Some people will say yes there is a hook-up culture and some will say no. I recently read an article that said the hook-up culture always existed. And I don’t think that is the case, at least not as it is today. I would say when I was in my 20s, men still wanted to settle down and get married and you’re only looking at 20+ years ago.
It’s much worse for women today—particularly women who want to settle down and get married. The operative word is want. Because there is a segment of women who want to sow their oats the same way as men do and that can spell trouble later if she ends up with a child she has to raise by herself, or decides later in life she wants a real relationship, but is hard pressed to find one with a man who also wants to settle down.
There is a generation of men who are being raised to run from marriage and skirt their responsibility. I have my own theory as to why and it tends to vary from what other people think the reasons are.
So, how does being traditional-minded work in today’s hook-up culture and is it beneficial to women? My answer to that is no—and I touched on it a bit in the first paragraph.
Do traditional men even still exist? I know there are some out here, but both men and women have gotten away from traditional values in general and the only victims in this hook-up culture IMO are the men and women who are genuinely sincere in wanting to find a person to settle down with in marriage and not taking detours (one night stands, friends with benefits etc.) on their quest for finding or waiting on the right person.
I feel the younger generation of women who follow the latest reality star when it comes to how to be in a relationship, or use their bodies will be sorely disappointed later when the flash and glamour of their youth is gone and now they want something genuine in a man. I’ve often said online, that men are spoiled today because many of them get all of the perks of a marital relationship without having to make it official. It’s more popular or expected to be divorced or jump from relationship to relationship than it is to be in a long-time marriage.
Women are often the ones who hurt in the long-run, because we tend to want more. Maybe not right away i.e. in our youth but we will definitely want it later. This is why I try to talk to young women. I feel my message is for someone. There are times I want to stop talking about being traditional-minded. I want to let women who are traditional know they are not alone in their desire to set themselves apart from the crowd.
I know being traditional goes against the grain of today when young girls consider shaking big butts, and flashing boobs as a way to capture a man’s attention. Yes, you’ll get his attention, but at what cost? Some men will approach a woman with no intent of making her his forever after and a lot of times that young woman is left with a kid or two and the man is long gone and she is wondering what happened. That to me is what the hook-up culture is doing to young women.
Also, traditional is subjective. There are some people who are guilty of hooking up indiscriminately, yet they consider themselves traditional. I know some women like that, and I wonder what part of traditional don’t they understand.
I’m generation X—those are the ages between 1961 and 1981. I consider my age being in that transitional age between traditional and free-minded and I’m talking in terms of relationships. We’ve essentially gone from girls/women dreaming and planning their wedding day and being married to shacking up, co-parenting but not being together.
There really seems to be no in-between. It appears to be one extreme to the other. You know the high-profile families who have an almost twisted view of propriety only to find out there is incest, molestation charges to unwed pregnancies in a family where abstinence was taught. You know who I’m talking about so I won’t name names—versus the hook-up culture where a monogamous relationship seems like a joke or unbelievable.
There has to still be women who dream of their wedding day and wanting to be married. When I’m online and talk fondly of marriage I sometimes feel like an old relic of the past. The irony is romance books and movies are a multi-million dollar industry—so romance is not dead in that respect.
As a writer I find I am stuck in a hard-place in regards to some of my stories specifically as a Black writer. I still have one foot in the past with making my protagonist’s old-fashion minded but in a contemporary society. I prefer to keep my characters pure until marriage but ultimately found that I had to modify some of my stories to keep with today’s trends. My only character that saved herself was my Destinee character in A love worth waiting for-Destinee’s story. But I’m sure I have some more characters like her just waiting to have their stories told.
So ladies (and gents) if you’re out there give me a shout out. Share your thoughts on what’s going on out here.
Thanks for reading.
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