I remember being somewhere between amused and horrified when during my mom’s wedding (her second, which is why I was there of course), her now-husband said in his reception speech that after many months of corresponding through e-mail and phone, they finally “hooked up.” 

Of course, as most folks who are 40+ mean when they use the phrase, he meant “met.”  (This is particularly scandalous/hilarious when one considers the strict sexual morality of my culture that strongly, STRONGLY frowns on pre-marital sex.)

But it’s difficult as a 22-year-old recent college graduate to think of that word in any other sense than une liaison d’amour, something less innocent than making out, but just short of sex.  (Is this correct?  Who knows.  Who cares.)  And her husband’s misstep, which is sure to elicit snickers from the 18-30 crowd, is caught on video forever.

Slate’s Meghan O’Rourke recently reviewed Laura Sessions Stepp’s screed, Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both, which obviously denounces “the hook up.”  I have not read Stepp’s book, nor do I plan to, but O’Rourke takes Stepp to task for the wild assumptions and misguided conclusions Stepp reaches in her tome.  Stepp’s thesis, according to O’Rourke, is that young women (of high school and college age) who engage in recreational “hook ups” will become jaded, emotionally bankrupt, and cynical of love—all which would lead to (heavens!) a hard time finding a husband: 

“Just below [Unhooked’s] surface lurk the usual naked (and prurient) fears about girls and sex: Girls who put out are going to get hurt. Instead, Stepp argues, they should admit ‘the bar scene is a guy thing’ and stay home to ‘bake cookies, brownies, muffins’—after all, guys, she confides, will do ‘anything’ for homemade treats. (Who wants chlamydia when he can have cake?)”

I’m not convinced that sexual promiscuity automatically equals liberation, for any gender—and particularly when there’s alcohol involved.  But some people enjoy it, and others don’t.  And neither should be judged.

But, as a public service, please tell all of your parents to refrain from using “hook up” as a substitute for “to meet."  Do you really want to hear your mom say "Dad and I are hooking up at the soccer game later on in the afternoon"???  Yeah, I didn't think so.