Random Hookups

I have long argued the the culture of random hookups tends to hurt women more than men. This is because it is easier (as a general rule - of course there are exceptions!) for men to detach themselves from a hookup than it is for women. I beleive this is mostly due to socialization: Women are taught to expect/want sex only within the context of a serious relationship, are taught that their self-worth stems from such relationships, as well as from desirability (putting so much more pressure on each sexual encounter) and that hooking up outside of a relationship makes them a whore. Part of this however, is biological: Women tend to produce a hormone that encourages emotional attachment during sex - men do not produce this hormone.

Empirically, I have gotten a number of late-night phonecalls from girls with what I term post-hookup syndrome: Feeling used and rejected when it turns out the man really only wanted a one-night stand, feeling upset when said man avoids one afterwards, neglecting even the friendship which might have existed pre-hookup. I have yet to receive one such call from a man.*

I have developed a few theories about this phenomena. I don't know if any are right, but I suspect each is right for some situations but not for others, though there may be some situations not encompassed by these theories:

1. The girl secretly hopes for more than a random hookup, even though the guy says its all he wants, so she is dissapointed when what he said turns out to be true.
2. The girl lies to herself and really wants more (as she is conditioned to do by our society), but only realizes after that fact that she was lying to herself.
3. There was a sexual tension to the friendship/acquaintance-ship, and hooking up got rid of the tension this relationship was premised on, therefore, for the man, getting rid of the need for the relationship/further contact, whereas for the woman, who viewed the tension as part of but not all of the relationship, the need for it is still there.
4. The man is ashamed in some way, hence does not want to face the woman, who reminds him of his shame. (Like in Amon and Tamar: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b13.htm)**
5. The man has been told by society that girls can not handle random hookups, but will want to turn those into a relationship, and/or he has a big ego (perhaps because as a man in our patriarchal society, he is encouraged to have a big ego). He therefore interprets even normal, friendly, unromantic actions by the girl as evidence that she really wants him, and is pursuing a romantic relationship with him. He does not interpret such actions as evidence pre-hookup, because he has no "proof" she is attracted to him, but does interpret them as such once they are corroborated by the hookup-cum-proof. He thus avoids the girl, to send the clear message that he is not romantically interested in her, to counter-act her perceived romantic interest in him.

Closing Thoughts:

1. This paradigm could be changed if women were taught to dissociate emotion from sex, but would such a dissociation be "good" - would it be healthy? Isn't there something to be said for having sex mean something? Maybe the shift should be that men are encouraged to value sex as an emotional experience.
2. I am generalizing, and beleive that this generalization holds true because of the patriarchal way our society is currently structured, but here goes: The average woman, if she is with a friend she is not particularly attracted to/not romantically interested in, if he solicits her for a hookup, will not take it. The average man, on the other hand, will, as long as there is even the slightest amount of physical attraction. This observation is backed up by psychological studies, but I beleive those studies are biased. Evolutionary psychology in general has a tendency to reinforce stereotypes about women wanting emotional attachments more than men, because they need to look for a father who will help raise the kids, whereas men look for more sexual attachments to spread their seed, but I beleive that this is largely due to bias: Evolutionary psychologists often want to find results that enforce these stereotypes, precisely because those stereotypes reinforce the evolutionary theory that the researchers have even before they start designing their experiments.

Also, here is a link to an interesting article on the topic, that quotes from one of my favorite Sex and The City Episodes (hey, don't judge me!): http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29282186/ns/today-relationships/t/can-you-should-you-have-sex-man/

* I notice I use the words girls/man vs girls/boy or women/men. I beleive this has to do with the way our society disrespects women, but respects men - hence term of disrespect for females my age seems natural to me, whereas one of respect is my de facto for males. If you think"girl" is respectful: Know that in the south, during the Jim Crow era, African-American men and women were reffered to by white people as boy/girl, no matter what their age, as a matter of principle, in order to disrespect them. Both Richard Wright and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have mentioned this fact in various writings. I am too lazy to look up exact quotes right now.
** As Pirkey Avot says, "A love based on something - the thing dissapears, the love dissappears." It then gives the Amnon/Tamar story as an example - an attraction based on lust that evaporated once the lust was satisfied. Of course, here "friendship"or some other noun must be substituted for love.