American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus by Lisa WadeMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The author began the book with a discussion of the actual statistics of hooking up. It’s nowhere near as prevalent as the media and as the millennials you know lead on. After that brief introduction, the author spends the rest of the book describing the activities of her students, many active in hookups, but most impacted by what the author calls “the culture” surrounding the hookup. In other words, there are lots of hunters but few kills, and most brag of trophies. The bragging is the purpose. I’ve read books including “Missoula”, by Jon Krakauer, that shed light on this culture. “American Hookup” starts there, but doesn’t dwell on rape and justice. This book adds some details and anecdotes but shows the state of “the hunt” and the issues those ways cause still exist. Think less romance, more process, more checklists to mark off. It doesn’t seem to be about sexual freedom, like the stereotype of the mores of the sixties. My biggest takeaway from “Missoula” was that many young men have not generated their own moral compass when it comes to respect of others, or even “the golden rule”. From “American Hookup”, I see that that can be said of the young women the author has taken stories from as well. Parental and societal fails abound.
But does this represent a failure? For those in the older generations, changes in mores compared to the beliefs you were raised with generally appear to be failures. But progress also can seem like a failure at first blush. Is this progress? The author presents enough stories with no real benefit for the parties involved, in fact portraying injury and loss in some cases, to imply that this part of modern culture isn’t what you’d call progress. Overall, enlightening to a point.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment