Hot Crossed Monogamy

Passing along info on an event in NYC this Saturday that I sadly can't attend -- but maybe you can (and can tell me about it!):

Mating in Captivity: Sexuality and Monogamy Roundtable

Participants: Michael Kimmel, Pamela Paul, Esther Perel, Owen Renik (moderator)

September 13, 2008, 2:30 PM

This roundtable will address the ways in which monogamous partnerships affect sexual desire, sexual function, and sexual need. How do secrets and risky behaviors play a role in undermining domestic stability and trust, while potentially enhancing sexual activity? Does domestic partnering imperil our inherent sexual drive? Is it more beneficial to preserve the stability of the family unit than to explore one's sexuality to the fullest? Is it possible to do both? What are the chemical and structural influences that play a role in this dynamic? The multidisciplinary panel will examine these questions and the way that imagination can play a role in the sexual dynamic of marriages and long-term sexual partnerships.

Sponsored by THE PHILOCTETES CENTER FOR THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF IMAGINATION (how's that for the name of an institute?!) at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.

If anyone goes and wants to blog about it here, door's WIDE open :)

XY Files: Single Dads By Choice

I read with interest an article on single dads by choice in this weekend's NYTimes, titled "The Bachelor Life Includes a Family." Says a 46-year old doctor from Miami who is interviewed for the piece, “I’ve always felt that I wanted fatherhood to be a part of my life,” he said. “It’s just a core part of who I’ve always been. I absolutely would want a partner, but I couldn’t let my life wait for that random event.” Sound familiar, ladies? Seems men, too, hear the ticking of their biological clock.

Stats on single fathers by choice are few, but according to the article their numbers are growing. Surrogacy agencies say most of these men are gay, agencies say, but there are straight men seeking to become fathers too. Some figures:

-"Gail Taylor, a founder of Growing Generations, one of the largest surrogacy agencies with about 100 births a year, said 24 percent of its clients this year are single men, both gay and straight. That number is double what it was three years ago."

-"Last month, the National Center for Health Statistics issued the first federal survey of men and women on adoption. It found that men age 18 to 44 are twice as likely as women of the same age group to have adopted a child. That men are more likely than women to adopt their stepchildren accounts for part of the gap. But, the report said, about 73,000 never-married men had also adopted a child, a group that includes those who are single fathers by choice."

Interesting, and also raises tough questions. Does anyone know a single father by choice? I'd like to interview a bunch for my next book. Please let me know, and many thanks!

Image cred

New Blog on the Block: Upstate Upstarts

Last week I gave a blogging workshop at the University of South Carolina Upstate, where I also did a talk. And I'm thrilled to share that the feminist group on campus has now launched their blog! I love their description:

"UPSTARTS IS THE ONLINE VOICE OF UPSTATE FEMINISTS, A STUDENT-DRIVEN ORGANIZATION ON THE CAMPUS OF USC UPSTATE DEDICATED TO COMMUNICATING IN CLEAR AND ENERGETIC TERMS THE RELEVANCE OF FEMINISM TO TODAY'S COLLEGE-AGE WOMEN AND MEN."

Yesssss! And a hearty welcome to you from all of us here at GWP.

Keep an eye out for these upstarts. They are utterly setting the world on fire down there.

Kudos to Faculty Advisor Dr. Lisa Johnson, President Andrea Miller, Vice President Lindsay Harris, and Secretary Candace Lamb, pictured left. And for those of you who know Lisa (editor of the stellar anthology Jane Sexes It Up), check out her new hair. You can't tell from the picture, but she's got a blue streak running through it. Made me want to come back and do something funkier with my hair!

Palin: Pit Bull or Red Riding Hood?

Marco is at it again. Check out his reading of the latest McCain-Palin appeal over at Open Salon, "McCain/Palin Cries Wolf." An excerpt:

The McCain/Palin spin machine has reached has reached dizzying momentum in these last few days. Palin shape-shifts now at an alarming rate, going from pit bull to pig [they started it], to now, apparently, Little Red Riding Hood. As can be seen in the graphic above, embedded in an email sent out today from the Republican campaign soliciting donations, the Palin narrative has been flipped conveniently on its head. The hunter has become the hunted, and she is cast now as victim, while the purported attackers, Obama and the Democrats, are cast as wolves on the approach.

