A Crisis of Courtship

PBS has programming entitled "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly." The podcast for May 8: "Hooking Up."

I would suggest you watch it, but if you're not up for that sort of commitment (!!), here are some pulled quotes I find compelling.

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Professor DONNA FREITAS (Department of Religion, Boston University and Author, "Sex and the Soul," lecturing students): To have a successful hookup you’re able to shut yourself down emotionally so you do not care when you physically engage with someone in some way — basically you don’t care about it the next day.

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LAURA SESSIONS STEPP (Journalist and Author, "Unhooked"): The point is not that they’re having sex. Young people have always had sex. Certainly my generation did outside of marriage. That’s not the point. The point is the relationship. What is this teaching them about being in relationship to others?

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Dr. CHRISTIAN SMITH (William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame): Young people today draw a very strong line between their fun years and their settling-down years: What happened in my early to mid-20s will stay there, and then I will magically become happy, faithful, committed, monogamous person, and what happened three years ago won’t affect my life in the future. I personally think that that’s quite naïve.

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Ms. STEPP: We don’t talk enough about love in this society. We are — it’s somehow become a word that people are afraid to use. But in essence that’s what every one of those young women that I talked to and have written me want — and the young men as well. They want to be loved and to love. And the question they have to ask themselves is, is hooking up the way to get there?

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I also found an LDS-centered commentary on all of this on The Exponent entitled, "The Hooking Up Phenomenon: Is It Ethical for Young Mormons?" This takes into account that, though full-on sex isn't super common for the younger crew of single LDS adults, the "hooking up" phenomenon still occurs through the ever-pervasive NCMO.

I find all of this very interesting. It is so difficult for me to sustain relationships, and I wonder how much of it is because I sometimes view "settling down" as a killer to my free spirit. At the same time, there is something very alluring about having a steady relationship that I can always count on and not feel compelled to second-guess every second of every day.

I wonder how much of this fear to commit to just one person is due to hooking up so readily with people when I was younger. Right now, I just don't have the faith that I could love just one person for the rest of my life. Maybe that stems from not believing that SOMEONE ELSE could love ME for the rest of my life; not sure. I know my married friends and family will read this and say, "Oh, but when you meet THE ONE all those fears will dissipate!"

I don't think that's necessarily true. I think you CHOOSE to make them dissipate. You know, CHOOSE to love them (and only them) for time (and all eternity should you share my worldview). I struggle with the desire to make that choice. At the same time, though, I really desire the ability to be completely emotionally monogamous (I can get the physical monogamy down fairly well, it's the emotional monogamy that's the killer).