Camosy on the hook-up culture

As the father of three daughters, our society's increasingly mainstream hook-up culture is a painful subject.  (Last week at the gym I had the misfortune of watching a new gem from MTV, a show featuring the promiscuity of "Jersey Shore" played out in the lives of 15 year-olds.  If I didn't need my shoes on the treadmill, I would have thrown them at the television.)  Charles Camosy uses Easter as an occasion to reflect on where we are.  An excerpt:

Much of Western culture has reacted to the sexual oppression of the past by celebrating human sexuality, and this was a necessary and welcome change. But when what we celebrate is mere sexual choice—without examining and critiquing the social structures which lie beneath—we ignore another kind of sexual oppression in which the vulnerable get deeply and seriously hurt. In particular because women are most often the victims of this consumerist-driven sexuality, it is noteworthy that more academics are not driving the resistance against the hook-up culture. This is particularly troublesome given that, in other contexts where vulnerable or minority populations are being hurt by physical and structural violence (especially when it is driven by consumerism), academics often stand up in large numbers to be counted as energetic opposition against concepts of “freedom” that are unaware of or unconcerned with social structures.

Whatever our politics (and whatever our gender), our culture’s sexual practices are desperately calling out for renewal–and as an Easter people all of us must do a better job answering that call.