Why I Reject Your Idea Of Hooking Up

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Maybe it’s because I’m deeply enveloped in a hook-up culture. Maybe it’s because I’m just a cheap and easy deviant. Or maybe it’s because the argument against it is a series of baseless, judgmental assertions.

First of all, it’s not “a growing concern” that more and more people may be pursuing alternatives to the standard monogamous model of relationships – it’s your concern. An increase in alternative relationships implies neither a change in the meaning of a relationship (connection with a framework of love and respect, for example) nor a change in what a relationship normatively holds as fundamental (i.e. moral value of relationships).

I’d also venture to say that there are surely plenty of people who don’t feel the need to update their relationship status because they don’t feel the need to stake a cyber claim on their significant other or share with anyone what their relationship status happens to be- because really it is nobody else’s business. People who have multiple partners/”impermanent” pairings may not “update or validate their one-night sexual conquests in the world of social media.”

That would likely be because they cannot be bothered to have innumerable people judge and shame them for those “conquests.”

However, it must be nice to think that Facebook status updates could possibly connote meaning and importance; seems easier than trying for authentic indicators of a healthy relationship (like IRL interactions, maybe).

It seems delusional to think that there is a certain time in a person’s life to do anything of importance (except cocaine, definitely try that only when you’re young enough for it not to seem egregiously stupid). If the late twenties are a time for focusing on “things that matter and things that will last” then shouldn’t people be focusing on themselves, and not trying to “settle down” just to seem secure in their lives?

I know that I, at least, haven’t “settled down” yet. Call it youthful energy or anxiety or being an introvert, but I’m not in a mental place that would bode well for any relationship (assuming it’s the type of relationship described here, though I may be able to swing a cheap or deviant one). Taking life overly seriously and then fitting into a conventional lifestyle (all the while pretending it’s a choice I’ve made rather than the choice my insecurities made for me) “doesn’t exactly fit my vibe.”

I am comfortable for nights on end by myself, and am comfortable going out and getting laid. Maybe I am young enough to still be flexible?  Is it that I haven’t caught this particular social osteoporosis that nobody (regardless of age) I know has caught? (It seems like it’s something contagious, maybe.) The strangest thing might be that I know people my (silly, irresponsible) age, who have “given up drinking altogether,” and yet still aren’t pursuing “normal” relationships. What could be wrong with them?

“Don’t get me wrong I’m all for pursuing the carnal.” I could take or leave either my nice house or a nice dive bar, depending on my mood.  Strange, right?

(I’ll skip the part about “being a man” because a) I can’t get inside a man’s head and b) I’m pretty sure that most people who think critically about masculinity are tired of the assumptions that underlie that stupid phrase in general. Thankfully, I feel that I’ve moved past the “sad and somewhat desperate paradigm” of relying on easily shed clichés to bolster a [non] argument.)

To have meaning in your life that has absolutely nothing to do with your sexuality and how you express it (since a person is so much more than that, at bottom) “speaks, I think, to a level of maturity and that strange notion of adulthood we’ve been recklessly hurtling towards.” “The simple truth is, although I’m sure some would disagree,” is that basing fundamental meaning, worth, and importance on what is only a facet of a brilliant, dark, and complicated existence “seems cheap and a bit deviant.” Relying on someone else for validation of your existence and making your happiness as a person his or her responsibility, regardless of his or her desires, “also seems particularly rude to me.  It’s a waste of time and it shows that you don’t have much respect for your partner, let alone yourself.”

“I have long held the notion that [the notion of] being intimate with someone” means more than fucking. I’m more than willing to be intimate with my friends in ways I wouldn’t with somebody I brought home to bang.  However, if I do get laid, I want it to count. (“What’s your dick like homie, what’re you into?“- Azealia Banks, life coach.) I’m more than willing to forgo a messy, unfulfilling relationship despite the fact that it’s a much physically (but I would say not emotionally) easier way to have sex on the regular. This is because other facets of my life hold priority right now; they may not always. When it comes to “meaningful” relationships, “[there] are just too many feelings involved and it seems like some giant mess I’d rather not fall into.” “I guess you can thank my happily married parents” who have been together for about a year longer than I’ve been alive, after previous relationships and marriages and periods of being single, “for showing me what a quality relationship looks like.”

Some would say I’m too much of a bitch, or worse, a whore, for never pursuing relationships, “but I’d have to say that doing anything else shows just how deluded one can be by the overarching [patriarchal] culture” of ‘being a good woman/person.’

It’s not just the ladies who avoid relationships for these kinds of reasons, and in fact the stereotype (shittily) is that women want them more, but seeing as how I’ve lacked a penis and male privilege my whole life, “I can’t comment on what they’re [people who identify as men, regardless of presence of penis and/or privilege] thinking about the whole thing [also, if “comment” means “provide valuable insight that can easily and relatively uncontroversially be generalized to a vast majority of people,” I can’t “comment” on sexuality/expression thereof at all].”

Also, if I have mistakenly fallen prey to double standards or relationship-shaming, please call me out on it; I won’t think any differently of you and will appreciate different perspectives.

I just want my life beyond my sexuality to matter, and for my manner and expression of sexuality not to be denigrated or morally extrapolated onto my whole life. I want it to be understood that for me, orgasms can come (GET IT?) with “a bit of laughter and the warmth of a meaningful connection” without the context of a monogamous, traditional relationship. And that my orgasms are always fun, no matter who I happen to be fucking (even if it’s just me!).

If choosing to care about my own feelings in addition to those of others while I live my single life means I’m a deviant, then fuck yes I’m a deviant.

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