Unhooked

How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both

By: Laura Sessions Stepp

Narrated by: Ellen Archer

An eye-opening examination of the "hookup" culture, seen through the personal experiences of high-school- and college-age women who confront the hard lessons of dating, love, and sex.

We're living in an increasingly sexualized world, and it's the young, particularly young women, who must deal with the consequences. Kids are having more sexual contact than ever, and at an earlier age. They call it "hooking up". But what is "hooking up"? According to Laura Sessions Stepp, a reporter at the Washington Post, hooking up eludes a neat definition. It can be anything from an innocent kiss to sexual intercourse.

In Unhooked, Stepp follows three groups of young women (one in high school, one each at Duke and George Washington Universities). She sat with them in class, socialized with them, listened to them talk, and comes away with some disturbing insights, including her finding that hooking up carries with it no obligation on either side. Relationships and romance are seen as messy and time-consuming, and love is postponed or, worse, seen as impossible. Some young women can handle this, but many can't, and they're being battered physically and emotionally by the new dating landscape. The result is a generation of young people stymied by relationships and unsure where to turn for help.

"The need to be connected intimately to others is as central to our well-being as food and shelter," Stepp writes in Unhooked. "In my view, if we don't get it right, we're probably not going to get anything else in life right."

©2007 Laura Sessions Stepp (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.

Critic reviews

"This insightful study is vivid and engaging, and includes a practical conversation guide for mothers and daughters, making it a valuable text for parents that goes beyond the latest the-kids-are-not-alright headlines." (Publishers Weekly)

Very Good

Having two daughters myself, I found this book very informative. I was definitely worth it!

For every parent, and young woman

To understand my review, it may be best to describe myself. I grew up in the culture just barely before that of these girls studied in this book. I'm still of the 'old school' who opens doors and expects a woman to be worthy of a date, though I date women from this generation - I've done the "hook up" for many years and have grown past it. This book describes, in honest "in-your-face" detail, the way most younger adults now think. The real lesson is that this is a review on an entire culture, not just women and sexuality.

Probably the best audience for this book is for young women themselves, but immediately thereafter for parents of young women. And by young women, I mean 12-14 year old women. Yes, specifically that young, because whether you like it or not, or you think it or not...your daughters are who this is book is nodding towards. And if you think "not my daughter", then it's even MORE likely your daughter could be reviewed in the next revision.

I think ths book would help you to read/understand your children. Read their problems and pressures, their emotions and their fears. Stop acting like "they're too young." You don't get to decide that any more. You gave up that right when you expected them to act like adults at 14. If you want to take any semblance of that back, then you need to learn to communicate with them and talk openly about the things you DON'T like to think are happening. And to do that, you need to actually know the truth. Not just what you want to hear.

Essential Reading for Parents

I have read other reviews that really fail to get the importance of what Seesions is trying to say. As a society the US needs to stop and take a collective look in the mirror. It's not about taking a far right or left stand, it's about looking at attitudes and behavior patterns that are healthy and productive. In the current psychological state of individuality and freedom of self expression many people have neglected their obligations not only to others, but also to themselves. This book is a really good book for girls and women, but it is important for men, and essential for parents of boys or girls. Worth the listen.

How typical are the statistical sample

This is an interesting essay, and describe a social problem intelligently and analytically. However, the subject sampled and case studies seems like the sophisticated version of OC, not everyone were born with a silverspoon, nor does everybody goes to Duke Uni or GWU, and I am sure those rich, smart and ambitious girls do not make more than 30% (if lucky) what about the rest of us? Do we even count?

Sound advice until the end

I think this book has some very sound advice about pulling back from the hookup culture -- but the author completely blows it in the last chapter. The advice she gives at the end is ridiculous. Bake cookies to make men fall in old-fashioned love with us? That didn't work back in my day either. I wish someone modern, without as much of a political ax to grind, would write a book on how to pull back from the hookup culture and do it in a modern way. The author is right on how hookup culture hurts people (in my opinion.) Her advice on how far to pull back takes us not back to the 50's but to the 1910's. I doubt baking cookies made men fall in love with women in 1910 either. I can't remember everything else in that last chapter full of advice how to change our behavior but it deserved every bit of ridicule it got from the feminist blogs. The last chapter almost negated the rest of the book because it was so retro.