The Sex Lives of College Students By Madeleine Kearns
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/11/the-sex-lives-of-college-students/
Our cynical, burned-out culture
I t seems that some college students have become so cynical about sex that they have even begun prostituting themselves. In England, Durham University Students Union noticed an “emerging trend” of students selling themselves for sex and responded by offering two courses in “sex work.” The university’s justification was that they wanted to “ensure students can be safe and make informed choices.” On that basis, should they also provide courses in drug-dealing?
Considering the cultural influences at play, this trend is hardly surprising. Just look at our coming-of-age stories, which are less about attaining maturity and character and more about conforming to ever-lower expectations of prolonged adolescence. Take, for example, the new HBO Max series The Sex Lives of College Girls, which is the tale of four female freshman roommates as they screw around at a preppy college. Forget love or character development — the show’s male characters are weak, shallow, and interested in only one thing, while the young women are spoiled, feckless, and only too happy to give the men what they want.
In episode one, we meet Bella, an 18-year-old, who introduces herself as “super sex positive and ready to smash some Ds.” Bella wants to get into the comedy club and so is thrilled at the chance to give hand jobs to the six young men on the admissions committee. We meet Whitney, a senator’s daughter, who, after ending a sexual relationship with her soccer coach on account of his being married, rebounds with a one-night stand. There’s Leighton, a secret lesbian, who uses apps for casual hook-ups and then blocks the women she’s hooked up with. And then there’s Kimberly, the comparatively innocent one, who has sex for the first time with her high-school boyfriend, only to be dumped by him the next morning.
The depiction of young women is that of a teenage male fantasy — sexually aggressive, ever available, and with few expectations of commitment. The idea is that all their messing around is a perfectly normal part of growing up. Never mind that young women have a lot more to lose than young men in being promiscuous. Nor that hypersexuality in women is more a performance — a learned social behavior — than it is a natural instinct.
What’s immediately striking about The Sex Lives of College Girls is how utterly unromantic the relations between the sexes are. Such sterile banality recalls the depictions of sex in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World, where sex is recreational and monogamy and traditional family life are suspect. Perhaps this is what Camille Paglia means in describing our culture as being at “the exhausted end of the sexual revolution.” Paglia has pointed out that, paradoxically, where there are fewer taboos, there is also less eroticism. When anything goes, sex loses its sexiness.
The young women in The Sex Lives of College Girls seem neither liberated nor happy about their choices. Other than a passing thrill — and something to talk about — what do they really get out of being promiscuous? For one thing, they expose themselves to much greater risk of disease, unwanted pregnancy, and heartache.
In a sane culture, universities would encourage and foster the moral formation of its students, civilizing them while directing them toward worthwhile pursuits. Instead, our cynical, burned-out culture is facilitating their debasement.
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