I heard part of an interview with Dr. Drew Pinsky today on NPR. He’s the guy who used to do that show on MTV with Adam Carolla, The Love Show or something. Well, I guess he’s actually a serious doctor who works with drug addicts and the like.
He was talking about research he was doing into the sexual behaviors of college kids, especially the ‘hooking up’ type behavior, just finding some random person at a party to have sex with. He said that both men and women were invariably drunk when they did it, but for very different reasons. Men got drunk to get up the courage and nerve to do it. Women got drunk to tolerate what was to them a less-than-desirable situation, but one to which they saw little alternative. He said society in one generation has gone from a mindset where sex was the solution to everything, to one where sex is the problem. Interesting interview.
I’m speaking only from anecdotal knowledge here, but it certainly seems to me that the sexual revolution worked more in favor of the baser desires of men than of women. I don’t know all that many women who are in favor of random sexual encounters, and the ones who have engaged in that kind of behavior mostly regret it a great deal later, and often say they only did it because of very poor self-esteem. Men don’t seem to suffer near so many consequences from that kind of behavior as women do. Women were supposed to be liberated by the sexual revolution, but I don’t think they got what they thought they were getting. Pinsky said what most college women wanted, rather than the sexually charged atmosphere on most college campuses, was a man who would just talk to them. This, too, is borne out by my rather limited experience with women.
Anyway, I bought his book, _Cracked_. I’ll let you know how it turns out.