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Hooking Up, Part 3

Remind Me Why We're Here Again…

We're rolling into the home stretch of this three-part series on Kathleen Bogle's book Hooking Up: Dating, Sex and Relationships on Campus. In part one, I gave an overview of the book and brought up some worldview questions it raises. In part two, I dug a little deeper into some of those questions, particularly ones about the aimlessness of college relationships and the way we base our moral choices on the behavior of others, rather than on some objective standard.

In this third — and last — part, I want to discuss some questions related specifically to gender roles. Why? Well, first, a couple of ideas totally jumped off the pages at me as I was reading Hooking Up, and I want to examine them in light of a biblical worldview. And second, having a discussion like this is a good snapshot of what we ought to be doing every day — observing the world around us and filtering all the data we collect through a biblical "screen." By accepting only the ideas that coincide with biblical principles, we will construct a worldview that's consistent, logical, livable and good.

His and Hers

History lesson: Sometime around the 1960s, American college students fell off of the "dating" bandwagon and started this thing we now call "hooking up." Bogle cites various influences — among them, the women's movement, the widespread availability of birth control and society's changing attitudes toward sexuality¹ — as factors in this relational shift.

It's important to note here the influence of feminism, one of the hookup's founding philosophies, which holds that a) gender roles are merely a social construct, and a damaging one at that; and b) that gender equality means, among other things, that men and women can and should equally pursue commitment-free, recreational sex. Those ideas run counter to the Christian philosophy that it takes both male and female to express God's image in human form — that men and women exhibit God's image differently, and thus differ in many important ways, including our sexuality.

Before I share the ideas from Bogle's book that struck me, I should note that not all Bible-believing Christians accept the idea of complementary gender roles, and those who hold complementarian views do so to varying degrees. That said, I want to raise a couple of observations and to challenge all of us on this belief continuum to test our views against this data.

Be A Man

Based on interviews conducted with both male and female college students, Bogle concludes that, in a hookup, men primarily call the shots:

For those on the outside looking in, it may appear that men and women are on an equal playing field in the hookup culture on campus. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that college men are in a position of power. First, men are able to sustain the hookup system on campus despite the fact that it is not working for the majority of women. Most of the students [interviewed] indicated that college men favor casual sexual encounters or casual relationships, whereas women prefer more committed relationships. Therefore, while the hookup system works for men, it does not provide a good way for women to get what they want.²

Now that doesn't make sense to me. If feminist forces helped to bring about the hookup, it doesn't follow that they would have created a culture that promotes the dominance of men. But that dominance exists nonetheless. Could it be that male leadership is something inborn? Could it be that even if it's suppressed, it will still surface, albeit in a perverted form?³

Obviously, I can't prove that's the case, but it is interesting to consider. And if there is any truth to my hypothesis, wouldn't it be better to call men to good, godly, loving leadership, rather than allow them to sink to the lowest common denominator, behaviorally? What if, instead of taking what they can get from women, men followed the apostle Paul's advice and led in a way that required them to "love" and "give [themselves] up for"⁴ the women with whom they were in relationship?

If that happened, the hookup culture itself would likely collapse. And given what that culture is currently doing to both men and women, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

On the Flip Side

The hookup culture is obviously unfair to women in that it pays a very poor return for their emotional and physical investment. But I think it's unfair in another way too. The hookup script assumes — and doesn't bide objections — that women think of sex in exactly the same way men do. For this reason, it puts women in a place where they are not allowed to express their deepest relational desires, if those desires run to things other than casual sex.

Those who dare to hope for something more permanent, or even more romantic, are accused of mental instability. Says Brian, a sophomore, of a girl he hooked up with, "I thought I liked … a chick last semester and then she just went crazy on me. Like she wanted the relationship, she wanted everything and I was just kind of like: 'Oh I can't handle this right now.'"⁵

Now I admit that some women can be demanding and needy in an unhealthy way, and I'm not excusing that. But in a culture that fears commitment and values keeping one's options open, I think we've lumped all expressions of need — even healthy ones — into the category of madness. What if, instead of indicating insanity, female desire for permanence in relationships were also an inherent trait — one that points toward God's design for marriage?

Taking that assumption seriously would increase the campus relationship stakes significantly. Instead of weighing the risks and benefits of one hot (drunken?) night with a prospective hookup partner, men and women alike would have to weigh the risks and benefits of a lifetime with that person. We'd have to think a lot harder about the damage we do when we use each other sexually without a thought of long-term commitment — damage both to our partners and to ourselves. And yes, this too would undermine the hookup system. But again, maybe we could do better.

Great Expectations

In the end, doing better is what an honest examination of the hookup culture calls us to. The hookup expects too little from us, and it brings out the worst in both men and women. It tells men that they're nothing but walking hormones and their highest relational goal ought to be instant sexual gratification. It does not call them to the nobility, responsibility or even basic goodness of which they're capable. At best, it makes them selfish and shortsighted. At worst, it makes them predators.

At the same time, the hookup puts women in a permanently vulnerable and unfulfilled position. I suppose the lifestyle's defenders would say that women should just keep trying recreational sex — that eventually we'll find it likeable and fulfilling. (After all, we're told, the guys like it, and we're their equals.) But seriously, we've been playing this game for a half-century. You'd think if we were going to get it, we'd have gotten it by now. Hookups ask us to deny our deep desires, and they make our bodies mere objects for the enjoyment of others.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you think male leadership is inborn?

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Consider the alternative: A biblical view of romance, sex and relationships assumes that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can control our sexual urges and channel that energy into a better way of living. Men and women can treat each other honorably. We can make a lifelong commitment to one partner and make good on that promise. And instead of using sex for recreation, it can be a part of God bonding us together in a permanent one-flesh union. That's the kind of hookup that's worth giving ourselves to.