A lthough the silly season is well under way in Britain, we must spare a thought for our American friends, who this summer have been bombarded with a succession of fatuous trend pieces regarding college "hookup culture".
Most of them take, for example, the New York Times article headlined Sex on Campus β She Can Play That Game, Too have been underpinned by the puritan and scaremongery subtext of "look at all these rampantly screwing college women. Isn't it weird? And, suddenly, something that in Britain is nothing more than using someone for sex without undergoing the charade of having dinner with them first is graced with the label of a cultural phenomenon.
I was reminded of this late on Friday evening as my long-term boyfriend held back my hair while I vomited into one of those cardboard NHS potties and my phone buzzed and buzzed with what I suspected was a booty call destined to go unanswered.
Like many women I know, I get these from time to time, and, stomach bug or not, I never answer them. I should add that the calls are never from British men, who understand that implicit in the whole casual-sex arrangement is the caveat that they do not contact you three years down the line when you are in a happy relationship, or indeed ever. No, it's always Italians who get in touch. Italians are rubbish at casual sex; they always want to go to dinner. Meanwhile, America is grappling with a different aspect of "hookup culture".
The moral panic over sluttish young women engaging in no-strings-attached dalliances had been simmering for some time, but it was exacerbated last summer with the release of a book that was apocalyptically titled The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy speak for yourself, mate. The myth that women are unable to cope with sexual liaisons in which deep emotion is absent, that we crave love and tenderness in all encounters, is a deeply rooted one.
