrul cups, which include Diva Cup, Keeper Cup,
Moon Cup, et cetera. Everyone has their different brand, favorite brand,
I've noticed. That's me talking about glad rex Um cloth
pads and c sponge tampons. We work at glad Rags,
a company which sells these type of products. So promoting
(17:43):
positive attitude starts. Menstruation is a subject near and dear
to our hearts. Not many people know that there are
alternatives disposable products, but we believe that everyone should have
all the information available so that she can make the
best choice for her body. The health benefits notwithstanding, such
as re usables don't contain bleach or other harmful chemicals
and have never been linked to toxic shock syndrome. We
find that most of them gain a greater understanding of
(18:03):
their bodies in a sense of comfort with their menstrual cycle.
In addition, the average woman uses sixteen eight hundred paths
or tampons in her lifetime. Imagine the environmental impact of
all that waste. And then they go on for request
about the menstrual cup and cloth pads. And as I
have vowed we shall revisit the topic, we shall return
(18:24):
all right, So in the meantime, until we revisit the
topic of menstrual cups, you guys can keep up with
me and Molly on our blog called how to Stuff.
And if you are interested in more articles about human
sexuality and other things related to hook ups and dating,
you can head over to how stuff works dot com
(18:49):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because
it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Yeah, brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand and twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stop Mom? Never told you?
From house Stop works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristin Kristen. What was your
(00:20):
best date ever? My best date ever? UM? If you
really want me to talk about it honestly, I mean, okay,
well what a what a good a good recent first date?
UM that I went on? UM went to dinner, nice
dinner place I really enjoy. And then I went to
(00:41):
the UM a building roof that looks over our beautiful
Atlanta skyline. You can see all the skylines around Atlanta.
Was around sunset. That sounds lovely. It was pretty good.
Have you ever gone to like a soda fountain and
split a Sunday with a boy and you had to
sent two straws? No? But I have you know, eating
spaghetti from the same plate and we actually ended up
(01:03):
eating the same noodle and then it ended in a
kiss that's so adorable. That never happened, remember tended did? Okay?
But do you know how like that sort of presented
in some classic movies? Just the typical date? Oh yeah,
the soda fountain date, the chocolate malt. I'm gonna put
it out there right now that I really want to
go to a soda fountain on a date. Okay, but
do you know that I might never and do you
(01:25):
know why? Because there aren't many soda fountains left that
that could be one factor, But because dating is dead.
That is what I learned this week. I read all
these articles and I know you did too, about how
dating is dead, and now I'll never get to go
to a soda fountains. O Molly, you you can know
what was go to a soda fountain with me might
(01:45):
not be the same and I would want my own malt.
But anyway, that's we can talk about that after the podcast. Okay,
but why is dating dead? Kristen? Why did she send
me all these scary stories that dating is dead? Well, okay,
I was say, you know, dating has changed from back
in the day, you know, the back in the days
(02:05):
of the soda fountains and the and the movies and
the sock cops. But this idea that dating is said
is based on this this buzzword buzz phrase, if you will,
call the hookup culture. Yes, this idea that instead of dating.
People in their twenties and even in their teens and
on college campuses are just having rampant sex and not
(02:30):
going on dating and working working their way up to sex,
which is jumping right in bed and then maybe if
things work out, then you might end up dating. Yeah.
I guess the way it used to go in olden
days is that you meet someone you liked, you accord them,
go on a few dates, and then it would turn
more serious in terms of physical stuff. And I thought
(02:53):
it was interesting, Molly. We found this NPR story on
this idea of the hookup culture, and it traced dating
the rise of dating back to the nineteen forties and
fifties UM, when poor families wouldn't be able to host
a courtship arrangement where the man would come over to
the girl's house and maybe sit in the parlor the centeria,
play the hopsicle hopsicle and uh, and he would actually
(03:17):
take her out of the house tip for activities because
you know, there wasn't room in the in the poor
family's mill house. Yeah, and I think that dating might
be on the way out just because we are in
a recession. It's kind of expensive to go on a date,
dinner in a movie. That's a pricey ticket. Yeah, that
is that is expensive. But let's talk about this idea
of the hookup culture because it's been portrayed as very
(03:38):
alarmous terms, largely by people from our parents generation. Seems
like I remember running across this op ed in the
New York Times last year called the Demise of Dating,
and it uh started off with this definition of hookup culture.
