COMING APART OF THE HOOK-UP CULTURE

NBC interviewed several millennials in an attempt to understand why millennials are having 2 ½ times less sex than prior generations. Some mentioned technology, which interferes with intimacy.

But what would prevent a millennial using one of their hook-up devices to suggest that they go for a walk or a bike-ride to break the ice rather than the bed? This also leads to the question, “Why do we use our devices as a protective barrier?

 A few mentioned expectations. They experience the pressure to live up to the expectations of unforgettable sex. However, their experience seldom lives up to such standards, But what’s new about this!

Others mentioned the economic and job pressures and argued that it’s hard to think about sex when you’re trying to find or hold a job and are still living with your parents, as a greater percentage of millennials are doing. However, it doesn’t seem that finding a job is any more difficult today than it has been.

Another commented that it isn’t about the number of sexual encounters but the quality of these encounters. Sounds reasonable, but what makes for quality encounters?

However, it doesn’t seem that any have asked the obvious question, which has been on the lips of those who believe in traditional marriage for thousands of years:

·       Perhaps we haven’t been designed for casual sex but for committed sex, which is the essence of marriage? Perhaps this is why we feel cheapened by the one-night-stand? Perhaps this was never intended for quality?

The studies lend substance to these questions. Cohabitation – sometimes termed “trial marriage” - is the new and undisputed norm. NPR writes:

·       Today, more than 65 percent of first marriages start out that way [as shackups]. Fifty years ago, it was closer to 10 percent.

·       Cohabitation before marriage, once frowned upon, is now almost a rite of passage, especially for the millennial generation. Young adults born after 1980 are more likely to cohabit than any previous generation was at the same stage of life, according to the Pew Research Center. With more than 8 million couples currently cohabiting, it is obviously a living arrangement with appeal — but it is also one with unique challenges.

The logic for cohabitation goes like this – “Marriage is difficult. Most end in divorce. It therefore makes sense to first live together to test for compatibility.” On the surface, this makes sense, but the findings indicate otherwise. In The Case for Marriage, Linda Waite & Maggie Gallagher have written:

·       [Trial marriage] provides some but not all of the same emotional benefits of marriage, yet only for a short time and at a high price. Breaking up with a live-in lover carries many of the same emotional costs as divorce but happens far more frequently. People who are cohabitating are less happy generally than the married and are less satisfied with their sex lives. In America, long-term cohabiting relationships are far rarer than successful marriages. (, 74)

·       One in ten survives five or more years…The divorce rate among those who cohabit prior to marriage is nearly double (39% vs. 21%) that of couples who marry without prior co-habitation.

·       “Men in cohabiting relationships are four times more likely to be unfaithful…Depression is three times more likely…The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is five-fold greater…and 90% more likely to have a low GPA…Abuse of children is 20 times higher in cohabiting biological-parent families; and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend.”

·       “Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children. It is a deadly toxin to marriage, family, and culture.”

LifeSiteNews.com reports:  

·       Spanish statistics, which have been highlighted in recent years by Europe’s Family Policy Institute (FPI), and recently reported by the Spanish Newspaper ABC, indicate that while only 11% of Spanish couples cohabit without marriage, such unions account for 58% of the most violent crimes between couples. For every one protection order issued for a married couple, ten are issued for cohabiting couples.

More to the point of sexual gratification, Robin Phillips cites research showing that “people who have the most sex, the best sex and are the happiest about their sex lives are monogamous, married, religious people”:

·       Women without religious affiliation were the least likely to report always having an orgasm with their primary partner – only one in five … Protestant women who reported always having an orgasm [had] the highest [percentage], at nearly one-third. In general, having a religious affiliation was associated with higher rates of orgasm for women. (The Social Organization of Sexuality, 115; quoted by Salvo, Spring 2013, 35)

This is consistent with previous studies. A Redbook Magazine survey of 1970 found that:

·       The more religious a woman is, the more likely she is “to be orgasmic almost every time she engages in sex.” Conversely, irreligious women tended to be the least satisfied with the quality and quantity of their intercourse. (35)

Phillips cites two other studies that were consistent with these findings. Many have speculated about these surprising findings. To explain them, some have cited the negative costs of the demystification of sex, while others have associated casual sex with violating the moral standards of the participants, even when they denied having them, thereby depriving them of sexual fulfillment. Writing for USA Today, William R. Mattox:

·       Suggested that “church ladies tend to be free from the guilt associated with violating one’s own sexual standards” – a factor that a University of Connecticut study found to hinder sexual satisfaction among unmarried college students. (36)

Meanwhile, others suggest that over-exposure can lead to apathy. Phillips cites a 16-year-old who confessed, “I’m so used to it, it makes me sick.” Perhaps uncommitted sexual relationships is actually the sickness-inducing factor.