The College Fix

‘Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense’

Nowadays, colleges teach students how to have sex, and encourage meaningless hookups. They host “Sex Weeks” and how-to workshops. They tout porn as healthy. They dismiss the importance of traditional marriage and families. They offer birth control and Plan B in vending machines. But should they?

One new book offers a different take: Why not teach students how to date?

“Suppose the college campuses had a different approach,” said Mona Charen, author of “Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense.”

“Suppose they talked about dating and the importance of getting to know people and not sleeping around and of not hooking up,” Charen said in a telephone interview with The College Fix. “Getting drunk and going to a frat party is not a good plan if you’re a young woman. It’s not.”

“Sex Matters” reckons with contemporary feminism’s negative effects on college campuses, and explores how the movement has lost its way.

Pub date is Tuesday. You can order now!
Announcing Mona Charen’s New Book, <em>Sex Matters</em> https://t.co/mSizKHpR7n

— Mona Charen (@monacharen) June 22, 2018

Charen’s discussions of the three main themes of science, love, and common sense attempt to break away from current narrative and depict them in a new light.

In a chapter on dating, Charen writes that the hookup culture is hugely damaging to campus life and that students need to “bring back the date.”

“The hookup culture enables the worst kind of insensitivity and boorishness,” she writes.

“As one student described to me, ‘The skit we were all required to watch was called ‘Sex on a Saturday Night’ and it dealt with every possible sexual activity and orientation. The clear message was that it was expected that everyone was going to be engaging in the hookup culture and that if you weren’t, you were out of things,” the book states.

It’s time to relink sex and love, Charen argues. Campuses are the ones setting the tone.

“They’re sending all the wrong signals to students about how to behave toward their fellow human beings,” she told The Fix. “Hooking up is not respectful, it’s not conducive to long-term relationships, it’s not a good idea because it can lead to misunderstandings and to charges of assault.”

Other narratives she challenges include the ones in which marriage is unimportant, children out of wedlock is perfectly acceptable, and gender is a choice — lies disguised as truths on campus and in modern culture, she writes.

“Our culture has misled young men and women about some of the most important ingredients for human happiness and thriving,” Charen writes. “Getting the basics of life right is not difficult, though it does require discarding some pervasive myths. The most consequential is that men and women are completely alike except for obvious anatomical differences. This is false, and imagining it to be true leads to trouble, as all deceit does.”

Making matters worse, as colleges tout meaningless sex, they grapple with what is perceived by many as a campus rape epidemic.

“The hookup culture does provide the ideal atmosphere for true sexual assault,” she said, adding it’s unfortunate so many high profile examples have turned out to be hoaxes. She adds it’s also disappointing that people on the right are so quick to dismiss rape claims, while those on the left are so quick to believe the victim no matter what.

“Truth is, you have to use your judgement. And you have to evaluate these cases one at a time,” she said. “That’s one of the things I was critical of the feminists for is that they wanted to set up these kangaroo courts on campus where the traditional protections for those who are accused of serious crimes are sort of dispensed with.”

Charen points out that many of the issues of perceived campus rape culture comes from the prevalence of the hookup culture. This is something that she thinks colleges can combat through orientations and information sessions.

She expressed hope that college officials will begin to change their approach and set a better tone for how they approach the hookup culture on campus.

“We’ve certainly seen changes in mores regarding drunk driving,” she told The Fix. “I think if women and men of good will can come together and recognize that the hookup culture is destructive and empowers all the worst kinds of people, and it leads to very bad outcomes and it’s the enemy of love and commitment and true, mutual respect between the sexes, then we might be getting somewhere in terms of a reform of the culture that has led to this crisis on campuses.”

MORE: Why I fight to defend traditional marriage and sexual purity

Tired of meaningless sex, college students tout dating

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