Make no mistake: this is still the same movie. The snow places the viewer in pristine Alaska, Palin's home turf, and the wolves, like the moose, are familiar stock characters. They were last seen being taken out by airborne hunters at Governor Palin's behest, easy targets against the same white snow. Now they make their way towards the imperiled heroine, and through the magic of cinematic perspective, towards you, the target audience....

Read the rest.

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Your Daily Sarahology

A particularly sassy takedown by Salon's Cintra Wilson: "Pissed about Palin."

A thoughtful (yes, thoughtful) analysis by Camille Paglia of Palin as a muscular, pioneer-inspired "feminist" force: "Fresh Blood for the Vampire."

Kaye S. Hymowitz at City Journal on "Red State Feminism."

Dahlia Litwick in Newsweek on how "Palin Signals Fewer Choices for Women."

The LA Times on "Hiding Sarah Palin Behind 'Deference.'"

HuffPo on how "Sex Sells in the GOP."

A NYTimes article on how the second mixed-sex major-party presidential ticket in American history has nonetheless raised 21st-century questions about etiquette, body language and who hugs first: "To Have (as a Running Mate), and Hold (Politely)."

And an amusing comparison of Palin (who is now, yes, an action figure) to a minor character in Star Wars named Boba Fett by my very clever husband dude Marco.

Other recs of what we should be reading? Please post links in comments.

Family Stories: Heteroflexibility

And now for our monthly contribution from Jacqueline Hudak, who writes the Family Stories column here at GWP. Here's Jacqueline!

Heteroflexibility

Sexual politics are in a time of huge transition – think Ellen and Portia – and still, there is simply no public cultural consciousness about the concept of “sexual fluidity.” A well-crafted recent book by Lisa Diamond, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire (Harvard University Press), takes another step toward putting it on the map.

While perhaps not yet a public story, the notion of women’s sexual fluidity is certainly coursing through the zeitgeist. I was in the midst of writing this post on Diamond’s book when I decided to take a break and see Woody Allen’s new film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. And there it was, right there on the big screen: sexual fluidity, and all the attendant complexities.

In one scene, Scarlet Johanssen’s character Cristina, is relating the complicated story of her relationship with Maria Elena, who happens to be her lover’s ex-wife. Her friends Vicky and Doug listen intently. As Cristina pauses, Doug rushes to ask, “So, what, you mean you’re a bisexual?” To which Christina replies, with some discomfort, “Oh, I’m not really into those categories.”

Not into those categories indeed.

Diamond, a Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at the University of Utah, has conducted, to date, the only detailed longitudinal study of women’s same gender attractions. She interviewed nearly one hundred young women at two year intervals over a period of ten years about their relationships and desires and found that, for women, love and desire are not rigidly lesbian or heterosexual. By the 10th year of her study, two-thirds of the women had changed their identity label at least once.

The notion of "sexual fluidity" contradicts the dominant cultural story about sexuality—the idea that you are one thing or another, but rarely both. That story shapes our ideas about sexual orientation as fixed in early adulthood and remaining static throughout a lifetime. But as Diamond so eloquently points out, for women, this has not been the case.

One of the many things I loved about this book was the depth and analysis of research that Diamond amassed. Having done research on this topic myself, I was aware that there was a lot of data around that supported a more fluid conception of sexuality for women – Kinsey, Adrienne Rich, and the ‘erotic plasticity’ model in 2000, to name a few. The only problem was, it didn’t conform to the (male) sexual standard. Since genital sex is not necessarily how women construct their sexual identities, the sexual experiences of women have been invisible, or somehow deviant from the (male) norm. My friends, we have been called ‘outliers.’

My only disappointment with the book was that I wanted the conversation to continue. Just as it ended I felt like I had arrived at the good part: the implications of women’s sexual fluidity, for us as researchers and clinicians, and more importantly, as partners and mothers. As a family therapist and mom who went through such a transition, I know it was not a solitary process; it entailed numerous and ongoing conversations with my children, family and extended community. Suddenly I found myself in the midst of a story that was totally unfamiliar: Married woman with two kids falls in love with a woman. I mean, wasn’t I supposed to know which team I played for before I turned 45?

