Althouse: "To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture."

August 23, 2012

"To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture."

"And to a surprising degree, it is women — not men — who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future."

Writes Hanna Rosin, looking at what women have lost and gained in the sexual revolution.

110 comments:

Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Yea.. thats all well and good, as long as the slut slur is not used.; 8/23/12, 12:35 PM
traditionalguy said...: I for one think that ladies who use male fuck buddies for sex and then throw them away are cruel. But beware, Karma still works.; 8/23/12, 12:36 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: I'm shocked that an elite has benefited while the majority has suffered.

Of course greater liberty helped some people.

This is 80/20 rule.; 8/23/12, 12:36 PM
Alex said...: So how was Rush Limbaugh wrong about Sandra Fluke?; 8/23/12, 12:37 PM
Brian Brown said...: It seems quite clear they've lost just about everything and gained little.; 8/23/12, 12:42 PM
n.n said...: Well, this is, ostensibly, the justification for immigration, both legal and illegal. Americans in progressive numbers desire instant gratification, while failing to recognize their behavior is incompatible with evolutionary fitness. Still, the effort to normalize immigration, and illegal immigration specifically, only serves to preserve the illusion of a viable society. Perhaps we have evolved to become a single generation species.; 8/23/12, 12:43 PM
Æthelflæd said...: Those poor, sad kids, both male and female. Pretending to be nothing more than rutting animals. It will have consequences later, though they may be convincing themselves otherwise now.

Tell me again why I should want my kids to get into an Ivy League school?; 8/23/12, 12:46 PM
Alex said...: Rutting animal behavior leads to STDs rea fast.; 8/23/12, 12:49 PM
Brian Brown said...: To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture. And to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind

Sure, when you pretend women are all in business school and your representation of the demographic are 5 people at Ivy League business-school parties.

Does Rosin have the slightest bit of self-awareness?; 8/23/12, 12:50 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Seems backwards - the hookup culture is contingent on feminist progress, not the other way around. In other words, if college women still percieved a need for a male provider, they would still pursue monogamous relationships.; 8/23/12, 12:58 PM
Brian Brown said...: How awful!

The way I see it is that she’s from a really small town, and that’s what everyone in her town does … [they] get married and have babies.”

The horror!; 8/23/12, 12:59 PM
Joe said...: The "hook up culture" is wildly overstated. It certainly exists as a subculture, but just that.

What's interesting is that it's women who are talking about it, not men. Seems to me that they are trying to justify acting like whores by blaming cultural influence. It's the same lame excuses kids resort to with just about everything. And too many adults just buy into it, especially when it reinforces their particular belief system.; 8/23/12, 1:00 PM
chickelit said...: Althouse, you spelled her name Rosen and Rosin. Is she roses or resin?; 8/23/12, 1:00 PM
KCFleming said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/23/12, 1:02 PM
rhhardin said...: The point of feminism is nagging.; 8/23/12, 1:03 PM
KCFleming said...: "Even for those business-school women, their hookup years are likely to end up as a series of photographs, buried somewhere on their Facebook page, that they do or don’t share with their husband—a memory that they recall fondly or sourly, but that hardly defines them."

Of course it defines them. It will create who they become.

To think otherwise is fantasy, pure bullshit.

"Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny."
― Gandhi; 8/23/12, 1:04 PM
SteveOrr said...: Rosin sounds like an old fart.

The fact that she’s “pro-sex” doesn’t make her seem any more connected to reality than the grumpy “anti-sex” old fart.; 8/23/12, 1:05 PM
Dan in Philly said...: I am really amazed at how self-destructive people can be. Women, it's far, far better for you to find yourself a good man who can take care of you and marry him than almost anything else you can do, and men it's far far better for you to find such a woman and marry her than almost anything else you can do. Just doing this will improve your life as dramatically as quitting smoking, losing weight, excercising, and going to college all rolled up into one.; 8/23/12, 1:13 PM
Lyssa said...: I've been out of college since 2002, so about 10 years (not counting law school). I went to a state school, not some ultra-conservative religious place or anything, and I would not say that there was a "hook-up culture" at all. There were people who "hooked up" (I don't think that we called it that, then), but it wasn't the norm and certainly wasn't expected or required. I met my husband the end of my freshman year, and never felt any pressure to date around once I was in a defined relationship with him, nor did I feel pressure to sleep with the fellows I was partying with before he came along.

Am I supposed to believe that things have changed that much, or is this whole unavoidable hook up culture thing overblown?; 8/23/12, 1:13 PM
KJE said...: First the dot com bubble, then the real estate bubble, soon, I think the higher education bubble.

