A question for the girls:
So I caused a bit of a stir a while back by writing an article about relationships. It’s a topic I don’t give much time to, to be honest. And yet, as I’m preparing an article, I’m curious about why some girls give up sex easily and whether or not they view their sexuality as a commodity. In other words, do you use sex for some kind of social power or to make yourself feel good?
This consideration may sound naive (and indeed may be naive) coming from a guy, but I’m interested in your response.
So, you meet a guy, you have sex after a couple interactions, and you walk away. What did you gain from the experience and what, if anything, did you you lose?
Did it make you feel powerful? Did it make you feel beautiful?
Some of these responses may end up in an article without your name or any form of identity, so if you respond, just know I might use a quote but won’t be using your name. Thanks!
Hi Don. I love your writing, even though I am not religious. I feel compelled to answer this question. I haven’t read most of the other responses, so maybe I’m not saying anything new.
To start, I didn’t have sex until age 24 and it was after much consideration with a good-friend-turned-boyfriend, who I’m still with. Still, before him I flippantly used fooling around, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s practically the same situation as hooking up.
In the order of my encounters, here are my motivations for each night in bed with someone I didn’t know very well or didn’t care about: 1. To “cancel out” my relationship with a boy who broke my heart (I didn’t think he deserved to be the only one who’d touched me); 2. As an experiment to see if it would make me feel guilty (this instance didn’t at first; it did later); 3. To prove to myself that I could get whatever guy I chose; 4. To distract a broken heart; 5. To distract a broken heart, again; 6. Just for fun, and partly to make myself feel beautiful & desirable at a time when I felt very much both of those; 7. I just wanted to see what it was like to go home with a perfect stranger. Also partly to make myself feel beautiful & desirable, at a time when I felt neither of those.
If I were to go back and do it all again, I’d participate in about half the hookups; the others, no way. It wasn’t about social power, as the hookups were kept to myself and my closest friends… but it was sometimes about feeling wanted or feeling like my life was exciting. I had some friends in college who chided me for not having many real relationships (these were not the ones I confided in about my hookups), and in their opinion (and mine at the time), any fleeting relationship was better than having zero experience. While I see how foolish that is, I also learned a lot about myself and how to deal with men as a result of my hookup experiences (that’s my gain). Hooking up, to me, says someone doesn’t have their own self figured out; they are searching, experimenting, learning. That’s not so bad when you’re 20. It’s pathetic when you’re 35.
My loss was that some of the experiences are still humiliating to look back on. I regret doing new things with people I didn’t even like. I wish I’d saved those things for people I cared about. But all in all, I chalk it up to youthful wandering. My hooking up days are done, even if I were to find myself single again.
Long and lengthy comment. Just wanted to give my two cents. Thank you.
Mr. Miller,
Greetings. I subscribe to your blog post but don’t often get around to reading them. If it’s not too late I’d like to offer my opinion of why women hook-up.
People, at large, fail to see sex for what it is and for what God ordained it to be: sacred. Sacred and set apart for enjoyment within the bounds of a marriage covenant. People are also sacred though, as with sex, we simply don’t see ourselves this way either. I don’t mean sacred in the context of having a good self-esteem (though there is nothing at all wrong or sinful with having a reasonable sense of self-worth) but sacred as a temple of the Holy Spirit and the hands and feet of Christ on earth. We (society as a whole) don’t reverence Christ. And we don’t reverence ourselves or each other as vessels and agents of Christ. And we don’t reverence the sex act. It’s easy to reduce sex to a biological function and to equate ourselves to animals that sleep, eat, have sex, bear children, and die. Our culture certainly encourages this. Within this culture, this mentality, our existence is painfully bereft of significance.
Why do we, women, hook up? I know why I, a professed Christian girl with good Biblical training, did. I did it because I was so happy to be wanted even if it was only for those few moments while he found a warm place to stick it. I let this man and his fleeting desire of me define my worth and value. Why was I so vulnerable to this? Because I had ever believed or understood that God loved me and wanted me. I didn’t understand God, God’s love for me, God’s love for man. And I was very much immature in my walk with God and in life in general. I believe I was saved but my foundation was shaky. So I was shaky and deeply insecure and searching for approval and wanting to be wanted. Longing to feel and be significant to somebody. When our identity isn’t in Christ it is in the world. So I think women hook up because they are either searching for significance and/or because they no longer or never did see sex or themselves as sacred and worthy of something better, permanent, and meaningful than five minutes in a back room.
I paid dearly for my short sightedness. I received the incredible, unearned, undeserved blessing of a daughter who is now 9 months old however we both pay the price for my sin with the knowledge that she will grow up in a broken home without a father and with a mother who is forced to leave her in daycare. I live with it when people like Anne Coulter put me in the same category as Casey Anthony because I chose to have my daughter and raise her as a single mother. Did putting out for this man make me feel powerful? No. The minute the pleasure ceased and I felt the conviction, my mouth tasted bitter with the knowledge that I had given too much, too cheaply, and too quickly. I sold myself short because I didn’t think of myself or feel worthy of holding out for more. I felt weak because I was weak. Did I feel beautiful? No. I felt ugly and common because weakness is ugly and common. I wasn’t treasured and reverenced by this man. I was simply a willing participant in a biological act.
I did read your much ballyhooed blogs on relationships awhile back. What you said was straightforward and as polite as such subject matter could be handled. I was quite surprised you apparently received a backlash. I don’t think you had done or said anything necessitating an apology.
Girls? Really? Not women? I’m an adult, and if you would like me to respond as an adult, talk to me like one.
I’ve never been one for ‘hooking up’ really, because I have all of these moral attachments to it that keep me from going to that extent. However, when I’m the most insecure and I’m out and meet someone I think is attractive I’ll manipulate them. That’s what I get satisfaction out of, the manipulation of saying the right things and presenting myself in just the perfect way to attract who I’m attracted to and gain that sense of power. The power comes from having control over them if they buy into my act, and are mesmerized by me. But really it’s not me, it’s this twisted version. And I’m not going to lie, it’s a fun game to play… but it has only ended in destruction if the relationship goes further.