I remain curious and perplexed about our need to hold on to these rigid and discrete categories when they obviously do not fit for women. I am heartened by the youth who do not seem to have the same attachment to the labels, and instead are ‘questioning’ ‘spectrum’ and ‘heteroflexible.’ Perhaps my children’s generation will focus on the quality of a relationship rather than the sex of their partner. In the meantime, perhaps movies such as Barcelona books such as Lisa Diamond's, and real life family stories like ours will help inch the conversation along just a little bit more.

For previous posts by Jacqueline, click here.

Palin 102

Thanks to Caroline for these two links over at Literary Mama: "The Sarah Myth" by Nicole Stellon O'Donnell, and "Sarah Palin's Kids, Our Kids" by Rebecca Steinitz.

And heads up on an interesting convo going on over at Work It, Mom! spearheaded by Veronica Arreola and provocatively titled "Why Sarah Palin is Good for Feminism."

Hmm...

Palin Studies (Um, Can We Have Liz Lemon Instead?)

Six new articles of interest, courtesy of Rebekkah of course over at the WMC:

McCain and Palin Want Women's Votes But Do Women Want Them?
9/8/08
RH Reality Check: Instead of clear policy stances on these issues at the GOP convention or in the surrounding media attention what we have been privy to are endless distractions about Sarah Palin's family, the personal matters and private choices Ms. Palin and her family have made over the last few months and a religious right bloc that has firmly cemented their support for said choices - support that falls in direct conflict with the rhetoric, agenda and policies they promote for the rest of American families.

Fusing Politics and Motherhood in New Way
9/7/08
NY Times: Sarah Palin's baby shower included a surprise guest: her own baby. He had arrived in the world a month early, so on a sunny May day, Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, rocked her newborn as her closest friends, sisters, even her obstetrician presented her with a potluck meal, presents and blue-and-white cake.

Parents of Special-Needs Children Divided Over Palin's Promise to Help
9/6/08
NY Times: Gov. Sarah Palin directed an emotional appeal to the hearts of millions of parents with children who have special needs, promising they would "have a friend and advocate in the White House." Ms. Palin's offer of friendship sparked hope in many parents, advocates and lawyers as the often-marginalized subject of disabilities rights took center stage.

Bristol's Choice
9/5/08
Slate.com: Pundits were quick to point out that Bristol Palin's "decision" to have her baby must have been at least somewhat constrained by her mom's position-as articulated in November 2006-that she would oppose an abortion for her daughters, even if they had been raped. Palin is an outspoken advocate of parental veto; she called the Alaska Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down that state's parental-consent statute "outrageous." So what exactly, one wonders, was young Bristol permitted to decide?

Sex Ed In Schools: Little Connection Between What's Taught, Teen Behavior
9/8/08
USA Today: The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and the pregnancy has reignited the national debate over two different approaches to sex education: abstinence-only vs. comprehensive.

Palin & Press: A Testy Start
9/8/08
Washington Post: From the moment Sarah Palin stepped onto the national stage, she was mauled, minimized and manhandled by an openly skeptical media establishment. But By six days later, after a speech in which she chided the journalistic elite, the previously obscure governor of Alaska was being hailed by many of the same media gurus.

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The Hookup Hangup

I'm back in action. I mean, rather, back at work.

A piece I wrote, "Sex and the Single Guys, For Real," is up today over at the Women's Media Center. The piece has nothing to do with Grandma of course, unless you count the fact that Marge volunteered at a center that offered counseling and contraception to teens, for which I will always remain extremely proud of her.

My WMC commentary features Michael Kimmel's new book, which was also reviewed, btw, by Wesley Yang in yesterday's NYTimes (see "Nasty Boys"). Here's the teaser:

With all the excitement of the summer games, you may have missed this juicy bit of “news” from Olympic Village: as soon as their competition ended, the athletes apparently got rather busy themselves.

They had sex. Lots of it. So much that organizers in Beijing handed out free condoms, says former Olympian Matthew Syed of the UK’s Times Online. And this year, Syed tells us, the female athletes were as horny as the men.