And round about after that, I'm guessing there's going to be a feminism bubble. Or men will develop the sex bots... and be done with the nonsense that goes on in today's dating/relationship market.; 8/23/12, 1:13 PM
The Drill SGT said...: What works for a female Hahvad B School student deosn't work well for a local Jr College night student.

All you have to do is look at the pregancy rates among single never-married white women to know that this stuff isn't going to have a happy ending for society... Regardless of Rosin's cheerleading.; 8/23/12, 1:18 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: "A danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future."

AKA an actual "Daddy" for your kids.

No, they'll keep the owner of that wallet at arm's length, with the "help" of the state, until (as a friend of mine has finally accepted) he no longer cares if he ever sees his kid again. Just make the financial screwing end.

But it never will.

And that's a "promise"...; 8/23/12, 1:20 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: You mean Women's Studies is not doing it?; 8/23/12, 1:23 PM
SteveOrr said...: Rosin relies on an “online survey” for her data. LOL.

Joe & Lyssa are right. The hook-up culture is exaggerated. Religious folks exaggerate it to scare kids straight. Feminists exaggerate it to brag about their victory in the culture wars.; 8/23/12, 1:28 PM
Carnifex said...: So your saying that Rush was right? That feminism was only propagated to allow ugly women access to men.

As far as marriage, progressives have ever been dismissive of anything that takes power away from the state. Who are you gonna' trust, Uncle Sugar, that delivers your welfare/baby fare/whatever fare check every 2 weeks, or the guy you fucked you for 5 minutes, and made you ugly and hurt for 9 months, saddled you with a kid, and never called, not even once?!

Yeah, there won't be any fallout for society going down this road.; 8/23/12, 1:31 PM
Anonymous said...: I've taken a number of writing classes in the Bay Area. The other students were mostly in their the 20s and 30s, with more women than men. Quite a lot of their stories, more than I expected, were based on their sexual experiences and their sexual experiences were based on the hookup culture.

It sounded plentiful and miserable. Even though I come from the so-called "Free Love" generation, I don't remember my peers having nearly so much sex except for some gays and musicians. I was struck that love was never mentioned in these stories. For the characters sex was about pleasure, status, and social maneuvering, and often resulted in painful complications. There was no sense of fun about it.

I also noticed the fierce contempt for men that appeared in the stories written by women, though the flipside never appeared in men's stories.

I don't know how closely their fiction matches current reality, but what I read startled me. It also didn't make for pleasant reading.; 8/23/12, 1:36 PM
furious_a said...: ...lest it get in the way of a promising future.

What a sterile, joyless future our daughters will inherit. Those who choose not to inhabit the hookup culture will still be beset by the men their more adventurous sisters attract, cast off and embitter.

The hookup culture, like the body image culture, seems a fraud foisted on women rather than a means of empowerment. How is it "empowering" if the guys now get (lots) more of what they want without any apparent expectations on the women's part?; 8/23/12, 1:40 PM
n.n said...: Lyssa:

They're manufacturing a perception in order to influence reality. It's not clear why they desire to sabotage the primary level of social organization established by the natural order. While I understand the personal desire to abrogate responsibility, it is the premise for a (literally) myopic vision of life. What's also interesting is that a subset of the same people (e.g. Schumer) who promote this outlook will, in private, recognize the inviolability of evolutionary principles and actively promote a superior behavior. They do recognize that behaviors are classified for normalization, tolerance, and rejection, and act accordingly, at least in private.; 8/23/12, 1:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Women lost self-respect and gained free condoms.

Men got to do it for free: free of responsibilities, free of expenses, free to "f*ck and dump".; 8/23/12, 1:47 PM
Kensington said...: "So how was Rush Limbaugh wrong about Sandra Fluke?"
=====

He deemed her someone deserving of an apology.; 8/23/12, 1:47 PM
Lyssa said...: I did know one girl, a roommate, who got caught up in it, though. Again, not a culture, just a pattern that she fell into. She started with several back to back really intense relationships (as in, they met and were immediately claiming that they were soulmates and planning weddings) with increasingly emotionally disturbed guys. I guess when those petered out, and there wasn't another guy on the horizon, she started bringing them home and having "hookups", looking for another relationship or something, I don't know.

It was clearly a really tough time for her - she gained weight and was always sick, and just seemed unhappy. People definitely didn't applaud her or consider it normal, though - most of our friends were very concerned for her. She discussed it with me once and indicated that it was something that she felt really bad about, and that she really beleived that sex should be reserved for marriage.

