College: The time when kids finally go out into a new world, one with unlimited freedoms. If you’re like me, you’ve mastered the art of time management (barely make it to class on time) and maintain a healthy lifestyle (gained the freshman 15 from South Quad dining and late-night Joe’s Pizza runs). If you’re like some of my friends, the physical changes that came with the start of your college career were a result of … other forms of exertive activities. Let’s not beat around the proverbial bush (pun intended): When it comes to the lives of college students, there’s one thing that lives in our heads rent-free during our excruciatingly long 8 a.m. lectures … and trust me, we’re not contemplating the political and economic state of the world.
Sex! That’s what most students think about when they forget to focus on their professors — or when they maybe focus a little too hard on them. Now, don’t get me wrong, college is a place of higher education and academia. But, let’s face it, how are the future leaders of the world expected to maintain such innocence when sex is so casually integrated into our everyday lives? So, I wonder: If hookup culture is so normalized and easily accessible, what does this mean for the emotional intimacy of our future serious relationships?
Everywhere we look, we see that our favorite celebrity’s “adult film” has been leaked, or that one influencer is getting a little too cozy with their ex in public. But we talk about the hot topic and then forget it happened not long after because the latest and hottest sex-crazed drama has flooded our inbox.
We see sex when we sit down for a movie night with the girls.“Gossip Girl” continuously exposed the romantic relationships and sex lives of one particularly popular, though fictional, group of Manhattan’s elite. Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex and the City” based her weekly sex columns on the scandalous stories of her friends and their most recent conquests. “The Sex Lives of College Girls” was created with the intention of showing how the new millennium is progressing in a way that allows otherwise inexperienced young women to explore their sexual preferences. So, as the girlies finish up their wine and shut off the TV, we do just as the show told us to do: talk about the hot topics — which include, more often than not, sex.
For starters, physical intimacy is not the issue here. People should be able to express themselves through their physicality without being shamed for their choices. The issue that arises is how the increase of casual physical intimacy desensitizes people to emotional connections that may be right in front of them.
The rise of social media apps, more specifically, has been harmful to forming real relationships. Sometimes when my friends and I don’t have anything to do, we “play Tinder.” The game is played exactly how it sounds: We treat Tinder as though it is a game, engaging in rapid-fire swiping without a thought behind what we’re doing, other than whether or not we find the person attractive, of course. This kind of mindset — that blurs the lines between genuine love and a mere game — not only prevents people from truly matching with the person on the other end of the screen, but also enables people to justify not putting themselves out into the world to create genuine connections.
Because we have these resources at the tips of our fingers, we also see more and more people putting off serious relationships — not because they don’t want one, but because continued casual “situationships” that remain unlabeled leave too much room for wandering minds and unrealistic expectations. What started off as a fun and low-commitment situation often gets twisted into more when physical intimacy creates a false sense of a deep emotional connection. Such confusion can breed frustration and disappointment when one party realizes that they will not get as much out of the other as they were expecting. Though a lack of understanding between the “situationship-ers” in itself is harmful, it can be even more detrimental to a person’s well-being, as the lack of communication and understanding — things typically reserved for long-term partnerships — are nowhere to be found, ultimately leaving people vulnerable with unrealistic and unfulfilled expectations.
The answer to all of these questions comes down to one thing: Physical satisfaction is important, and there is a reason it is so normalized today. However, while there are undeniable advantages to today’s hookup culture, the potential pitfalls are undeniable. Not only can engaging in a physical relationship with someone sometimes lead to the assumption that an emotional connection has developed, but it can also potentially harm any future connection you might have had. In order to maintain sanity within an impersonal world, it is crucial to communicate and establish a mutual understanding, remembering to listen to ourselves before continuing into any relationship, emotional or physical.
When all is said and done, students will look back on their college experiences and they’ll laugh. Thinking back on our four years, the who’s who of who you’ve done, we should just be grateful that through all of this madness, we had something keeping us awake during those excruciatingly long 8 a.m. lectures.
Angelina Akouri is an Opinion Columnist. She can be reached at akouria@umich.edu.