We’ve long been inundated with images of young men with libido flowing unchecked. But with sexual insatiability now cast as an equal-opportunity calling, the guys are no longer portrayed as alone. If all the hook-up hoopla about kids on U.S. campuses is true—the girls have gone wild! the boys can’t get enough!—then the athletes in Beijing were hardly the only modern young men and women engaged in an Olympic-size orgy of never-ending desire.

But wait! New research...Read the rest.

And for those here in NYC, Kimmel will be reading from and discussing his book, Guyland, on Sept. 9 at 7pm, at Borders Columbus Circle. I may see you there....

Letter to Grandma

Thank you to Kristen and Virginia for keeping us posted on the latest in Palinography! I've been in another zone here in Chicago, mourning my grandmother, though I have watched The Speeches and pretty much want to PUKE.

Anyway, thought I'd share some of where my head has been these past few days by posting a letter I wrote to my grandmother and read at her funeral. I'm back in action next week.

Dear Grandma,

Because death is like that, I can't quite absorb the fact that you're no longer here so I'm writing you this letter as if I'm off at camp and you're simply back home, knitting. I remember all the letters you wrote me at camp, and later at college and into adulthood--with their beautiful script and news about the weather in Chicago and lines like "not much going on here" and "counting the days until I see you again."

You were a fixture in my life, as were your brisket made with onion soup mix and our visits to Indian Trail restaurant to see our favorite waitress Inga, our travels to England, and later our shared high teas at The Drake.

I remember eclaires and truffles and sleepovers and talking back to the evening news. I remember Tonelli's and your neighbor Shirley with the funny last name and the way you would take me around to your "beauty operator" and the salesladies at Loehmans.

"This is my granddaughter," you'd say, beaming.

"Oh," they'd say. "Your grandmother is always talking about you."

As a teenager, I remember talking to my friends about you. I'd tell them how stylish my grandmother was and how cool you were because you volunteered at LINKS, a clinic that provided counseling and contraception to teens.

In college, our conversations turned to love and politics and I grew interested in the YOU of you. As an adult, I learned that you weren't always easy, and that it must have been hard, sometimes, to be you.

As you grew older, and friends and loved ones died or moved away and you grew more isolated, I felt your sadness and your loneliness and wished I could help fill your longing. But I couldn't, and we couldn't, and I learned to cultivate compassion. I tried to wrap my love around you from afar the way your afghans always warmed me.

And now, I have your afghans and hats and scarves to remember you by, and your letters to me, which I have kept. The last one you wrote just a month ago, in slightly shakey hand but with a beaming heart. You had just returned from my wedding, and I was so glad to have had you there, as was Marco, who I am so glad you had a chance to love.

"Dearest Debbie," you wrote. "No one has ever been to such a wonderful wedding. There are no ways to tell you how wonderful we felt just to be together and watch the simcha and feel so much a part of it. Needless to say you were all gorgeous. I'll never forget how you all looked and shared your warmth and love. I hope that happiness and all good things will always come to you. Accept my wedding gift to you and my hope for a great and glorious life."

I don't really believe in an afterlife, but I believe that spirits live on in our heart. And so my wish for you Grandma is that your spirit finds peace and rest after this too quick and sometimes painful journey called life. I will carry you forward in my heart, and hopefully, with some help, in my genes. And if one day I am lucky enough to become a grandmother, I hope that I can be one like you -- generous, reassuring, kind, warm as a just-baked roll at Indian Trail or a cup of high tea at The Drake. And one who lets her granddaughter know daily how very deeply and thoroughly she is loved.

Always,
Debbie

Gloria Steinem on Sarah Palin

From the great Gloria Steinem, an op-ed in the LA Times today and also posted at the Women's Media Center on Sarah Palin's vice-president candidacy. She makes an interesting point about what this says about women's political power:

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing—the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party—are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president.

But of course, Sarah Palin is a decidedly anti-feminist candidate. As Steinem writes, if McCain hoped bringing a female vice president onto his campaign was going to bring the women to him in droves, it's not going to work:

Palin’s value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women’s wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves “abstinence-only” programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers’ millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn’t spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but she supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

For one of the most powerful denunciations of McCain's pick, go here.