(We've recently reconnected through facebook, and she seems to be much better now, thank goodness.); 8/23/12, 1:48 PM
David said...: "Test" was because I was having trouble posting comments. For me at least, now you have to post both the number and the letters.; 8/23/12, 1:51 PM
David said...: " I was struck that love was never mentioned in these stories. For the characters sex was about pleasure, status, and social maneuvering, and often resulted in painful complications. There was no sense of fun about it."

Bet the stories sucked too.

(By the way there will be a backlash on this sooner or later but meanwhile they can always claim rape if they change their mind sometime during the night.); 8/23/12, 1:57 PM
carrie said...: Sad. Women have now lost the power to say "no". There was an article in Newsweek a few years ago about a club at Harvard of women who were wanted to abstain from sex and recognized that women had lost the power to say "no". I couldn't find that article but found this one instead-- http://cornellsun.com/node/29426 --but I liked this quote: "Magic aside, ever notice how attitudes toward sex are amplified tenfold in the media when students at elite colleges hold those attitudes?"; 8/23/12, 2:03 PM
John said...: I cordially disagree with those who say a "hookup" culture is overstated.

I live in Iowa City, Iowa, the home of the University of Iowa, a state school with just under 30,000 students. I can tell you that, although there are probably plenty of modest, virtuous female students at U of Iowa, the vast majority of the ones I see around campus and downtown are vacuous trollops whose skimpy, immodest outfits an actual prostitute would be ashamed to wear in public.

In all seriousness, being constantly immersed in the University's culture and values, I can tell you that the hookup culture is indeed real. Perhaps not everywhere, and perhaps not to the same degree. But the college-age women I've observed are no longer looking for husbands or even long-term boyfriends. (And this is in Iowa, of all places.); 8/23/12, 2:07 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Lyssa-

The hookup thing is a minority. Like always, the people having all the sex get all the attention.

It's another 80/20 rule. Twenty percent of the students are having eighty percent of the sex- with each other.

The rest are being boring and pursuing a degree.

With all this talk about hooking up and "game" and whatnot, it's important to remember that most people aren't doing any of it. Which is a good thing, after all, for the continued health of the society we live in.

The problem is when that twenty percent sets the tone for everyone else. People who are constantly in short-term relationships tend think the opposite gender is made up of a bunch of selfish jerks. Well, no, just the ones you are hooking up with. The internet is full of self-justifying gender nonsense that's best ignored.

Perhaps we should be a bit more skeptical about people who are "successful" in having relationships... as long as they don't last very long.; 8/23/12, 2:13 PM
Lyssa said...: @John Lynch, I think that you are right; however, that really eats into the arguments presented several times in this article, that this culture is "unavoidable" and that females basically don't have a choice but to participate.

(On that note, did anyone really understand what the author's actual point of that article was? She said that females don't have a choice here several times, but seemed to conclude that this was ultimately a good thing. It was really disjointed, IMO.); 8/23/12, 2:26 PM
Balfegor said...: re: creeley23:

I also noticed the fierce contempt for men that appeared in the stories written by women, though the flipside never appeared in men's stories.

Probably because writing classes select against the type of man who would feel comfortable putting that in. There's plenty of misogyny arising out of the hookup culture, though. That's the whole "pick up artist" schtick: that they are successful at getting women into bed precisely because they despise them and see them for the creatures that they are. There are reams and reams of that stuff all over the internet.; 8/23/12, 2:32 PM
Wince said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/23/12, 2:33 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: The reason not to settle into a relationship in college is so you can land the investment banker or corporate lawyer in your late 20s or early 30s.

Now, if you know that you're going to be the banker/lawyer, you can bring along you hometown sweetheart (your Ann Romney).

Or, if you recognize the strong career earning potential in someone else, you can latch on to that person (your Michelle Obama).

But what if you don't know? The hookup culture depends on mutual uncertainty about the future.

If you want to be a professor married to a professor, that cute grad student may not make the tenure cut. And you may not either.; 8/23/12, 2:34 PM
Wince said...: Time to grab my raccoon coat and pennant and head back to college!; 8/23/12, 2:34 PM
Anonymous said...: What...30 something of the most sexist comments all on one page.

Thank God no other generation just "hooked up". Nice to know we invented sex.; 8/23/12, 2:35 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.

Hee...maybe they should look at the unemployment stats for recent college grads. But then again, math is hard....; 8/23/12, 2:38 PM
Anonymous said...: John said...
"I live in Iowa City, Iowa, the home of the University of Iowa, ..... the vast majority of the ones I see around campus and downtown are vacuous trollops whose skimpy, immodest outfits an actual prostitute would be ashamed to wear in public".

I have my first two degrees from the University of Michigan and as they say about the Big Ten, 9 out of 10 graduate as chaste virgins and the 10th goes to Iowa.

