To sum it up, she explains that young women are hurting themselves by randomly hooking up with people, because she thinks that "real power is not giving it away, but using it wisely." Perhaps what she's missing is that not everyone in today's generation considers sex to be something "given up" by the female, but rather something that is shared between two people, and it is also not a tool to be used. Of course, I do agree that randomly hooking up with people is generally not a smart thing to do because of the high risk of disease, the potential that emotional expectations won't be met and the definite guarantee of being judged afterwards. But those things are possible in a lot of situations, regardless if you (as she stated) met them in a keg line or not.
If she's so concerned about young women today, maybe she should have focused on the dangers of sexual decisions being made while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. Because a smart, sober girl may still hook up with people, but chances are she will feel a million times more confident in that decision than if she were under the influence. Maybe that's why (at least in Vermont) government considers that illegal, but they don't consider hooking up illegal.
With that, I feel that she is also missing a critical component in today's generation. I would argue that there is less distinction between the male and female genders today than there was, say, fifty years ago. Although there are still obvious and disturbing disparities between men and women (in the workforce, the prison system, etc.), the fact is that men and women are more and more performing the same jobs, carrying (closer to) equal weight in household duties and finally, they are sexually objectified almost to the same extent. So while there are still differences between how men and women would, on average, react to a random hook up, I don't think the difference is quite as stark as Sessions Stepp might think. I don't think it really makes sense anymore to write a book about sexual culture without including both male and female perspectives. By separating the two you're only really conforming to the notion of these socially distinct genders. I would also venture to criticize that her "research," which involved studying nine individuals, was probably very biased and unrepresentative because it is such a small sample.
Lastly, I'm not going to buy the book because she put a line in that "guys will do anything for homemade baked goods" that was (she said) purely to create controversey. Basically she's just trying to sell books and make a ton of money, without any concern of that line doing serious injustice to feminism.
Alright, well I better go, I have to iron my poodle skirt and tie a few ribbons in my hair if I want to have time to wrap up the cookies I baked for all the smart, potential husbands in my class.
Posted by lib at March 2, 2007 12:25 PM