Image credit.

Quick Takes: Sarah Palin, American Idol?

Palin as our American Idol Candidate

I get it. Palin is our "American Idol" candidate. When I listen to the people on the street interviews, or chatfests with Republican girlbloggers, which, believe me, is taxing as hell, everyone is like, "well she shows us that a real person can be president." Here's the problem: while people are caught up in Palin as "American Idol: VP Edition" they might well miss the "real reality," which is that Palin is more Bush than Bush.

-Virginia Rutter

Image credit.

Maleland

Two new books on men have captured my attention this month: Michael Kimmel's Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men and Kathleen Parker's Save the Males: Why Men Matter and Why Women Should Care. The first, by a well-known sociologist and gender scholar, I recommend. The second, by a so-called "cultural provocateur," not so much.

Kimmel's is an Ophelia-like look at what's going on inside the minds of 16-26 year old young men. Parker's is a wry and shoddily researched look at men under seige by guess who. Check out this Q&A with Kimmel in Inside Higher Ed and this review of Parker's over at About Fathers. I wrote a commentary hooked on Kimmel's findings that will be up at the Women's Media Center next week. Will post when it goes live :)

(Thanks to Paul Raeburn for the link!)

Talkin' About My (and Your) Generation....

And while I'm at it, two interesting reports from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), a nonpartisan research center studying youth civic engagement. I drew on these in putting together the talk I'm giving here at the University of South Carolina Upstate tonight and wanted to share them with ya'll too.

CIRCLE RtV Young Voter Trends - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: CIRCLE RtV Young Voter Trends

Millennials Talk - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Millennials Talk

Media Studies: "Bias, Punditry, and the Press" - the PDF

Here tis, as promised, from the White House Project, the Women's Media Center, and the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, and written by moi:

SoundbitesReport - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: SoundbitesReport

Here We Go Again....

Just when we thought we'd had enough of media (and everyone else's) sexism. Sigh. For a Sarah Palin Sexism Watch, hop on over to Shakesville. They're doing a great job. And meanwhile do check out Marco's post over at Open Salon, "Mom, Guns, and Apple Pie."

Me, I'm heading off today for South Carolina, where I'll be giving a talk tomorrow at the University of South Carolina Upstate. I just added a TON about Palin and the sexism coming her way after only less than 48 hours. Here's the description:

Talkin 'bout My Generation: Youth, Gender, Race, Class and the 2008 Election

SYNOPSIS: Young voters—and female ones in particular—have been the subject of heated debate in an election when race and gender matter like never before. But what do young voters really think about gender, feminism, race, and the Presidential election? In this talk, cultural critic and feminist Deborah Siegel sheds fresh light on media myths and real-life generational rifts that surfaced during primary season, creating an interactive forum in which members of the so-called postfeminist, post-Civil Rights generation are invited to freely speak their minds.

(And hey - to bring me to your campus, contact info@speakingmatters.org !)

GUEST POST: Rebuilding the Glass Ceiling

As promised, a post on McCain's choice for running mate from first-time blogger at Girl with Pen, Emma Douglas. Emma is a radical red-headed feminist who hopes to be liberated from graduate school in December so that she can read things that are more enlightened than public administration theory. She also spends most of her time working to end violence against women as a member of the only program on domestic violence in the country. She also likes Chihuahuas a lot. We are very pleased to have her here to talk about why Sarah Palin's appropriation of Hillary Clinton's "glass ceiling" has outraged so many feminists. -Kristen


Rebuilding the Glass Ceiling
by Emma Douglas

“McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate”

The text alert noting breaking news from the New York Times lit up my cell phone almost immediately before I received a wave of flabbergasted messages from my circle of friends. The news settled in when it splashed across the television swallowing (as it was intended to) news about Obama’s larger-than-life speech the night before. Having just finished attending a week of convention brouhaha including Obama’s speech at Mile High the night before I stood astounded and thought to myself, “McCain is using Sarah Palin for her tits!”

