Oops … Sorry!

Just as I was writing my post about the hook-up culture and death of dating as our Grandparents knew it, the feminist blog-sphere was being lit up. In this corner of the Internet the old argument “is the hook-up generation bad for girls?” had been dug up from the bin of tossed around ideas, like a discarded dress with shoulder-pads finding itself once again trendy.

Dusting off the question–which is usually favored by conservatives shaming the pro-sex third wave– was an unusually fresh “girl’s expert” Rachel Simmons who writes advice for TeenVogue.  Basically her argument was that during this era of easy hook-ups and birth control pills, girls are being expected to be casual and cool about relationships And that the ball is in the dude’s court on to be bf-gf or not to be. The girls are then left with bated breath, hoping that he will ask. So pretty much the same old story we’ve been fed throughout generations. Only this time they are engaging in blowjobs before he asks her to the prom and she comes down the stairs in slow-motion with a make-over.

Rachel’s thing is that this is detrimental to girls because all of the power lies in the guys court. I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that this does happen and that it is a product of patriarch and not so good.  But Rachel  falls into the trap of pining a bit too much over the courting rituals of old. If the hook-up culture is rooted in patriarchy, old style courting was buried in it. I don’t need to point out how the same thread of sexism that ran through dating and has trickled down into the hook-up culture. Kate Harding already explained it on Salon more swiftly and gracefully then i ever could.

What does get old for me in Harding’s argument though are the many assertions of how the patriarchy hurts women in dating. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is sad that some women let men decide for them when and if they will date. And shockingly sad that women’s magazines and self help books have us ruminating over being perfect for a man. But the patriarchy hurts everyone and the male version of “10 ways to keep a man” is the “how to  impress a girl by saying/doing douchey stuff” ala Maxim/Mystery. Both are products of the patriarchy and I’d rather pluck out my eyelashes then read articles on either. But both men and women are hurting here.

What is needed is for men and women to learn honest communication, with themselves and with each other. And if you read my piece on how feminism changed dating, you can probably guess my answer. While the sexual revolution and feminism have erased the old rules, we are still knee-jerking our way through fucking and loving with the old sexist positions. Instead of guessing and hemming and hawing over what each other think, the new relationship needs to be one based on honesty. The advice Rachel Simmons needs to give her TeenVogue readers is to simply start being honest. First honest with themselves about whether or not they truly want a relationship (or if it just seems like the right thing to do.) And second, to start being radically honest with their partners about what they want.

Because that is how we are going to change this. It isn’t going to be about “teaching boys to be more respectful of girls” as she suggests, because really that is not the issue here. It isn’t an issue of conscious disrespect, but rather of playing a silent game and boys and girls being expected to take certain positions within that game. The issue here is that these kids are not talking about the relationships they are in. And let’s be honest,  it is not just kids doing this.

Now, back to that question that the TeenVogue readers should first ask themselves, “do I really want a relationship?”  Where this gets sticky is in the conditioning on how to feel about hook-ups and  boyfriends. Girl-Drive sums this up beautifully in her post on the matter “If we’re told that casual sex is unfulfilling and that we’re going to want relationships, chances are we’ll end up wanting them. And why not? That’s what Seventeen, Glamour, and all my friends always told me.”

We should teach girls that they don’t have to justify their hook-ups to themselves. Further, hooking-up doesn’t mean you should or can have a relationship with someone, explore what you really want. Where I stand on this old “does the hook-up culture” hurt girls is that no, hooking up is fine, great even for some people.  I think it is so important for people in Simmons position to let everyone know that teenagers are sexual beings with a right to a sex life, and consensual sex of any kind is okay.

If I haven’t beaten this into your brain enough by now, it is not the hook-up culture hurting us, it is the tired game of non-honesty that is hurting girls–and boys.  Even without the old courtship rules, we are still blindly going through the patriarchal motions which positions the male to pop the big questions of commitment and then carry us off into the sunset. All genders need to be liberated from this game and unless we start having intentional relationships where we are honest with ourselves and each other, it won’t happen.

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Related posts:

1. How Feminism Has Changed Relationships
2. Exploring What Intimacy Means
3. Ask Rabbit: Finding a Balance in your Dating Personality