So apparently young people are more and more skipping regular relationships of the boyfriend/girlfriend ilk, the going-steady thing, and just keeping it more casual. I'm under the assumption that I, and my contemporaries, just missed out on this great, great movement. Starts with high-school aged kids and up.
This article in salon.com's broadsheet explains how said culture can be detrimental to girls in particular. Hooking-up is apparently so the norm that girls don't really know they can choose something besides hooking-up. While some girls (the best kind) are completely satisfied with the casual, other girls don't know it's ok to try and get what they want (something emotional) instead of just what the guy wants (obvious).
The problem with the media helping to perpetrate the idea that the only thing is hooking-up: young girls grow up only trying to be what men want and become blind to the rightness of trying to get what they want.
"From where I'm sitting, the problem that needs solving isn't hook-up culture, but the intense pressure on girls and women to focus on getting and keeping a guy, rather than on getting and keeping whatever they want. Media aimed at the female of the species from adolescence on up hammers on a few simple messages. 1) If you're not heterosexual -- or for some other reason don't see landing a boyfriend as your primary purpose in life -- you don't exist. 2) Landing a boyfriend is about understanding What Guys Want and doing whatever it takes to become that. 3) Keeping a boyfriend is about continuing to be What Guys Want, and if your relationship fails, it's probably because you did something Guys Hate."
Here are my thoughts, in 3 parts after reading this article:
One: Wait, there's a hook-up culture? I never even heard of that.
Two: I wish I'd heard of it.
Three: Just another reason being young is better than being old.
