More Than Just Sex

I’ve been wanting to write this article for a long time. I will open with the disclaimer that I try my best to avoid the cliché argument about “hook-up culture” (in fact, this will be the only time I use the term), but if I fall subject to certain platitudes, I apologize in advance. I also can’t promise that I will add anything new to the discussion of modern-day dating. Nevertheless, I believe it is one to be had, and re-had, especially among college students.

This past weekend, my friends and I took a trip to D.C. to visit our good friend, a girl attending college there. While we were out one night, one of us met a guy who was notorious on campus for sleeping around. The rest of us debated leaving her alone with him, knowing what we knew about his reputation. My D.C. friend had informed us, after all, that if our friend wasn’t planning on sleeping with him, this guy would most definitely ditch her and find someone else who would. Upon hearing this, I blurted out, “That’s disgusting.” I was angry to be faced yet again with a situation in which women were treated as disposable, and only good for one thing. What angered me more, however, was my D.C. friend’s reaction to my comment. “I mean it makes sense,” she said. “Why would a guy want to waste his time when he could find someone else to put out?”

Herein lies a troubling college mentality: Any time that does not meet, or at the very least advance toward, the main goal of sexual gratification is considered “a waste.” This transforms the innocence of conversation, flirtation, etc. into a means of obtaining a purely physical end. It allows sex to be viewed as a prize rather than a privilege, as a game with winners and losers. On Harvard’s own campus, I have often heard the terms “score” and “close” used to describe men who have, to use another questionable phrase, “sealed the deal” the night before. These terms of course imply that sex is the end goal in an artful sport of coercion. And what is there left to do once you have won the game?

Regardless of whether the desire by some students to have low commitment, immediately gratifying romantic encounters leads others to adopt this mentality as well (as suggested last year in The Washington Post), it is clear that both college men and women are of the hook-up mindset nowadays. As my friend’s comment makes clear, we as college students have been conditioned to think of romantic interactions as having certain sexual expectations. The more we adopt and perpetuate this mentality, the more it becomes excusable to dismiss others if they are not satisfying our sexual desires, or immediately after they do so. Perhaps more disturbingly, the more we adopt and perpetuate this mentality, the more it becomes taboo to demonstrate any interest in commitment.

While the empirical data is difficult to pinpoint, I have acquired a strong sense over the past years that any hint at commitment sends many college students running for the hills. In fact, for someone to even suggest a follow-up date seems to lead to the immediate presumption that they are looking for a serious commitment. Of course there is conflict among various statisticians or psychologists in terms of whether college students desire strictly sex, strictly relationships, or something in-between. But I challenge these students to tell me that they haven’t had multiple friends complain about their love life, and then tell me that it has nothing to do with someone’s fear of “being exclusive”.

Of course, there are the counter-arguments—I know them well. Yes, our bodies are our own and we reserve the right to do with them what we wish. Yes, many college students are involved in loving, committed relationships. Yes, the nature of dating itself changes with time. But not all change is good, and change can certainly be overturned.

So here’s my call to action. Next time, take someone out on a date. If it goes poorly, tell them it was nice meeting them and then don’t go out on another one. No one is pinning you down and forcing you to sign a marriage contract. Or maybe don’t get together with someone at all if you’re not prepared to see him or her as more than a means to an end. Whatever your decision, there are options other than viewing someone as strictly an opportunity for sex. I encourage you to take them. If you are not positively surprised by the results, I am willing to withdraw my case and subscribe to this newfound “college mentality” myself. After all, I’m not afraid of commitment.

Aria N. Bendix ’15, a Crimson editorial writer, is an English concentrator in Quincy House.