The End of Sex

January 28, 2013
Freitas, a novelist and assistant professor of religion at Boston University, wants “young men and women of all sexual orientations to have great sex—if having sex is what they want.” If it isn’t, she’s cool with that too. Her newest work of nonfiction (after 2010’s Sex and the Soul) is a scathing and reasoned attack on the casual-sex culture at American universities, which is marked not by free love, but by pressure to have as much sex with as little emotional connection as possible (and often while drunk). Through interviews and demographic surveys, Freitas constructs an anthropological survey on what hooking up and dating (or its absence) look like on campuses today. She lays out convincing arguments against this harmful kind of sexual culture—one that degrades women to the status of objects, and consigns men to a life of constantly assuaging sexual anxieties—but her advice is rarely scolding or prudish. She encourages mindfulness and an open dialogue about what students want to get out of sex, and her remedies (which include temporary periods of abstinence and a return to the traditional date) should provide, if not solutions, at least inspiration for parents and college staff in talking to students about how to have better relationships, and better sex. If that’s what you’re into.

July 15, 2013
"The digital generation" would perhaps be surprised to learn that the cultural mores around sexual relationships have an ebb and flow to them--that "hookup culture," as it's commonly referred to now, is similar to the way things were back in the 1960s. The difference can be found in the underlying motivations. While the '60s were about breaking the shackles of a conservative society, the current wave of promiscuity seems to be a factor of boredom, of not having a template for what a "relationship" means, and of the barriers around pornography dropping as the Internet grows. Freitas (Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses, 2008, etc.) explores her experiences with college students who, she suggests, are fed up with the emptiness and trivialization of the hookup culture. Pornography has gone from an illicit pleasure to something more akin to "research," and the constant access afforded to the always-connected youth has resulted in a sort of expectation that the roles in pornography are the roles males and females should play if they want to fit in. Freitas examines the dogged persistence of the boys-will-be-boys stereotype that starts at an early age and is reinforced throughout childhood and adolescence; the stigma of college virginity; and the informality and "relaxed" nature of hookup culture, as opposed to the formal dinner-and-a-movie first date (or any date). She questions the role of the HBO show Girls, with its portrayals of the sex lives of women as sources of boredom and depression--is the show simply mirroring culture, or is it also reinforcing it? Freitas poses more questions than she answers, and the "practical guide" of ways to affect change only amounts to a scant few pages in an appendix, with little attention to the role of technology and the narcissism perpetuated by social networking. It's good to sound the alarm, but having a plan to go with it would be welcome.

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