The choice of Palin, currently the governor of Alaska, as the Vice Presidential nominee says so much about the GOP and the upcoming election, most apparent the party’s desire to share in the sexism that has been rampant in this election. Gov. Palin on the ticket looks like a desperate attempt to reel in Hillary supporters the Republican’s are hoping are disgruntled enough and apparently uneducated enough to switch sides; it’s insulting to women.

Hillary supporters have become the holy grail of the presidential election. Throughout the primaries and now into the general election season this group of people, specifically women, have been fought over by the left and the right. Clinton’s presidential bid was historic and can hardly be counted as unsuccessful. She, unlike Palin, and like Senator Obama, did not conservatize her politics to appeal to a broader electorate. Palin, who herself made reference to Hillary’s 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling in her acceptance speech, is using her conservative ideology as a caulking gun to seal those cracks.

The governor from Alaska is even more conservative than McCain: she is pro-life, anti-gay (though she says she has friends who are gay!), pro-gun, wants to teach creationism in Alaska’s public schools, is in favor of capitol punishment, thinks that global warming is not man-made, doesn’t think that polar bears should be on the endangered species list because it would interfere with Alaska’s ability to drill for oil and, she is of course, in favor of drilling in Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge.

McCain’s pick also opened up the door for more of the sexist political commentary that flooded main-stream media while Hillary was running. For example this Youtube video which uses a voice over for McCain portrays him leering after Palin while she is giving her acceptance speech. Comments following a Huffington Post article on the “Six things the Palin Pick says about McCain” refer to Palin in the standard “reduces a woman to her looks and ability to get coffee” remarks.

Palin’s socially conservative politics, coupled with her gender, are terrifying for women. I can hear the booming conservative voice now, sneering, every time our rights are ripped from us, “but she is a woman!”

COMING SOON: McCain's Veep

A guest post coming your way soon on McCain's odd choice. In the meantime, some links that have come my way:

Joan Walsh, "What Sarah Palin Means"
Gail Collins, "McCain's Baked Alaska"
Kristen Powers, "A Brilliant Trap Makes the Dems the Male Chauvinists"
Jonathan Alter, "Why McCain's Veep Choice Is Likely to Flop"
Women's Media Center
Gotham Girl

On other fronts, I'll be offline for a bit. My other grandmother died last night. She was always in the know on all things political and pundit-ish and I often looked to her opinion to get a gauge on the world. For many other reasons, I will miss her very, very much.

The "Hook-up Generation": You Talkin' About Me?

You may have heard that the Bush administration's latest attempt to infringe on women's reproductive rights could give health-care workers the right to refuse contraception to their patients. Yes, it all sounds a bit pre-Griswoldian. I'd like to say I'm shocked. But I'm not. After all, we live in a world of abstinence-only sex ed and, for a time, Eric Keroack. More especially, we live in a cultural climate intent on pathologizing and condemning young people's sexual practices, and governmental encroachment on the sexual habits of legal adults seems like the obvious next step. But let's be honest, they're really concerned with the sexual habits of young women, and are we surprised?

In 2007 when I first opened the Atlantic Monthly to discover Caitlin Flanagan's take on Laura Sessions Stepp’s Unhooked, which chronicles "the semi-anonymous 'hooking up' that is now the norm," I was floored. After noting Stepp's conclusion that the "girls" were “exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually” by the practice, Flanagan carried on her own paternalistic diatribe on "girls" who change "in some ugly ways when left on their own." I was shocked. They were talking about me. Or, at least, they thought they were talking about me. After all, I was a 23-year-old woman who had hooked up with men I was not nearly in love with throughout college. Did this make me an "ugly-wayed" girl?

With other things on my mind (a grad school thesis, job search, friends and flings), I promptly forgot about it. However, soon I realized that this trend wasn't going away. What has followed, from both the religious right and so-called cultural studies of my generation such as Unhooked and Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit, has been an attempt to convince young women that by engaging in pre-marital, or more broadly "pre-love," sexual activity, they risk their emotional and psychological well-being. With women no longer prohibited by fear of pregnancy or STDs, purity propagators are now on a mission to tell women that, like smoking and fatty foods, sex is bad for their health.