You know, for readers who are over thirty, who were saying, oh,
by the way, I'm talking about hookups and if you
(03:58):
don't know what a hookup is, it's basically having any
kind of physical intimacy with someone that you might not
plan on dating, anything from kissing to the full shebang,
any any any of the basis if you will, first base,
second base. They're even saying that the basis have changed,
So you blow my mind. Yeah, there are a lot
(04:18):
of changes happening in the day's dating world. But the
fact is, is it a change Because then we were
reading about the origin of the term hook up and
it's been around since the seventies. I mean, I appreciate
our parents concerned that we might not be getting our
our money's worth in terms of relationships. But the fact
of that matters is it seems like this has always
been going on and people are just now trying to
put this term on it. Right. Um. And then there's
(04:40):
a book that came out a couple of years ago
by Laura session Step that seemed to really tip off
this whole conversation about the hook up culture. And her
book was called Unhooked, and it was very anti hookup
culture from the perspective that it's harming specifically to young
women who are going out and having sex and then
they're just becoming emotionally damaged from the whole process. And
(05:04):
she even goes on to blame it on the chemical oxytocin,
which I think we've talked about another podcast before, which
is basically this hormone that's released when women have sex
that promotes feelings of connection and attachment. And she's saying that,
you know, we're getting these feelings of connection and feel
good things from sex, whereas men are getting a shot
(05:25):
of testosterone. Um. But so so she's saying that we're
just biologically impaired. Right as soon as we have sex
with someone, we're gonna want to date them, And the
men are going to want to, and thus we are
seeing ourselves up for a world of emotional hurt, world
of pain. So these critics of this UH movement are
almost saying that it's feminism gone too far. Like, yes,
(05:46):
women are told by culture and society that they can
have sex like a man without any feeling, but that
really they can't that, and you know, it might be
going too far in terms of we become really accepting
UH date rape. We all have to get are wrounk
before we can have sex things like that. I mean, yeah,
I think there is a way to look at this
where this kind of culture could be taken too far.
(06:08):
But Molly, there is you know. Of course, another side
to this argument that Laura Session Step is trying to
spearhead this anti hookup culture thing. We have um third
wave feminists like Jessica Valenti who are saying that Laura
Session Step argument is basically a form of quote unquote
slut shaming, where it turns the women you know, who
are going out and having sex with men who they
(06:30):
want to have sex with into these dirty women who
are just kind of um prostituting themselves out just for
a good time and turning themselves into damaged goods. And
that's a really dangerous, uh, portrayal of women in an
unhealthy perception of sex because the fact of the matter
is we're getting married later than ever. We have this
(06:51):
gap in our mid twenties. I think the average age
for a woman in the US to get married now
is something like twenty six. Um, So are we supposed
to just sit on our hands and wait? No? But okay,
So here's what we did. We want We wanted to
see if dating stead We wanted to explore hookup culture.
And maybe it doesn't even exist. Maybe it's just a
lot of columns, it's a media buzzword. So Kristen, you know,
(07:12):
Kristen loves her facts. Kristen just dug into the world
of research and scholarly journals and so on and so forth,
and couldn't find anything scholarly about hookup culture. Yeah. I
really wanted to find out, like, have there been any
studies to back up this idea that hookups are bad
specifically for women, and whether or not hooks hookups are
(07:37):
degrading this idea of dating, or even in fact, if
this is really happening, right. Yeah, And the one thing
I did want to run across one thing. A single study, okay,
um about hookups in college among women's feelings towards hookups
in college, and it said that women are more likely
(07:58):
than men to regret having hookups a lot of times
because there is alcohol involved and maybe get your beer
goggles on, and then you wake up and you know,
Steve is quite as attractive or appealing as you thought
he was. His name isn't even Steve, and his name
isn't Steve, and you don't know where you are there.
You know, there are a lot of a lot of
(08:18):
complicated layers to this. And on the flip side, men
are more likely to regret in action like not not
taking uh Stacy home is her name? Um? So, A,
we can't find evidence that this is happening more than
it used to, and B we really can't find out
whether or not this is affecting women more than men
(08:41):
because all of these studies and all of these assertions
that are being made are only about the women, right.
It's very anecdotal. Yeah, it's very anecdotal, and I think
it takes away the fact that you know, men somewhere
might have emotions as well. Shocker. Yeah, all these arguments
result um from this idea that women are going to
get attached and then being miserable. It never looks at
(09:03):
the flip side that a man is going to hook
up with a girl and be like, yeah, that's for me.
