Leah Fessler was miserable. A feminist woman, (which is how Leah describes herself) is told that women can have casual sex without consequences, physical, emotional or otherwise. But Leah found that her experience with pseudo-relationships and that of her friends failed to live up to the empowering promises of the feminist movement and has left her emotionally empty, craving for love and a stable relationship.
Fessler did research, devoted her senior thesis to the hookup culture, and published her findings in an article in which she explains her quest to examine what it was about the prominent hookup culture with its ill-defined, non-committal “pseudo-relationships,” took its toll on her and her college friends and was making her miserable.
“Meaningless sex” has mutated into “pseudo-relationships” hooking up with the same person for weeks, months or even years, while avoiding emotional involvement, commitment and vulnerability. According to the social code, to call such a relationship exclusive is considered “clingy,” or even “crazy.”
The “wash, rinse, and repeat” cycle left her feeling used and desperate for emotional intimacy. But those feelings didn’t square with her feminist ideal of the “carefree, empowering feeling” feminists try to suggest is possible.
Her findings are compelling. The overwhelming majority of women, almost all of them, “stated a clear preference for committed relationships.”
“The women I interviewed were eager to build connections, intimacy and trust,” wrote Fessler. “Instead, almost all of them found themselves going along with hookups that induced overwhelming self-doubt, emotional instability and loneliness.”
Men also preferred a committed relationship, but felt pressured by their peers to have casual sex with numerous beautiful women so they could discuss these “escapades” with their friends and boost their status.
Perhaps it’s time that casual sex ceases to be the progressive norm, and that women recognize the connection between their need for an emotionally fulfilling relationship and their sex lives, Fessler notes.
“The truth is that, for many women, there’s nothing liberating about emotionless, non-committal sex. The young women I spoke with were taking part in hookup culture because they thought that was what guys wanted, or because they hoped a casual encounter would be a stepping stone to commitment.”
“In doing this, we actually deny ourselves agency and bolster male dominance, all while convincing ourselves we’re acting like progressive feminists. But engaging in hookup culture while wholeheartedly craving love and stability was perhaps the least feminist action I, and hundreds of my peers, could take.”
Perhaps the Ten Commandments are worth obeying after all. This end-time prophecy speaks directly to this issue. “For this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men as theirs also was.” 2 Timothy 3: 6, 9
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