The recent publication by the The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute of Sense and Sexuality, subtitled: "The college girl's guide to real protection in a hooked-up world" highlights this fact.
According to Sense and Sexuality, girls should avoid hookups because oxytocin, released during sex, will cause a girl to "develop feelings for a guy whose last intention is to bond with you." Further, it scientifically observes that "as the number of casual sex partners in the past year increased, so did signs of depression in college women." In sum, once you have sex with a guy, you're a goner. You fall in love, you get attached, you're bound to become love-sick and depressed when it doesn't work-- all because you had intercourse.

Don't you find it odd that such arbiters of high culture and higher religion center their definition of "love" on sexual intercourse? While troubadours once spun tales of romantic despair and literal illness caused by love unrequited, today's story-tellers have pared that soulful feeling down to a simple physical act. As my generation would say, how ironic. As I would say, how wrong. In a recent Vanity Fair article, British bon vivant Nicky Haslam, now 68 and with many lovers come and gone, says, "The truth is I’m not that interested in sex... I’m about love. It’s wonderful once or something. The quickest way to fall out of love is to sleep with somebody. Don’t shatter the crystal.” Go ahead. Call me a romantic. But my greatest heartache was not caused by the guy who hopped in and out of my bed and got away, but by the guy who seemed to fulfill my ideal of what I want in a partner, and got away.

Let's talk about agency and subjectivity, because I think it's about time the media published more first-hand accounts from the "hookup" generation itself. Tracy Clark-Flory, my own age (24), wrote a great article at Salon about her "hookup" experience--she's had about three times as many hookups as relationships, and concludes, "like innumerable 20-somethings before me, I've found that casual sex can be healthy and normal and lead to better adult relationships." Like many my age, who will wait to marry until they are well into their late twenties and thirties, she has found hookups to be a way to romantically vet men. I whole-heartedly agree.

And about that term "hookup"--so amorphous, so undefined. To be clear, if I tell a friend that I "hooked up" with so-and-so last night, her first reaction will be "So how far'd you go?" A "hookup" can range anywhere from making out to a full romp in bed. It might include slinking out at midnight or staying over, cuddling in the morning, going out for brunch. It is one of the most ill-defined terms of my generation, which makes it surprising that so many adults have such firm opinions on it. And while a hookup may be "semi-anonymous" as Flanagan says, it often involves a classmate or an acquaintance or friend you've known for years. It can last a night, a month, or three years on and off.

In college and beyond, the line between hooking up and dating has become increasingly blurred. I've known couples now engaged who began with an orientation-week hookup. I've known wine-and-dine daters who have dropped out of the picture with nary an explanation. Do I worry about girls who engage in hookups because they think the only thing they have to give are their bodies? Of course. And as Shira Tarrant recently noted in Bitch, "the modesty movement makes some good points about the effect a hypersexual culture can have on women’s well-being and sense of self."

Yet why are our moral watchdogs so quick to condemn women's sex-positive behavior as primary culprit? As Tarrant goes on to argue, such an analysis leaves women with only two choices: to be either virgin or whore. And personally, I'd like to think of myself as neither. Writes Tarrant, "If we refuse to acknowledge that judgments about women and modesty come from an extremely narrow-minded, controlling view that has more to do with punishing female sexual agency than with modesty itself, all we’re doing is restating that good girls don’t, bad girls do, and each gets what’s coming to her. 
" By targeting immodesty and hookups, in fact, such commentators only undermine their mission, ignoring the complex social influences that actually do lead some women to value their bodies over their selves. Self-destructive sex is a symptom of a greater social pathology--not the cause.

But haven't I ever felt "exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually" from "hooking up"? Yes, sometimes, just as I've felt exhausted by tested friendships and challenged beliefs. Show me a Bildungsroman protagonist, or an average American college student, who doesn't need to go through emotionally and physically trying times to develop a better understanding of what he or she wants in a career, a friendship, a partner, in him- or herself.

At the end of her Atlantic article, Flanagan writes: "The bitter pill for many parents sending their daughters to college is that there is no possible way to protect them from what they will encounter once they have been dropped off at the freshman dorm." As a woman who is very different today from the tremendously introverted and scared 18-year-old her parents dropped off at her freshman dorm, all I can say is: thank goodness for that.

-Kristen Loveland