This June 15 Rolling Stone article had my stomach doing flips in sadness and disgust. The attitude toward sex at Duke - and probably many college campuses - is heart-breaking. The emptiness and brokenness of the "hookup" culture should make our American culture in general and Christians in particular do some soul-searching about what sex and relationships are for.
Here's a tidbit of the powerful article, which features some telling quotes and an astute reference to Tom Wolf's I Am Charlotte Simmons:
The vagaries of sex on campus have created a specific ''hookup culture'' at Duke, one that Charlotte Simmons fans might quickly recognize. As one male student describes it, it ''exists in a whirlwind of drunkenness and horniness that lacks definition -- which is what everyone likes about it [because] it's just an environment of craziness and you don't have to worry about it until the next morning.''
But this culture has its downsides, say some students. ''I think the ease of hooking up has, like, made people forget what they truly want,'' says Naomi. ''People assume that there are two very distinct elements in a relationship, one emotional and one sexual, and they pretend like there are clean lines between them.''
Or at least boys do, she believes. Girls fake it. If so, they're faking well. One male student I met told me he'd ''never seen some of the catty, cougarlike behavior like I have at Duke, even in the clubs of New York City'' -- where he's from, he adds. There, he says, ''guys have to go all-out'' to get girls to go home with them. At Duke, ''there's kind of a mutual acceptance that stuff can happen in one night, on your way back from Shooters.''
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