By Amelia Sims
This reflection was inspired by the campaign poster (pictured right) which poses the question, “Is she just a night…or could she be worth a lifetime?”

Last night I stood with my friend at the corner of a fraternity basement during a party. She was “risk managing” for the first time at a mixer and stood aghast at the sight before her: a dark basement, flashing electric lights, techno music, and college students physically entwined “dancing,” but actually wallowing in an atomistic stupor.

She stood silent for a while. It’s hard to speak, let alone think in this type of atmosphere.

Then she commented, “Everyone looks so lonely. How can people treat each other like this? I never thought about it like this before…Is this what I look like?”

Stone cold sober for the first time at a party like this, my friend could see the lonely longing in the eyes of the people dancing. The shiver of repulsion that ran down her spine told her that something was wrong about the human relationships on display in the basement. There was something jarring and fragmented about them.

Though generally college students are critical of the “hook-up culture,” it’s hard for them to pin point why. Our culture glorifies “sex positivity” and demonizes anyone who suggests some types of consensual sex could potentially be destructive.

It’s easy to say the “hook-up culture” endangers college relationships and prevents the cultivation of healthy relationships between women and men. But why is this? We know intuitively that consent is not enough. It’s easy to affirm that since sex is good and a gift, and that hooking up is a kind of sex, then it follows that hooking-up is also good and a gift. But when we know people who have been through the emotional hangovers of one-night stands and no-strings-attached sexual relationships, how can we be indifferent to what these kinds of relationships are doing to our friends?

This “hook-up mentality”, on campus now called “sex positivity”, strips sex from its moral significance all together, lowering its status to that of any recreational activity. Thinking that sexual relationships can be healthy when divorced from any emotional connection shows the troubling dualism that our bodies and souls need not relate harmoniously. The discord of this separation strikes an intuitive revulsion in us. It’s a revulsion similar to when we see a ghost or a dead body.

When we hook up, we try to separate what should always be intertwined; when we don’t respect the design of our bodies, we end up with physical, emotional, and psychological pain. Sex is too valuable to treat just like any other act in the human experience. If we want to criticize the hook-up culture then we also must refuse to accept the lie that consensual sex is always positive sex.

Back in the basement that night, I mused about how this might look differently, if people were after more than a night. Perhaps the lights would be a little brighter, so we could see each others’ faces. Perhaps the music would be a little softer, inviting conversation. On a night like this, there would be a sense of modesty about physical intimacy, but more openness about emotional and psychological intimacy. Some people would stare straight into the eyes of their dance partner, with a gaze focused and yet relaxed, wondering…how can I get to know this woman better? She could be just tonight…but what if she turned out to be my lifetime?

Amelia Sims is a sophomore at Emory University, double majoring in Economics and Classics.