Forget adding “not looking for anything serious” in your OKCupid bio. A new partnership between the dating site and America’s largest abortion provider is making it even easier to find partners who are just in it for consequence-free sex.
OKCupid users are now able to flaunt their support of Planned Parenthood on their profiles with a handy new button that allows them to select whether they support defunding the abortion giant.
Answering “No” brands the user’s profile with a badge that raises funds for Planned Parenthood. But it will also let men know whether the woman they plan to sleep with would be willing to erase the consequences should she become pregnant.
While OKCupid has definitely demonstrated an amazing degree of moral bankruptcy, it doesn’t take a pro-abortion badge to indicate that you’re seeking no-strings-attached, self-indulgent hookups.
Anyone who has perused a dating app knows that one line in a profile that indicates all you really need know about a person: “Looking for a good time,” or “Nothing serious.”
One also doesn’t need a dating app to testify that the seekers of self-indulgent, temporary flings exist beyond just the pixelated cesspool that is Tinder.
They’re at bars, clubs, and parties, hunting down the next addition to their bod count.
According to Donna Frietas, author of “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled and Confused About Intimacy,” our culture pressures college-aged men and women to substitute monogamy and meaningful relationships with the casual flings college and Tinder are known for.
Freitas’s research also showed that while hooking up is the social norm, it’s not making anyone happy. In fact, she found that college students associate sexual activity with boredom, isolation and ambivalence.
Psychologist Dr. Susan Krauss found that people who engage in casual sex suffer emotional consequences that persist long past the encounter.
The reality is that no matter how normalized and liberating the modern hookup culture zeitgeist makes casual sex seem, human psychology hasn’t changed since the time when promiscuity was more taboo.
We crave reciprocated love and care, and we prefer it over the cheap thrill of casual sex. While chastity and abstinence from this culture that pervades most college campuses is often painted as puritanical, the alternative is leaving us depressed and unfulfilled.
And many Millennials realize this, but may be too afraid to admit it.
Despite having popularized hookup culture, Millennials are less promiscuous than our parents’ generation. Most of us don’t just want to engage in a libertine lifestyle filled with lust. We want commitment.
According to a Harvard study, Millennials want lasting romantic relationships despite the Animal House-esque perception many people have of us. Old-fashioned romance isn’t outdated or irrelevant, and social engineering hasn’t altered our innate desire for commitment, tenderness and communication.
Sex researcher Justin Garcia found that even among college-aged women who willingly engage in sexual hookups, 43 percent do so in hopes of finding a long-term partner.
Only “Old-Fashioned” Millennials Actually Pursue Happiness
As a 21-year old college student, I’ve witnessed the disappointment hookup culture leaves in students who are in search of something more substantial. We are encouraged to deny our humanity and our desire for a love that’s not tainted with objectifying, hollow lust.
This culture isn’t going away anytime soon. The glorification of promiscuity seems only to gain momentum, and young people are impressionable enough to buy into the lie that sexual gratification will leave you feeling liberated and fulfilled.
While this culture will continue to feed into the cycle of depression and disappointment for those who partake in it, young women like myself find ourselves surrounded by peers who’ve bought into the myth that youthful self-indulgence will amount to happiness.
Dating with a purpose–dating with the hope of entering a worthwhile, long-term relationship with *gasp* marriage potential, is considered archaic. Or maybe it’s something you’ll do in your 30’s when you begin to panic as the number of singles in your friend group dwindles.
But for me and my “archaic” friends, dating with a purpose allows for all of the things that Millennials say they want, but may be too hedonistic to have patience for.
The void that emotionless, casual hookups leave is filled instead with an expectation of respect, consideration and responsibility. A pink badge on your dating profile likely won’t attract any of those qualities.