Seriously, don't you think that your gross generalization of sex crazed Iowa coeds is something out of Refer Madness?; 8/23/12, 2:39 PM
Anonymous said...: Dan in Philly said...
Women, it's far, far better for you to find yourself a good man who can take care of you and marry him than almost anything else you can do...."

Ahhh yes. Barefoot and endlessly pregnant. That's the ticket.; 8/23/12, 2:43 PM
Sorun said...: What...30 something of the most sexist comments all on one page.

When the subject is sexual behavior of one of the sexes in relation to "progress" of that sex, it's just a coincidence that comments are "sexist."; 8/23/12, 2:48 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I dont know what this woman is complaining about..

All I see here is a progressively aggressive affirmative action.

No political dog whistles :(; 8/23/12, 2:52 PM
Lyssa said...: Lindsay MeadowsWomen, it's far, far better for you to find yourself a good man who can take care of you and marry him than almost anything else you can do...."

Ahhh yes. Barefoot and endlessly pregnant. That's the ticket.

Do you really live in a world where, once a woman gets married, she loses all agency of her own and only can be "barefoot and pregnant?" How incredibly sad. And yet, how reflective of the modern liberal attitude towards women. I'll bet you call yourself a feminist while you hold such a low attitude towards women's ability to think for themselves, too.

(Ironically, as I sit here typing this, I actually am both barefoot and pregnant. But I chose that, after being married for 10+ years, and I'm doing so from my law office, with the law degree that I earned while married. (I like to kick off my shoes under the desk.)) :); 8/23/12, 3:00 PM
FleetUSA said...: To my mind while the hook-up culture may sound like fun, it is a lose-lose situation for young women. I hope my granddaughter avoids this trap.; 8/23/12, 3:06 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/23/12, 3:13 PM
chickelit said...: Ms Slims said...

Ahhh yes. Barefoot and endlessly pregnant. That's the ticket.

You've come a long ways, baby.; 8/23/12, 3:23 PM
furious_a said...: Lindsey: Nice to know we invented sex.

No, you just invented *talking about it* -- ad nauseam.; 8/23/12, 3:24 PM
Col Mustard said...: I know and talk with dozens of young women who are high school and college students. They're employees in bars and restaurants I frequent.

If you can believe the stories they tell, many are sexually active and relatively promiscuous. Almost all seem to hold the Clintonian view that anything other than vaginal intercourse is not 'real sex'. Girl/girl 'fun' is more common than I would have thought.

I don't see any hint of a feminist agenda among these young women - more like a "girls just wanna have fun' thing.; 8/23/12, 3:26 PM
Alex said...: Col Mustard - so those girls are basically rutting animals.; 8/23/12, 3:31 PM
Michael Abramoff said...: Please read some recent posts on

www.hookingupsmart.com

or

www.marriedmansexlife.com

about these and similar issues.
There is a whole world of analysis and commentary out there about this that your commenters here may not be aware of.

I never comment here because I cannot use non-ID pseudonyms, but this is too important.; 8/23/12, 3:35 PM
ricpic said...: In all the movies and TV shows nowadays the woman rides the man. Does she want to be the man? She doesn't look happy when she's riding the man. Not in the shows. But she always has a very determined look on her face when she's riding the man. Like this is payback. Is it?; 8/23/12, 3:35 PM
Tim said...: "Writes Hanna Rosen, looking at what women have lost and gained in the sexual revolution."

She left out the part on female promiscuity's wonderful gift: increased chance of cervical cancer.

That's gotta be totally worth several dozen orgasms with a dozen or so different boys, right?

Right?; 8/23/12, 3:36 PM
Renee said...: Barefoot and pregnant wasn't that bad. I miss it, now the children are older. Nothing but good memories. I have good memories of getting an education. I do miss work, wish the economy would pick up. For now just volunteer.

It's not a bad ticket, at all.; 8/23/12, 3:40 PM
DADvocate said...: I guess it all depends on what your definition of a "promising future" is. If sleeping around with whomever happens to be available so you can avoid long term commitments and children for the hope of a higher income and getting further up the corporate ladder is a "promising future," so be it. I always had other things in mind, and still do.; 8/23/12, 3:44 PM
B said...: Nice to know we invented sex.

Nope. That's been around a long long time. It's sport fucking we're talking about here.; 8/23/12, 3:44 PM
bagoh20 said...: What are the goals of "feminist progress"? How would we know we are there?; 8/23/12, 3:54 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Wait a minute..
Are you sure this is not Todd Akins writing this?

The article basically says that legitimate hookups cannot lead to equality of the sexes.

I found you out Todd... you better leave if you see me coming.; 8/23/12, 3:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Bet the stories sucked too.