That never happens according to people in these articles, right,
It's like you said, it's a lot of it's based
on anecdotal evidence, and anecdotally Molly, I would say that
the world of dating has changed a lot because not
necessarily because of hook up culture, but just because of
(09:24):
the way that men and women communicate to date. We
have text messages. You don't have to call someone up,
which is one of the most nerve racking things in
the world in my opinion, to call up the person
who you are early into for the first or second time.
And we also have things like Facebook where you can
get on and you can get this idea of who
the person is. You can see all these like random
(09:46):
photos of them, see their likes, their dislikes, and kind
of figure out who they are before you even have
the chance to go on a date with someone. And
the thing about it is, if there is let's say
that there is this hook up culture um, and it
is ruining dating. I would say that stuff like what
you're talking about with the texting, with the Facebook, what
all of that is eroding is just a man and
(10:07):
a woman's ability to have a conversation and define if
they are dating. I mean, I think that's the thing is,
you know, if you hook up with someone, it's very
hard to have that talk about what it actually is.
But I feel like that's gonna be tough anytime, right,
And I think that framing this whole conversation about the
hook up culture solely from the woman's perspective, it's also
(10:27):
damaging because I think that it has created this over
our arching idea that men want one thing from a woman,
and that's to have sex. Like if if you hook
up with a guy, you know, he's not going to
want to call you the next day, because well, what's
the old saying that our mom has probably told us,
don't you know, don't give away the samples for free
the milk? Yeah, I think you made fun of me
for saying that in another podcast, probably, but there is
(10:50):
that kind of idea that you know, it's it's that
whole slut shaming concept that you know, you go and
you you give the guy you know too much and
he's not gonna want to come back because he's all
he had his fill. And I think that that's a
very um damaging idea for girls to grow up with
an approach men with, because I think it takes away,
(11:10):
you know, the kind of more emotional and personal side
of I think that's true. And you know, like you're saying,
there's a huge double standard where we expect guys to
be these bachelors around town, these kings of the fat houses,
whereas a woman is more likely to be demonized and
have an awful reputation for this. So I mean the
thing the one takeaways you if you don't want to
(11:31):
have that reputation, then be discreet. Yeah, do it if
you don't want to. And the point you made about
reputation is one that um an author called named Kathleen
Bogel made. She was she had an interview with Inside
higher ed dot com and she was saying that the
hook of culture does affect genders differently based on her studies,
(11:51):
and one of the main ways that it does is
the reputation, the differences in reputation that men and women
get from it. Unfortunately, if a woman us out and
hooks up with a lot of different people, she's more
likely to receive some kind of negative label, whereas a
guy is just he's just being a dude, you know's
just he's just a pimp. And secondly, she also makes
(12:12):
the point that she thinks that women aren't getting what
they want from the hook up system, but that might
all go into you know, a woman's mindset if she's
going out, Like, I don't think that the route to
empowerment is necessarily in the bedroom, right, I mean, I
think it can be. But if a woman is going
out to get a boost of self confidence by being
able to sleep with a man and never call him again,
(12:34):
I don't think that that's a very healthy idea either.
But I don't think that there's anything wrong with you know,
a woman going out and hooking up with someone because
you know, she does want maybe she's got a little
well some pent up needs and yeah, and it's just
scratch right. But I think the other good point that
Kathleen Vogel made is that everyone overestimates what their peers
(12:57):
are doing. And I think that's very important. Like let's
say you look into this podcast, you hear that there's
this hook up culture. You're like, holy crap, I'm not
hooking up. I gotta go out there and hook up.
Bogel says, you know that's what everyone thinks. You just
need to slow your role that not everyone is out
there hooking up. And I think, you know, I remember
being in college and watching sex in the city. And
if that's what you think every woman is out there doing,
(13:19):
then yeah, like a lonely Friday night is going to
sing pretty lame. Yeah, but that's not it's not a reality. Yeah,
and Paris have been terrified about this idea of the
hook up culture because they're thinking that teams are going
out and having all the sex. But the fact of
the matter is, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
teams are actually having less sex than they used to.
Not to say that they aren't being intimate in other ways,
(13:42):
but those stats are actually down. Emily, I also found
an ABC pole on the average number of sex partners
in the men and women in America have, and the
average for both men and women was thirteen. Okay, all right,
but then if you break it down by gender, men
reporting an average of twenty partners and women are reporting
(14:03):
an average of six, and that's a mighty big gap, Molly.
