The End of Sex

Freitas, Donna. The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy. Basic Books, 2013.

Freitas's book deals with the hookup culture prominent on American college campuses. High school graduates enter college knowing they are supposed to have sex - lots of it - with no strings attached. They go to parties where the alcohol is flowing, lose their inhibitions, engage in some flavor of hooking up, then lie about it the next day (the girls generally downplay what happened; the boys exaggerate). Freitas posits that most college students don't like this arrangement and would rather have real relationships with other people, but they don't know how anymore, to the point where Boston College has a class where one of the homework assignments is to go on an actual date.

Having attended a strict fundamentalist university for six years, I missed out on the hookup culture. I never went to a theme party, drank until I couldn't remember who I was, or "hooked up" with anyone. Ever. And I'm glad I didn't. This is a pseudo rite of passage that I am glad I missed. I met my sweetheart by asking her out, and for several months we dated and had real conversations, getting to know each other long before any physical contact occurred. Apparently this makes us old-fashioned, but I'm not complaining, and neither is my fiancee.

I think it's incredibly sad that college students are missing out on real relationships, but I am glad that Freitas and others have identified this problem and are working to resolve this issue. This book was well-written, sprinkled with enough statistics to be credible but not so many that the book becomes dry. This one is a must-read for anyone dealing with teens or college students.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley for the purposes of review.