David @1:57: Yeah, they did. Most of the writers were inexperienced, so that was part of it, but even if the stories had been better written they would have been unpleasant reading.

These writers did not have the knack of creating sympathetic characters. Worse, the women seemed to believe their protagonists were sympathetic, and maybe they were to other women, but to men, or at least me, they were horrors.; 8/23/12, 4:10 PM
Anonymous said...: Probably because writing classes select against the type of man who would feel comfortable putting [contempt for women] in.

Balfegor @2:32: True! I know that most men have their angers toward women but generally they don't work that out in public or in mixed company. What's interesting is that women have no qualms about doing so in writing classes.

Male writers I know don't obssess so much on sex or the war between the sexes in their work.

And yes, there is the whole PUA (Pick-Up Artist) subculture, which is misogynist, but they keep those discussions to their enclaves.; 8/23/12, 4:11 PM
Balfegor said...: Nice to know we invented sex.

Pah! Everyone knows:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

The first bit of Larkin that came to mind, though, was this one.; 8/23/12, 4:13 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: What strikes me is the attitude that all of this hooking up...ok...call it what it is, whoring around and having meaningless sex, will somehow vanish and dissipate, as if it never happened. Then..suddenly, after callously treating the men in their lives like breathing sex toys, these girls (I don't dare call them women) believe that a prince charming will come along and treat them like a little princess.

Seriously? Don't they think that the men can tell that they are sluts? Why in the world should they marry YOU, when there are other women who didn't act like the town pump. Women who have legitimate respect and affection for their boyfriend/spouse and who don't look on men as a hooking up opportunity to get a better career or accumulate wealth.

I feel very sorry for these girls. They are going to wake up one day and find out that life has passed them by. Too old to have children. Disrespected and un-cherished. Finding out that perhaps their best opportunities had been casually tossed away and their best relationships treated like used toilet paper. Maybe a great career. But alone. So sad.; 8/23/12, 4:13 PM
furious_a said...: DBQ: ...the town pump.

gawd, it's been YEARS since I heard that. Thanks for the chuckle.; 8/23/12, 4:19 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: “I would never come down on the hookup culture,” she said. “Plenty of women enjoy having casual sex.”

Well, as long as they're enjoying it, that's all there is to it, right?; 8/23/12, 4:27 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: "The sexual culture may be more coarse these days, but young women are more than adequately equipped to handle it, because unlike the women in earlier ages, they have more-important things on their minds, such as good grades and internships and job interviews and a financial future of their own."

LOLOLOLOLOL right, women never had anything to live for before some random afternoon in 1967. They never had anything "important" on their minds. Every woman who has ever lived who wasn't fixated on "good grades and internships and job interviews and a financial future of their own" was a total waste of flesh.; 8/23/12, 4:32 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: lyssa,

Do you really live in a world where, once a woman gets married, she loses all agency of her own and only can be "barefoot and pregnant?" How incredibly sad. And yet, how reflective of the modern liberal attitude towards women. I'll bet you call yourself a feminist while you hold such a low attitude towards women's ability to think for themselves, too.

(Ironically, as I sit here typing this, I actually am both barefoot and pregnant. But I chose that, after being married for 10+ years, and I'm doing so from my law office, with the law degree that I earned while married. (I like to kick off my shoes under the desk.)) :)

You tell her, sister! I am not pregnant, nor even barefoot, but I'm sitting in my home office in stocking feet (procrastinating on the review I'm supposed to be writing), which is close enough.

wv: 25 appickn. I'm assuming that's an address on the Appican Way, as spelled by an American.; 8/23/12, 4:32 PM
Methadras said...: So feminism requires whoredom?

Alex said...

So how was Rush Limbaugh wrong about Sandra Fluke?

He wasn't.; 8/23/12, 4:32 PM
bagoh20 said...: "such as good grades and internships and job interviews and a financial future of their own."

Those are the important things? It's nice to pick the easy stuff and call it important.; 8/23/12, 5:01 PM
Col Mustard said...: Col Mustard - so those girls are basically rutting animals.

You might say that, Alex, but I wouldn't say that.

For the most part they're delightful people who enjoy sex. Unless they're cheating, being abusive, spreading disease or hatching welfare babies, why not? Well, maybe if they were thinking about being the future Mrs Tebow :-)

FWIW, I rarely hear any of them use the term 'hooking-up'.; 8/23/12, 5:13 PM
B said...: ...women never had anything to live for before some random afternoon in 1967

On that random afternoon in 1967, the children of the 60's decided that you were 'uptight' if you didn't share your body, whether man or woman (or rather boys and girls) with all comers.

