By Colby Pines
By now, some readers of the 'Prince' are probably tiring of hookup culture op-eds. Such weariness was expressed by William Beacom in "Oh, another article about hookups." But I think itís worth discussing — and discussing well — anything which concerns our treatment of others in deeply personal ways. To dismiss critical reflection as "weird," "obsessed" or a kind of "fundamentalist analysis" strikes me as impatient and irresponsible. Like Beacom, I devote most of this piece to commentary about the debate and will end with some brief observations on hookups themselves.
First, a basic premise: Hookups and the hookup culture form a moral issue. Various authors have had different opinions about this premise, but they typically have not made their positions explicit. The claim itself seems to me to be broadly acceptable, though the list of accepted moral factors will vary. For some, determining the morality of hookups (specifically, sexual acts) will begin and end with consent. Any activity that is consented to by competent parties to that activity is morally acceptable.
But if pushed, I suspect many will want to say that harm is also significant. After all, doesn't the anorexic consent to his or her own starvation? If harm is a factor in moral calculus, then the debate shifts to questions about what constitutes harm vis-a-vis sex. Some might hold that harm doesn't only consist in obvious physical and psychological wounds. Still others will go further, inclined to say that using other people for personal pleasure, even if all parties walk away happy and content, is intrinsically wrong.
Whatever one's theory of sexual ethics, I want to stress the notion that everyone has one. Consider one version of a common line in this debate: "If hookups don't work for you, then don't hook up, but don't tell other people how to live their own lives." This implies that sexual practices are only a matter of pragmatism and taste; "romantic orientation," as one author has called it. But this is, contrary to apparently popular belief, its own view about sex. This is moral relativism, which is not uncontroversial, and it certainly isn't neutral.
Other authors, like Ben Koons, Dave Kurz and Audrey Pollnow, have offered views more in line with moral realism. This is the view that moral claims (something like, "murder is wrong," or "you ought not cheat on your girlfriend") are propositions which are objectively true or false. So in arguments about what the answers are, some people are right and others are wrong. If there are true normative statements that can be said of hookups which are universally true and binding, why isnít it acceptable to relay this to others in the form encouragement, admonishment or at least moral argument?
If these conclusions are correct, Beacom's position and others who have argued similarly should be resisted. In the guise of moral neutrality, he smuggles in a relativistic moral view with vague appeals to oneís ìown termsî as if oneís whims — typically well lubricated with cheap lager and various distillates — were acceptable, much less reliable, standards of behavior. Sex is personal, of course. But ethical principles arenít subjective.
So how ought we live? What of the hookup culture? A few considerations:
1) Casual sex actually harms participants by cheapening sex and by teaching people to repress or wholly eliminate resulting feelings of attachment. (Is this not more damaging to a personís well-being than his or her disciplined restraint and intentional direction of sexual appetites so commonly called repression?)
2) As has been argued by others, this behavior is habit-forming, and such habits are counterproductive to the health of future long-term, faithful relationships that I expect most of us intend to pursue if not already doing so.
3) Treating other people merely as a means to one's own satisfaction is immoral per se. One-night stands, and even continuous relationships of the "friends-with-benefits" variety, consist in encounters that rarely instantiate mutual self-giving, or the desire of another person as that whole person. Rather, they seem to be superficial — an exercise in carnal itch scratching where one's present sexual desire is compatible with many other similarly suitable partners. This sort of depersonalized "using" is objectionable.
Sex is important. More than this, sex has moral dimensions. I've only begun to sketch those dimensions, but one thing seems obvious: They're worth getting right. Any moral issue allows for reasonable disagreement, but it also requires consistent justification of one's view. Honest uncertainty isn't weakness. As to true moral inconsistency: Failing to live out one's convictions due to weakness of will, though wrong, is a perfectly understandable and human response. But it is a weakness. And it is wrong. Getting the "answers" right is only part of the challenge. Perhaps the harder part is actually living them out.
Colby Pines is a philosophy major from Lafayette, Calif. Inevitable accusations of being an arrogant, pedantic virgin with ulterior/religious motives may be sent to wpines@princeton.edu.
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