Hooking up and sex …

when you’re young ‘ain’t’ all it’s supposed to be

“Our generation is wonderfully outspoken, but it’s time we learned to listen as well. Who we love is a reflection of what we value, so what do we value? We would do well to examine our lives and the roles that love and sex play in them.” – from book, Unhooked

• The research in this book was a natural outgrowth of the author’s previous book, Our Last Best Shot. In that book, she wrote about ten-to fifteen-year-olds who, as young adolescents, were beginning to shape a self-image based in part on whether they felt loved and capable of love [and that is the foundation of their views of sex].
• One national study found that among eighteen-to twenty-nine-year-olds, only slightly more than a third were in committed relationships. Of the rest, more said they were not looking than looking.
• To some degree, depending on their temperament, upbringing and luck, all girls are caught up in the changes. Young people have virtually abandoned dating and replaced it with group get-togethers and sexual behaviors that are detached from love or commitment—and sometimes even from liking.
• Relationships have been replaced by the casual sexual encounters known as hookups. Love, while desired by some, is being put on hold or seen as impossible; sex is becoming the primary currency of social interaction.
• The crucial thing to remember in all of this is that hooking up, in the minds of this generation, carries no commitment.
• The proportion of young women ages eighteen to twenty-two who reported having intercourse—seventy-five percent—equaled that of young men.
• Seventy percent of both sexes had had sex before their nineteenth birthdays.
• Only one-third of young women said they truly wanted to have sex the first time they did so, compared to one-half of the young men.
• Two out of three young men said it was better to get married than go through life single, fewer than half of the young women felt that way.

“Our society is obsessed with sex, but no one wants to talk frankly about sex.” – from book, Unhooked

Read book review of Unhooked >>

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