Everything in life was free and sexual indulgence was and would always be consequence free. You had the condom and the pill and the IUD and the diaphragm to prevent the consequences - were you not too stoned or not too burnt out to use them right - and penicillin and abortion to mitigate the consequences if you were. But men (boys) had the one extra consequence mitigating advantage - they could walk away from a pregnancy.

And so sport fucking was born. Intercourse moved from the dual intent of procreation and joyous affirmation of lifelong companionship to scratching an itch.

And sport fucking beget feminism when women realized and resented that the established ways would bend but not break and the banker's son wasn't going to walk up the aisle with Willing Wanda, and that no matter how you sliced it, the man could always walk when your friend didn't visit on time. So fuck men - just not as often.

And feminism beget abortion as birth control because it her body and her life and sport fucking is just too much fun and pregnancy gets in the way and why should he be able to walk away and leave you with this inconvenient embryo.; 8/23/12, 5:15 PM
bagoh20 said...: I would just like to make it known that I'm not a serious suitor, and I fully support these ladies goals and methods, so bring it.; 8/23/12, 5:24 PM
Titus said...: My family economic background is no education but amazing money savers and incredible hard workers and as a result millionaires, but you could not tell my looking at them or how they live. My mom uses her Pig Points from her Pig Card everywhere.

I make tons of money but save shit. I have an elite education, but not because I wanted to marry money.

I did not marry for money, but eventually learned he was filthy rich. I didn't know he had money until like a year into the relationship. Hell, I thought his name was something other than his real name for like 6 months before he finally said my name is not Venkat. I didn't know his real name for 6 months and his money situation for a year.

We don't have as much sex as we used to, but I am ok with that.

I was initially more interested in his body than his money. Than I was interested in his brains. Now I like his brains and body and money.

I like the way he smells too. And the way he walks. And his smile. And his accent. And his dad. And his love for the rare clumber, even though he isn't really a dog person. And I really enjoy his spectacular, sculpted, defined, rock hard tits, amazing abs, huge shoulders, dynamic back, small ass, cute legs and quantity of hair on his body.

He doesn't know anything about American politics and we never talk about it and he doesn't give a shit.

We don't hang out with a group of friends and I like that. He has like 2 really close friends and I have like 5. But we have never met each other's friends. We just hang out together with the rare clumber.

Neither of us have had an abortion or been raped or raped someone. No interest in man/boy sex either. I want a big burly man.

tits.; 8/23/12, 5:36 PM
Paul said...: Well you have come a 'long way baby'....

and you reap what you sow.; 8/23/12, 6:25 PM
Anonymous said...: The first few paragraphs were just too stupid to justify rtwt. It's amazing the spin that "progressive" thinkers can put on degradation. Sure, Ms. "End of Men" Rosin, those young women being treated with massive disrespect by their male peers and "boyfriends", with hearts already so hardened (or shriveled) that they they don't even seem to care that they're being pissed on - yeah, it's all good. But, we don't need no steenking self-respect or dignity when we've got "promising futures"!

Every morning, I wake up thinking that the sheer crazed full-of-shitness of our esteemed opinon-makers and public intellectuals had to have reached a limit yesterday...but every morning, I wake to find that they've managed to kick it up a notch one more time.; 8/23/12, 6:36 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Titus,

Are you down to one rare clumber? What happened?; 8/23/12, 7:36 PM
hombre said...: "I also noticed the fierce contempt for men that appeared in the stories written by women, though the flipside never appeared in men's stories." (1:36)

Men, who are not petty, don't want to screw up their chances to get laid by women who are.

So feminism has come around to the point at which its women think it is an accomplishment to get poked? Roflmao!; 8/23/12, 7:38 PM
Revenant said...: Of course it defines them. It will create who they become.

So will what they had for dinner on their 13th birthday. So will every time their father was in a bad mood and snapped at them for no good reason. So will the weather on their graduation day.

Lots of influences. None of them necessarily significant, unless we choose to make them so.; 8/23/12, 7:40 PM
Revenant said...: Dust Bunny Queen,

Then..suddenly, after callously treating the men in their lives like breathing sex toys

That's like callously playing catch with a golden retriever.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying it is really hard to do it in a way that leaves the affected party feeling like he got a bad deal.; 8/23/12, 7:52 PM
Darrell said...: Because teenage girls just love to tell everything to some old fart in a bar or restaurant. . .

And I'd never assume they were just fishing for higher gratuities, either.; 8/23/12, 9:01 PM
Synova said...: "Worse, the women seemed to believe their protagonists were sympathetic, and maybe they were to other women,..."

No, never.

