Hooking Up Hurts Women

Is the high school and college hook-up culture (in which couples get together for sex with no plans for a “relationship”) damaging to women? In a new book called Unhooked, Laura Sessions Stepp suggests that it does, and she’s taking heat for it. Subtitled, How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, the book follows nine high school and college students, age 15 to 21, to track the impact casual making out and sex has on their emotions and relationships.

This New York Times story (featured on AOL) relates quotes from several harsh reviews about the book, including this one from the Washington Post: “resurrects the ugly, old notion of sex as something a female gives in return for a male's good behavior." And this one from Slate: "makes sex into a bigger, scarier and more dangerous thing than it already is."

I have not read the book, but these reviewers seem angry, in part, NOT because Sessions Stepp is basing her argument on any religious conservatism. She’s a longtime feminist, and she doesn’t even assert that sex before marriage is wrong. She just has the gall to suggest casual sex might be bad for women emotionally, that perhaps being feminine and dating and building relationships would be healthier than having sex (or making out) with a guy you just met today and don’t plan to hang out with tomorrow.

Of course, many books like this have also been written from an explicitly Christian perspective. And yes, it should be enough for us that God clearly communicates in Scripture that sex is not only intended to be shared with ”someone you love,“ but also some you’re married to. Still, it’s significant that even those coming from a secular perspective notice that casual hook-up sex often leads to emotional scarring and deep regret. For very different reasons, Sessions Stepp seems to join the writer of Proverbs in telling women, ”Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.“ (Proverbs 4:23) And she believes, at least, that guarding your sexuality is essential to guarding your heart.