By Lyndsay Rinere | Contributing Writer
After a long week of homework and studying, you’ve lost the desire to go out and party. Instead, you decide to put on your comfiest sweats, order a pizza and watch a movie. As you sit on the couch alone in your dormitory, your phone buzzes and your screen lights up with a text alert from someone you’ve been interested in for a few weeks. You unlock your phone and read, “Hey, wanna hang out? We can watch Netflix or something…”
To Generation Y, this is as far as courtship goes when you’re in college. One party texts the other to “hang out,” you end up watching Netflix and most likely making out or going as far as hooking up, which is slang for having some form of sex.
Hook up culture has been prominent in our society since the beginning of humans having sexual intercourse for pleasure rather than solely for breeding purposes; however, in today’s times hook up culture is more complicated than ever. Cellphones are now extensions of our limbs and social media is where we live our lives to the fullest. Ask a millennial what hooking up means and you will get different answers across the board; our ideas of what goes down in the bedroom these days are skewed, non-committal, and often very one sided. How this generation hooks up correlates to what is considered trendy (and in the now) as it relates to pop culture; however, a new trend is misleading in the name, and doesn’t sound like it relates to sex at all.
A young woman (whom will remain anonymous) recounts what, in her opinion, is wrong with this generation’s habit when it comes to intimacy, or lack there of. “No ones looking for an actual connection. It’s all physical and that sucks. I’m really attracted to the emotional connection between people and that bond is important in a relationship. I’m sick of looking for someone and ending up with ‘Netflix and chill.’”
So what exactly is “Netflix and Chill?” The definitions vary, but the common meaning is when someone, most commonly a male, texts their potential partner asking them to come over to their apartment or dormitory to watch Netflix and hang out, or “chill.” While this sounds like a harmless invitation, it means a little more than just watching a movie with someone. If you are asked to “Netflix and Chill,” you should be aware that this rendezvous generally ends with some sort of sexual transaction.
This may seem like nonsense to someone of an older generation; however, to millennials, this very unclear, nonverbal agreement makes perfect sense.
This idea of casual sex without the expectation of forming a relationship with the other party truly came into play in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when college students of the opposite sex were put into coed, apartment-style dormitories on campus. This generation’s desire to revolt was “in vogue.” college was (and apparently still is) the place where sexual experimentation runs wild, so the exploration of sex with multiple partners in shorter periods of time was unavoidable. Hook up culture isn’t something that will ever go away, simply because it is the general nature of humans to mate. The trends just vary from generation to generation due to what is hot in pop culture and what young people view in film and television- it all carries over into the bedroom.
Dr. Matthew Ramsey, an associate professor and department chair of Salve Regina University’s English and communications department, believes that hook up culture is the way it is due to society’s easy access to pornography.
“As a culture, we tend to follow trends of whatever the porn industry is doing, weirdly enough… On one hand, you can argue that it’s loosening up the original sexual morays, forcing us to repress our sexual desires, waiting till marriage, etc.,” says Ramsey. “But on the other hand, it has arguably encouraged people to be less safe with sex.”
It is true that young people tend to absorb what they view on television, on the Internet, and in movies, and unfortunately that goes hand in hand upon viewing porn today as well. Because Netflix is so prominent in college culture right now, almost everyone has his or her own account or has access to someone else’s. With documentaries like Kink and television series like Nymphomaniac, it gives every subscriber instant access to intense sexual scenes that aren’t even considered pornography; they are just part of the media industry. The line between the cinema and the pornography industry is very blurred. No matter what, most shows and movies are hyper-sexualized.
“Dating” is no longer in our vocabulary. Out of 100 anonymously surveyed college students, primarily enrolled at Salve Regina, 80% said that they did not like the anti-relationship culture we live in. The overall opinion from students was that loyalty is very hard to find in this day and age, and most people are no longer looking for commitment. “People are only attracted to you for your looks and not who you are as a person…they just want to hook up and be done instead of developing a meaningful relationship that is about so much more than sex,” an anonymous female Salve Regina student says.
Loyalty and respect are huge concerns with this generation when it comes to hooking up with someone and possibly forming a relationship with them.“There is a lack of respect for others and cheating is seen as okay,” a male student from Salve discusses. This student is not the only one concerned with the so-called “death of dating” in 2015, but also with the concept that “people don’t respect each other or communicate anymore, other than through social media/texting. Dating no longer exists and that’s pretty sad.”
Everything we need in our world today is accessible at our fingertips, so why shouldn’t sex be? With social media and texting, you are instantly satisfied with what you’re looking for on those platforms because it’s quick and available- anything that posts a challenge for us is not worth our time. The same goes for sex. Courtship is going extinct due to mobile “dating” apps like Tinder and OkCupid where a conversation that leads to sex is just a “swipe right” away. The apps are entertaining, quick and easy to use, and there is a plethora of singles looking to get in each other’s pants. Tinder is a place that “Netflix and Chill” flourishes in; you and your Tinder match can set up to meet, and because no one goes on formal dates anymore, “Netflix and Chill” is the next best thing…or so we’ve been conditioned to think.
It is believed that the decline of dating began when Facebook became widely popular amongst younger people, around the time that Generation Y was in 8th grade. We began to explore this new amazing corner of the Internet where you could socialize with your friends after school without having to be face to face with them. As these tweens began to discover that it was easier to communicate with others through keyboards, the rise of cyber-bullying and sexting came to be; and so began the long journey of sexting’s evolution to what it has become today. It is a lot easier to talk dirty with someone through texting than it is trying to do it in real life; awkwardness is a real factor in these situations.
So has this generation become lazy? They want easy and quick access to everything and anything, and sex is no different. While it’s fun, fast, and exciting, Snapchatting pictures of our bodies of course has its repercussions but if it leads to a potential partner coming over to hook up, they don’t really care.
In college, sex is seen as something everyone does and isn’t considered a big deal. However, there are major factors that are involved in the deed that most young adults don’t even think about.
“It’s fun to flirt with people at parties and go home with them but the pressure to have sex is always in the back of your mind, and you might think guys will think bad of you if you don’t have sex with them,” an anonymous Salve Regina University junior says, discussing a very real concern amidst the fun and free world of hooking up in college. “Safety is also a huge concern, if either person is too drunk to be concerned with using protection. STDs are a very scary and real thing.”
While it may seem like those who frequently hookup have no cares in the world, over 55% of college students that took an anonymous survey claimed to be concerned about STDs and unwanted pregnancy. Contrary to what may be popular belief, this generation does have some qualms regarding their sex lives.
Within this strange anti-relationship trend where everyone has a different idea of what a hookup is, there seems to be some light at the end of this tunnel. When asking college students if they liked hookup culture today, 85% of them said no; millennials feel bound by the social standards we now live in but most want to be cared for and committed to by one person, regardless of this “Netflix and Chill” culture. “We have lost respect for each other as people and lost sight of what it means to love someone,” says one student. While most are reluctant to explain their true feelings regarding hookup practices, one male Salve Regina student eloquently describes his feelings toward the age of “Netflix and Chill,” sharing what seems to be the majority’s opinion. “Everyone is so afraid of loving and getting hurt, that they keep their distance in this hookup culture,” he says. “It always ends up that one party cares more than the other. The pain is still there. Everyone needs to stop being afraid to love.”