The thing to do, if you're looking for a writing class, is be as certain as possible that the other people in it are there to learn how to write salable fiction and not there to coddle their precious creative impulses or because their friends don't want to hear their same boring stories anymore.; 8/23/12, 9:07 PM
Æthelflæd said...: I Am Charlotte Simmons.; 8/23/12, 9:13 PM
Big Mike said...: Hanna Rosen quotes one woman to the effect that if she's married by the time she's thirty, that will be fine.

Ah, has anyone pointed out to these young women that (1) women make up approximately 60% of the graduation classes, so therefore (2) there are three college-educated women for every two college-educated men. Now figure out how many of those men have technical or business degrees, or will make it into med or law school, and it follows that (3) the competition for a desirable husband will be about five to one.

Consequently (4) the woman Hanna interviews will get to age 27 or 28 and start lamenting that "all the good ones are taken."; 8/23/12, 9:13 PM
Synova said...: "such as good grades and internships and job interviews and a financial future of their own."

"Those are the important things? It's nice to pick the easy stuff and call it important."

Yeah. The hard part is relationships, not school or internships or interviews or a job or career. First you have to pick a good person, someone you genuinely like and respect, and you probably need to do this when you're young and stupid. And then you need to maintain that relationship over good and bad times, when you're in a crappy, pre-menstral or paranoid mood, paying bills and cleaning toilets.

Having kids.

A career isn't the hard part. Nor is it the most important.; 8/23/12, 9:15 PM
Nathan Alexander said...: From what I've seen, many women writers think that making a character a viewpoint character automatically makes her a protagonist. So then they write the viewpoint character doing all the selfish things the writer has done in their life or wishes they would have done, and yet still everything turns out great and the woman is loved and desired by all men just for her existence.

See:
Twilight
Hunger Games
anything by Jennifer Robeson, Anne McCaffery, Rosemary Edgehill, Mercedes Lackey, et al.

Does not include Lois McMaster Bujold or C. J. Cherryh.

Such novels are the female version of a letter to Penthouse.; 8/23/12, 9:37 PM
madAsHell said...: What is feminist progress?

I couldn't get an Mrs. degree, so I went to graduate school in journalism.; 8/23/12, 9:39 PM
Ralph L said...: Wasn't there a study decades ago that in almost half of 19th cent. weddings, the bride was already pregnant?; 8/23/12, 9:59 PM
Æthelflæd said...: Hey, now- Katniss Everdeen gets a bad rap. Her thoughts seem selfish, but her actions are generally noble. Just the opposite of the good intentions crowd.; 8/23/12, 10:05 PM
Anonymous said...: I wrote:
"Worse, the women seemed to believe their protagonists were sympathetic, and maybe they were to other women,..."

Synova responded:
No, never.

Interesting. I don't presume to know.

I did get the impression that the women often were on the same wavelength. (In some cases they showed up in class as friends.) Plus the women were very good at giving positive feedback to each other.

Ultimately I found the classes confusing, somewhat unpleasant, and not all that useful for improving my writing aside from providing deadlines.; 8/23/12, 10:23 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Wasn't there a study decades ago that in almost half of 19th cent. weddings, the bride was already pregnant?

Well, it is common knowledge that it normally takes 9 months for a baby to arrive, but that first one....it can come at anytime.

Common knowledge and a fact of life... /wink; 8/23/12, 10:24 PM
Æthelflæd said...: This is probably why most of the women writers that I enjoy wrote pre-WW2.; 8/23/12, 10:26 PM
Anonymous said...: So then they write the viewpoint character doing all the selfish things the writer has done in their life or wishes they would have done, and yet still everything turns out great and the woman is loved and desired by all men just for her existence.

I've noticed something similar in action shows like 24 and Burn Notice.

The hero is protecting an attractive woman as they are being attacked by the bad guys. So they are dodging bullets, explosions and whatnot, but as he leads her he is also exquisitely sensitive to her emotional needs. He apologizes for his brusqueness or deflects with self-deprecating humor.

We've seen similar repartee with heroes like Indiana Jones, but what gets me in the current crop is that the male switches back and forth from Navy-SEAL-mode to therapist-friend-lover-father-figure within split seconds in the middle of the action.; 8/23/12, 10:44 PM
AlanKH said...: Damn, Leisure Suit Larry won the sexual revolution. Thanks, feminists.; 8/23/12, 11:24 PM
Synova said...: "I did get the impression that the women often were on the same wavelength. (In some cases they showed up in class as friends.) Plus the women were very good at giving positive feedback to each other."

The women might be very good at giving positive feedback to each other, but what's the value of positive feedback?

They were doing a *social* thing.

You were writing.

