In Defense of 'Loose' Women

At the risk of Kiko's House becoming branded as an advocate of promiscuity (it was just yesterday that I posted on the subject) while chiding Merck for marketing a vaccine that detractors say encourages promiscuity, there is a nifty rejoinder at Slate to the notion that today's young women just aren't having fun having sex.

I found this perplexing since sex, whether to procreate or recreate, should be fun.

Well, Meghan O'Rourke rides to my rescue with a nifty commentary that begins:

" It is the time-honored duty of the adolescent to alarm adults (parents, in particular) by having wild and often idiotic fun—e.g., streaking naked across campus, playing drinking games, throwing things out windows, hooking up with an acquaintance or a friend who, in a flush of late-night hormones, suddenly looks kind of hot. I went to college in the early days of the "hookup" culture, as it is now called, and my recollection, through the haze of years, was that the whole point of hookups was that they were pleasurable—a little embarrassing, sometimes, but mostly, well, fun. Either I was self-deluded, or things have gotten a lot worse. According to Laura Sessions Stepp, author of Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both, sex on campuses for young women today is a series of joyless encounters engaged in without either short-term pleasure or long-term reward. This pointless hedonism, in Stepp's view, turns young women into jaded depressives unable to trust or love anyone, secretly wishing Mr. Right would show up on their doorstep with flowers and a fraternity pin."

You can read the rest here.