hooking up hang ups

In a recent article written for The Herald-Sun entitled “Recreational Hook-ups or Emotional Hang-ups?” author Kylie Harrell discusses the incoming freshman orientation at Duke University a mandatory meeting entitled “The Real Deal” where freshmen learn to make “responsible social decisions”.  The article goes on to discuss the hooking up phenomenon, pausing at several moments to wonder what the emotional tolls on the women who are engaging in these kind “fun weekend activities,” and stating that often campus-wide these girls are waking up sad and confused.  Harrell then describes the biological differences the male and female “hook-up experience”, explaining that because women release the hormone oxytocin post-sex, which plays a role in attachment-forming and trust, they are more likely to read more into the sexual act than their male partners.

[I would like to pause just for a moment to giggle thinking about the excess oxytocin flying around after lesbian sex, thereby finally allowing me to truly understand the lesbian u-haul issue..]

In discussing safe sex, safer sex, and the safest sex, it seems to me that while I pretty much completely find this article absurd, I do find Harrell’s emphasis on the inclusion of emotional risks under the safe-sex umbrella. I think that too often people stop at the condom, or glove, or even the unfortunately laughable dental dam, feeling that they have adequately protected themselves, and yet leave the door to their hearts wide open for just anyone to walk in and do with what they please.

In an effort to promote a more sex positive culture for both women and men, it seems that the definition of safe sex needs to be expanding in this way to include not only include emotional and mental health, but also issues like open communication and increased comfort with sexual vocabulary.

In a post responding to Harrell’s article, New Feminist agrees, but for a different reason, stating:

Casual sex isn’t a good idea. The very definition of casual sex is sex without emotional attachment – that is, using another’s body to pleasure oneself. In a responsible situation, the using is mutual, a bargain struck – I’ll let you use mine if you let me use yours. But it is still using.

NF then makes the quick jump from using to objectification, claiming that while even though it may be consensual this type of behavior is harmful in the long run. My first reaction to this of course is, what if you like to be objectified? What if that’s kind of your thing?

I once got in a really good fight with a professor of mine in a Women’s Studies Seminar about power dynamics in sexual relationships and the homosexual reincarnation of the heterosexual male-female in top-bottom sex roles. She said to me, approximately 50 times over the course of that semester, that as good feminists we should be “erotocizing equality”. To which I very politely yawned and said bo-ring.  Does that make me a bad feminist? I know about half the class thought so..

The fact of the matter is that you should be concerned about your emotional health, and not because your body is just getting out of hand and releasing hormones that cause you to freak out and feel something.  Maybe those girls who are waking up across campus sad and confused should take a quick look at the boys they are bedding.  Maybe we shouldn’t run to take a moral feminist standpoint on using and objectification.  Maybe we shouldn’t be so super quick to let just anyone into our hearts or our beds. And maybe, just maybe, if it is a relationship that we are looking for we should communicate that to our partners prior to fucking so that afterwards we aren’t feeling quite so alone.

That said, I’ll go on record saying that I’m a fan of the term “hook up” and like how very neatly ambiguous it is, covering this and that and just about everything in between. How convenient.

Tagged as: fear, feminism, lesbians, love, men, oxytocin, relationships, sex, sex positive, women