Along with other members of the Anscombe Society, I disagree with the false ideals of such a culture. This Valentine’s Day, Anscombe has made it its goal to inform Princeton students that “free sex” is never free. Not only does extramarital sex poses strong risks of disease and unwanted pregnancy, but such sex, though pleasurable, also inevitably causes damage to one’s emotional, psychological and moral wellbeing. Only sex within the bond of marriage, ordered to the goods of friendship and procreation, is the sex that contributes to human flourishing. Only within the context of the marital good can the two become one flesh through the gift of their very selves — a gift which, removed from that context, is ultimately empty.
One of the consequences of the hookup culture is social fragmentation and isolation. As students treat sex increasingly casually, committed and faithful relationships, which foster virtues required for a stable marriage and home, fall by the wayside. As with most universities, what marks Princeton’s relationship culture today is the decline of the date and the rise of the hookup. Traditional relationships are now the exception rather than the norm. Sexual liberation leads to the increased isolation of the individual, as sex becomes nothing more than mutual pleasuring. In hooking up, loneliness is not allayed, but intensified. Casual sex all too often brings alienation and pain.
This culture leads to sex that is selfish rather than sharing, taking rather than giving. We ought to always treat others — to use Kant’s familiar phrase — as ends, not means. A person should never become an object for any other person. In terms of sex, love and romance, one’s sexual partner should never be used, consciously or not, as an instrument for achieving pleasure and self-gratification. But it is just this that extramarital sex does. For the “union” involved in extramarital sex is no union at all, not ordered to any basic human good and opposed to the good of marriage.
Even when both partners are consenting, extramarital sex still leads inevitably to instrumentalization and depersonalization. This consent, moreover, is often motivated by false expectations of a true relationship or is the product of peer pressure in a sexual culture where promiscuity is expected and even extolled. In the final analysis, however, sex in such circumstances is exploitative.
What is perhaps most tragic in the hookup culture is the emotional and psychological suffering endured by those who attempt to have sex free of consequences. As sex is such a physically, mentally and emotionally unitive act, the notion that one can hook up with someone for a night without any strings attached is misguided. Physiologically, sex bonds partners through the release of hormones such as oxytocin. Even when emotional bonds are consciously avoided, they are still formed on the subconscious level. For this reason, casual sex often brings with it isolation and grief. To have premarital sex is to select serial loneliness over devoted companionship.
While the hookup culture is one of depersonalization and selfishness, the members of Anscombe, including myself, believe that there is a better way to true human flourishing. The virtues of loyalty, faithfulness and chastity have fallen in a bad way lately. But only with such virtues is one able to cultivate a committed, loving relationship that involves the gift of self from each partner to the other.
That is why, instead of hooking up this Valentine’s Day, students and their significant others should go out on a date. Watch a movie, see a play, have a romantic dinner, enjoy deep conversation — the list is endless. Dating or courtship is not a time for sexual experimentation but rather for sharing time together and coming to know the other person as a person — as an end, not a means. If one night’s mistakes can lead to a lifetime of regrets, one night done right can lead to a lifetime of bliss in a loving and faithful relationship. The possibility of that bliss is the best thing to share this Valentine’s Day.
David Pederson is a freshman from Edina, Minn. He can be reached at dpederso@princeton.edu.
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