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As may be evident by its title, the essay Hookups Starve the Soul by Laura Vanderkam describes a phenomenon that is still pervasive in our culture today: the hookup. Often accompanied in conversation by nonchalant tones and a suggestive shrug, the term "hooking up" is used to equate a "one night stand"; sex without expectation. However, it is not hookups themselves that we will focus on here, but rather the people that partake in them. David Brookes described the 2001 college cohort that this essay talks about as the “Organization Kid” (Vanderkam paragraph 9), a person too focused on doing well in school and in life to spend time on love.
Vanderkam credits hookups to a lack of interest in romanticism for the sake of academic achievement.
Yet to truly understand what leads to this cynicism, we must consider the pressures these kids would have been under. Here we will give these people a new name: the Hero Kid, whose focus is not academic achievement, but rather what comes of it.
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Behaviors such as hooking up trace back to the way teenagers conducted their lives before leaving for college. Vanderkam says this herself, noting how 2001 college students were "the first...to have their entire childhoods scheduled” (Vanderkam paragraph 8). We can assume that this scheduling included participation in sports, clubs, and possibly many other activities. There would especially have been pressure to participate once they entered high school; four years spent with the words "It'll look good on your application” ringing in their ears.
With this cyclic emphasis on activities and school, as Vanderkam says, “to them, dating [was] simply not a productive use of time” (Vanderkam paragraph 8). Even if the Hero Kids thought otherwise, they would have been too exhausted or simply too busy to invest in romantic interest, making Vanderkam's statement right, if not exactly correct.
Another thing to consider is the attitude parents would have had towards their kids' futures. While all parents want what is best for their children, today there is a much looser interpretation of this sentiment than there was fifteen years ago. With an emphasis on power and career equaling happiness, the pressure to make something of oneself would have been the defining feature of the Hero Kid's academic identity. The word “dream” was hard-edged and job oriented, and if one had a dream - as one was supposed to - it was expected to be for the betterment of the world through career. This "superhero" expectation, driven into the now-college kids since they were little, is what would have exhausted their interest in love and relationships. Vanderkam comes to the same conclusion, saying, “Now obsessed with getting great grades and even greater jobs – they no longer have hours to spend wooing a lover” (Vanderkam paragraph 9).
With their destiny to save the world riding on their ability to get the right job, love is a distraction the Hero Kid can ill afford. Vanderkam attributes hooking up to a combination of biological need and lack of time for the traditional emotional commitment, and this we can agree with. After all, what superhero is not required to sacrifice his feelings for the greater good? We must also consider what a combination of emotional exhaustion and the sudden, total freedom of moving away from home would mean for these college kids. Aside from the deeper, psychological "perhaps" behind hookups, there is also a more adolescent explanation: hookups as a form of acting out. As young people who have heretofore had their entire lives planned and scheduled and dictated, the obvious reaction to freedom is overindulgence. Hooking up is not only a product of emotional unavailability, but it is also a response to overbearing parents and the lack of real-life experience the Hero Kid would have under his belt. Vanderkam points out that “too much supervision creates kids who'd rather hook up than fall in love” (Vanderkam paragraph 15); just as a teen who has been living under a taboo against alcohol will drink too much when he finally gets his hands on it.
Despite the well-meaning of the Hero Kid's parents, their demand on his earnestness and total devotion to his school work would ultimately be what broke him down. Today, the insistence on young people to save the world is much less intense. Since the time Hookups Starve the Soul was written in 2001, the general attitude towards the future has become less dependent on fiscal achievement, and more tuned towards the betterment of the self. In the final paragraph of her essay, Vanderkam says that the attitudes of college kids towards sex can be changed "if parents stop rigidly scheduling their children's lives...then there will be more real lovers and truth-seekers in the future” (Vanderkam paragraph 16). It is this very hope that has come to pass in these fifteen years since then. Instead of being asked, “what do you what to be," children are being asked, “who do you want to be," and their decisions are supported. As they grow up, teenagers are given more choice and more control in their own lives, and this return of independence and individualism ensures that today's teenagers have the energy and the desire for deeper emotional connections, making hookups less prevalent. With the happiness of future generations safely in hand, the Hero Kid can finally put up his cape, take a deep breath, and rest.
The Issue of Hooking Up and the Distractions of the Hero Kid. (2022, Oct 25). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-issue-of-hooking-up-and-the-distractions-of-the-hero-kid-essay
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