So somebody's lying, yeah, there are those guys having all
that sex with, Yeah, you are all those girls not
having all that sex with. But I think that these
stats go to show that idea that you were saying
that you know, you don't have to there is no
magical number, like you don't have to worry about what
other people are doing if you're doing it enough or
(14:26):
doing it too much. But in terms of things being different,
in terms of these numbers being the result of a
hook up culture or not a hook up culture, what
do you think, Kristen? Do hook ups exist? Yes? I
mean I think though, like you said, Molly, this is
something that's been going on for decades now, and we
just come up with a clever little phrase for it
(14:47):
that strikes fear into the hearts of you know, conservatives
and many parents across across a great country. But is
it as damaging and particularly harmful for women as everyone's
saying it is. I don't think so. But I think
that I think it's these conversations that are, you know,
(15:09):
positioning women as the victims in the so called hook
up culture that's the most damaging aspect of this, I
think that going back to this idea of communication that
you brought up, like the men and women are having
a harder time communicating. I think that's the thing that
we need to think about more than how much sex
we're having, Like whether or not after sex, if you
do like someone, if you can't ask them out to
dinner afterwards and have an honest conversation about you know,
(15:32):
who you are as people, and whether or not you
like each other, and whether or not you want to
continue seeing each other rather than um having this what
I think a very antiquated idea of oh, women should
just have sex like a man. What does that even
mean anyway? Yeah, I think it's time to change the conversation.
I like it. I think that's the perfect note to
end on. Kristen. Yes, let's change the conversation, and Molly,
(15:53):
let's also let's also ask our listeners to uh the
same question. Do you guys think that there is a
hook up culture out there? Do you think that it
is damaging two women? Do you think that this is
a silly notion that people have just cooked up? Have
never been to a soda fountain? Have you ever been
to a soda fountain. Would you like to take Molly
to a soda fountain sometime? Um? Let us know your thoughts. Yeah,
(16:16):
And speaking of people who let us know their thoughts, um,
let's do a little listener mail. So, Kristen, this is
in response to the podcast is Menstruation the Last Taboo?
And we got tons of emails. We'll we'll never get
to all of them, but there was one recurring theme
above all on all the emails that we got. Are
(16:39):
you talking about menstrual cups? Molly, You ladies out there
love your menstrul cups? And I vow to you ladies
who love your menstrual cups that we will definitely revisit
the topic of menstrul cups? How many times we say
menstruall cups and this listener mail, so I'm gonna try
and say the menstrual cups as many times as I
got an email praising the menstrual cup because a lot
(17:01):
women seem to love their menstrual cups and they want
the whole world to know. So that's why I'm saying
menstrual cups. And we do want to give a shout
out to the girls that glad rags who emailed us
about menstrual cups. Yeah, in addition to a whole lot
of other alternative menstrual products. I'm going to read part
of their email about things that they're interested in. The
reason they rose because they were disappointed that we weren't
(17:21):
mentioning menstrual cups. In fact, alternative menstrual products in the
discussion becoming more comfortable with menstrual cycles ALTERNTI menstral products
include things like menstrul cups, which include Diva Cup, Keeper Cup,
Moon Cup, et cetera. Everyone has their different brand, favorite brand,
I've noticed. That's me talking about glad rex Um cloth
pads and c sponge tampons. We work at glad Rags,
a company which sells these type of products. So promoting
(17:43):
positive attitude starts. Menstruation is a subject near and dear
to our hearts. Not many people know that there are
alternatives disposable products, but we believe that everyone should have
all the information available so that she can make the
best choice for her body. The health benefits notwithstanding, such
as re usables don't contain bleach or other harmful chemicals
and have never been linked to toxic shock syndrome. We
find that most of them gain a greater understanding of
(18:03):
their bodies in a sense of comfort with their menstrual cycle.
In addition, the average woman uses sixteen eight hundred paths
or tampons in her lifetime. Imagine the environmental impact of
all that waste. And then they go on for request
about the menstrual cup and cloth pads. And as I
have vowed we shall revisit the topic, we shall return
(18:24):
all right, So in the meantime, until we revisit the
topic of menstrual cups, you guys can keep up with
me and Molly on our blog called how to Stuff.
And if you are interested in more articles about human
sexuality and other things related to hook ups and dating,
you can head over to how stuff works dot com
(18:49):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because
it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Yeah, brought to you by the reinvented
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