In the old days whore houses used to be a natural part of every city. The men could get their sex without involvement and women were to some extent protected from the predatory nature of young males.

The "Progressives" cleaned all that up. And so here we are.

Of course a lot of the hook-up culture is due to Demographics.

When men are in short supply (as they are on most college campuses these days) Girls Go Wild.

You can't fool Mother Nature.

I do think male sexuality is based on predation. At least, that's how my own wicked side works. As I get older (mid 40's), thankfully it gets easier to be a good little married non-predator.

Me, I blame American Idol for the hook-up ethic. Not the show itself, but the mindset which has replaced the goal of pursuing Virtue with pursuit of Fame. So rather than blaming TV, I think the success of Idol and reality shows in general is due in large part to the pull of vicarious fame.

Fame, in all its emptiness, has supplanted Virtue. And without Virtue, there is only what feels good now.

I'm not seeing anything new in this take on campus sex, other than some terms like "hook up culture". The traditional double standard for women pretty much died with the easy availability of birth control back in the 1960's, hence that "free love" (culture) you could hardly have missed at Berkeley back in the day, Eric.

I sometimes share your concern about "mindless followers", but more so when I don't share their views. Funny how that happens.

I believed in a free promiscuous lifestyle in college, but it was all theory. Not that I lied about my number of experiences, I simply advocated, from an intellectual standpoint, that women should be as free and easy with one-night stands as men. Somehow, when it came to putting theory to practice, however, I remained, um, "pure" until after I was 30 and married. So sad.

So yeah, I was a big hypocrite.

As the parent of a soon-to-be-freshman-age son, I have discussed the "herd mentality" aspects of sex with my 17-year-old predatory male. He is currently grappling with his first long-term, serious relationship as a high school senior, and dealing with the issues of sexuality versus intimacy versus responsibility versus reputation, in what I see as a rather mature manner.

What I see reflected in the campus culture is a replay of the 1960's, where young males used every technique they can imagine to get into a girl's pants without accepting any of the responsibilities, personal or public, that the girl would ideally desire a mate to have, either short-term or long-term.

That girls put up with, accept, or reciprocate in this idiocy is foolishness on their part, as females in a group and as individuals.

My younger daughter is being taught that No means NO, and is getting the mental skills and physical tools to enforce that dictum. I anticipate her laughing in the faces of the clowns who try to use her for their own momentary pleasure.

In short, real men don't do that, and real women don't let them.

"But most students also believe that "everyone does it," even if the individual student, for some reason, cannot locate a partner. Thus an active minority sets the tone and makes hooking up a "culture."

So what exactly is news here? That's the way it's always been among young people, and it's still that way. Get over it and move on.

"But most students also believe that "everyone does it," even if the individual student, for some reason, cannot locate a partner. Thus an active minority sets the tone and makes hooking up a "culture."

So what exactly is news here? That's the way it's always been among young people, and it's still that way. Get over it and move on.

I am a boomer who went to UCLA in the early 70s. I am here to tell you everyone appeared part of the herd and wanted to, but were not. That peer pressure and herd mentality always made me go the other way and still does. All boomers brag about the drugs they did and the years they don't remember, but I'm here to tell you not all did because I never so much as smoked pot. (My hubby, OTOH, back then did every drug that existed.) It's kind of embarrassing to admit but I don't care. It was all my friends being into drugs in high school that made me not give in but find a new group of friends.

We won't even talk about how late I bloomed sexually. ;-) But, back then a lot of us didn't and I know now a lot of kids don't. It's very sad that they all want to look like they do. Peer pressure is the worst thing kids growing up have to deal with and this casual hook-up mentality is really sick. It leads to a degradation of the culture and fabric of society. Which does lead directly to Dr. Helen's numerous discussions of why men no longer want to marry and what in the world is wrong with today's women...

Our culture and mores may be disintegrating in irreparable ways. So much for sexual freedom and the sexual revolution.

Couldn't this be another case where the "subjects" tell the author what they think they want to here. It sounds too much like a repition of Margaret Meade and the errors she made.

Doesn't bother me who gets laid. Let the whole herd enjoy themselves for all I care.

But hasn't it struck anyone that we are wasting a lot of money, paying for (and even borrowing for) college? Seems very few students are actually interested in studying anything. Why the expensive charade?

Barry,

It was always thus. If you go back in time say six or eight hundred years the big complaint was college students spent too much time and money drinking and carousing.

Our biggest trouble as a culture is not the decline in morals (they have always been declining) but the idea that history began this morning.

And yet despite continuously declining morals we seem to manage.

Oh, I'm not decrying declining morals.

However, when a large percentage of the population does to school, and many borrow money to do it, we may be having a problem akin to the housing bubble. Prices of "higher education" are rising at ridiculous rates, but people keep paying, if only out of frenetic fear.

I mean, I drank and surfed my way through college, myself. But I don't have any student loans. Now, when I talk to people in their 20s, they seem to owe ungodly sums, and for what, really?

It's one thing to party your way to your mid-20s, it's another thing to party your way into six-figure debt with no assets.

That's my concern with it.

Barry,

My #2 son got a $160,000 dollar education for about $10,000 in debt. How did he do it? Scholarship. He is/was an outstanding scholar. The school (a top tier University whose name you would instantly recognize if I was totally into bragging) paid his way. He graduated with honors.

And how was it possible for the school to do this. Obviously, all the not so good students were in some measure paying his way.

His position is that he now has a good asset (an excellent education) and relatively low debt.

And what did I do? I went into electronics as a bench technician (R&D) and worked my way up to aerospace engineer sans degree.

BTW I spent my 20s drinking and carousing totally. Lots of hook ups. My experience? Even for casual relationships (one night stands to 6 month relationships) there was a lot of wooing involved. Even in the 60s/70s very few women gave it up on the first date and if they did they expected to see more of you at least until they figured out that they really were not interested in something longer term.

As I pointed out in my comments with the Demographics link - human nature is what it is. It doesn't change very fast.

I once did a calculation to figure how much women differed from men in terms of interest in sex (about 3% of men are interested in fetishistic, sex the number for women is 1%) it is about 1/2 standard deviation difference. Not much. Just enough so that demand exceeds supply. i.e. women will always have the edge in relationships. Which is as it should be since the cost for them is much greater. Women get choice. Men get what ever women are willing to give.

That is not going to change no matter how much "culture" changes. Culture changes are cosmetic. It does get a lot of people frothing who like to froth so I expect there is some value in that.

Now if we really wanted to change "culture" we would make sure that in all situations the numbers of women and men would be balanced +/- 5%.

The rules in Islam seem quite harsh (they are) but they are rooted in biology. Our rules are an attempt to transcend nature. We can't. So we get a different set of outcomes. Fortunately we are rich enough to afford it. Kinder and gentler always comes at a price.

I'm willing to pay it.

We hear a lot about "choice," and we tend to think of it as an individual thing. At least, I've always thought of it that way. I'd hate to think that choice is being redefined as a choice of herds.

That's what happened on the Continent in the 19th century, when the Leftist premise of "national self-determination" was substituted for the Enlightenment idea of "individual self-determination" in the meaning of "freedom". That is why the history of Europe has followed the path it has since the Enlightenment went out.

Is the Enlightenment going out here? Well, these particular teenage canaries have been keeling over since the 1960's....

Most of these young people have already been heavily indoctrinated/trained in PC "herd" passivity throughout their school years, long before they get to college.