Hooking Up in Sex and the City

I wrote this for my colleague, Rachel Russo's blog who is another aspiring psychologist's blog called the It Girl Blog. This is month she is having Sex and the City Theme Month check it out at: www.loverachelrussomft.com

One of the reasons why Sex and the City created such a buzz and generated such a loyal and devoted following was because it was the first show to introduce and even glorify the hook-up culture. People were introduced to this shift in our dating culture. A combination of events in the past 50 years have led to this new cultural embracement of hooking up (social phenomena). The advent of the birth control pill led to the promiscuity of the 70’s; and now people are getting married later. The average age that people marry is 26 for women and 27 for men, so now it is more and more acceptable to be intimate with a person if you’re not married or exclusive. Hooking up is a very broad term, as I’ve found when trying to pin down the exact definition on urbandictonary.com. But the hooking up I’m talking about is the practice of engaging in sexual relations (all the way from kissing to sex) without a commitment or sense of exclusivity.

The Characters of SATC, especially Samantha Jones, glorified hooking up and made women feel more accepted doing it. They showed that hooking up isn’t slutty, but rather being confident in exuding your sexuality. Samantha can definitely hold her own in her male-dominated PR field and as she climbed up the corporate ladder she showed us that being assertive can get you what you want. as she climbed up the corporate ladder. Samantha was never concerned with what other people thought, as she always came first, even at the end when she chose herself over her boyfriend, Smith Jared. Independence and self-confidence embody the hook-up culture because they allow women to see that it’s okay to satisfy their every need and desire whether it be physically, emotionally, romantically, socially, or professionally. This shift? may be this is the after-effect of the women’s rights movement.

While SATC had an undeniable influence on our society’s perception of sex and the loosening up on relationship norms, it created the greater acceptance of the independent (single)women lifestyle. So what’s next? I definitely have been noticing a narrowing of the double standard. My Couple’s Relationships teacher, Professor Rubin, recently mentioned in my Couple’s Relationships class that only 60% of men and 41% of women 50 years ago (65 and over) had sexual relations before the age of 18. But now, 91% of men ages 18-26 have had sexual relations by the age of 18 and 83% of women ages 18-26 have had sexual relations by the age of 18. That is a significant 35% increase in just 50 years! These changes really reflect our societal expectations. Our societal restrictions have been loosened, making hooking up more acceptable. I have been living and learning from the stories of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte and if they taught me anything it’s that hooking up is okay and it can help me on my way to finding love.