During every Valentine’s Day season there is a relational revolt that happens all over the Western world. It is a ROMANCE REVOLT. Women who are sick of hookup culture are beginning to demand the return of romance and respect between the sexes. This seems to have started to take shape as early as 2016 when the dating app OKCupid shared its new survey research data.
THE BIG CHANGE
In 2005 they had begun asking questions like “Would you consider sleeping with someone on the first date?” Compared to 2005, in 2016 every single demographic group was more likely to say “no”. Heterosexual women were the statistical leaders with 25% being less likely to say yes. When they were asked, “Would you date someone just for sex?” again, every single demographic group said no more than in 2005. There was an overall drop of 10% in 11 years.
More evidence that agrees with this trend is a large US national research study of over 3000 young adults and high school students that was released in 2017 by Harvard University. Its findings were that a large majority of young adults are overestimating how many other young people are hooking up. This study also showed that 85% of young adults would prefer other options over hooking up, such as hanging out with friends or having sex within a committed relationship.
THE COLLEGE SCENE
From the hookup culture frontlines, the colleges, more evidence of women’s true desires surface. In a study of 832 college students, only 26% of women, but a full 50% of men reported feeling positive after hookup. Of the same 832 students 49% of women and 26% of men had a negative reaction after hooking up.
In research on specifically 152 college women only, 74% had either few or some regrets after a hookup; 61% had a few regrets 23% had no regrets, 13% had some regrets and 3% had many regrets. In a related study, college women’s, but not college men’s depression symptoms increased as their number of sexual partners in a year increased.
In yet another study focused on college students the authors found that 78% of college students overestimated others comfort with hookup behaviors, with men especially overestimating women’s comfort with hookups.
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Moving our examination to the young adult bar scene, in a study of 169 sexually active women and men in singles bars, only 32% of men said that they would feel guilty about having intercourse with someone they had just met compared to 72% of women. Complicating matters further, in a study of 118 freshman female college students, participants shared that in 64% of cases hookups followed alcohol use. The average number of drinks in these encounters was three. This combination of binge drinking in order to numb the feelings of impersonal sex has become characteristic of many college campuses.
Most upsetting of all is the relationship of hookup culture with sexual assault. In a study of 178 college men and women, the participants revealed that most of their experiences with unwanted sex occurred while engaged in a hookup. As a matter of fact, 78% took place during a hookup, 14% during an ongoing relationship, and 8% on a date. It can be seen that in reality, hookup culture in many cases enables rape culture. No woman I’ve known or even heard of would ever choose to have to suffer through this!
So, the picture is pretty clear that this common sexual pattern that people are enduring in the Western world has many profound downsides, and that is particularly true for women. So, what do women really want? From both my personal experience and extensive research I have found that a large majority of women want to return to a world where there is commonly a relationship of love and respect between men and women. This entails returning to a culture where sex is reserved for his proper place: marriage.
BACK TO ROMANCE!
Women express to me that they like it when a man displays chivalry toward them. They like to be treated like a lady. This is why Jane Austen books and movies are so popular with women. They want to return to traditional courtship, traditional marriage, and traditional family. In other words, they want the kind of life that they see their great-grandparents and grandparents in many cases had. In a phrase, they want to get back to romance. That’s why there is a ROMANCE REVOLT taking shape across Western societies.
What is the foundation of this? Well, I believe it goes back to the beginning of human history. From the very start God made human females one-man women.
“Your desire will be for your husband”
Genesis 3:16 CSB
What do women really want this Valentine’s Day? Their God-given, innate nature compels them want to get back to romance!