It's great to have someone say "this is good" because you don't want to fix something that wasn't broken, but it's not actually useful otherwise.; 8/23/12, 11:56 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Lyssa,

" did anyone really understand what the author's actual point of that article was? "

Now there you go again, assuming that an article needs to have a point or something...

DBQ @ 4:13pm -- why do you have to bring MoDo into this thread?; 8/24/12, 12:27 AM
Kirk Parker said...: "Does Rosin have the slightest bit of self-awareness?"

That's a rhetorical question, right?; 8/24/12, 12:27 AM
Col Mustard said...: Because teenage girls just love to tell everything to some old fart in a bar or restaurant. . .

And I'd never assume they were just fishing for higher gratuities, either.

I'm a good listener, Darrell. It's amazing what people will tell you if you're non-threatening and non-judgemental.

I'm older than dirt but most people don't regard me as old and none, to my knowledge, think of me as an old fart.

Was at a b'day party for one of my fave bartenders tonight (24). Love her. Love her brothers and her mom and dad.

FWIW, my wife's a long-time bartender and bar manager. Our house is full of young people who enjoy our company. Gratuities not required.; 8/24/12, 1:43 AM
Anonymous said...: OMG

Women treating men with disdain and as casual sex objects - what next? - women getting paid as much as men for the same work, having careers not tied to "their man", being self-sufficient?

Lordy Lord.; 8/24/12, 6:45 AM
Anonymous said...: Big Mike said...
"Consequently (4) the woman Hanna interviews will get to age 27 or 28 and start lamenting that "all the good ones are taken."

....as women lament that there are so few good men.....; 8/24/12, 6:51 AM
Erik Robert Nelson said...: I have no doubt the hook-up culture is real, but I have a feeling that the media has amplified it. In general the media tends to take subculture and make it culture. It's why when we see television and movies about college in the 60s, every single person seems to be a free-love hippie, even though they were a minority. You've got a lot of boundary cases, where people adopt the look but not the behavior of subcultures, and it makes the subculture look more prevalent than it actually is.; 8/24/12, 6:54 AM
rick rogers said...: For what it is worth, not much I suppose, my experience tells me otherwise. I went to a top undergraduate college, and the most successful women I have known were professors and graduate students at this institution. Almost all of them were in long term, serious relationships.; 8/24/12, 10:09 AM
Gerald said...: Change always occurs at the margins of society. Ivy League and hook-up culture are the margins, not the central core.

One could just as easily write about those young people who live virtuous lives of chastity and fidelity, but the leftists in positions of power in the media are largely naive nihilists or anarchists willing to promote anything that upsets traditions for the sake of novelty.

I would love to see an honest article from a young man about his perspective on the hookup culture and feminism. Prediction: All these willing sluts are good for now, but I'd never want to marry one.; 8/24/12, 10:33 AM
Robin St. John said...: @TraditionalGuy I for one think that ladies who use male fuck buddies for sex and then throw them away are cruel.

I can see that now, at 40 something with kids and a great wife.

When I was in college, a woman who wanted unattached sex would have been (and was, a few times) a wonder and delight.

I had stuff to do, and surely was not looking for a mate for life. It was not really possible to be 'thrown away'. These were the only college 'relationships' that made sense to some of us, male and female alike, and by flowing with it, some of these people are still dear friends.; 8/24/12, 10:48 AM
kmg said...: Actually, feminist culture depends on a brutal police state that inflicts modern-day versions of slavery, debtor's prison, and extra-judicial lynchings onto men.

Read 'The Misandry Bubble' for more.; 8/24/12, 1:39 PM
kmg said...: Note that in the old days, the huge falloff in attractiveness that women see after the age of 30, was masked by the institution of marriage. It allowed a woman to become matronly...

But now, a hookup culture exposes this steep cliff very visibly.

Women over 35 who think they can be 'cougars', now abound. In reality, pickup artists instruct newbies to use cougars for practice, and then moving on to the younger women that the pickup artist actually wants.; 8/24/12, 1:42 PM
kmg said...: KJE,

"And round about after that, I'm guessing there's going to be a feminism bubble"

We're way ahead of you.

Google 'The Misandry Bubble'. Or see it linked above...; 8/24/12, 1:52 PM
Tscottme said...: Personal and societal decline is a feature, not a bug, of the Liberal Operating System.

The most innocent explanation of the trail of destruction following after the liberal arrival is the Typhoid Marry one. They mean well, but nothing, and I mean not one thing, can cause them to ever doubt their prescriptions aren't working. Either they are malicious or criminally negligent. The deade-enders that remain on the Left are self-selected to be the most immune from facts or most determined to continue the destruction.; 8/24/12, 6:00 PM