In fact, students are having a lot less sex than these stories suggest. The media both celebrates and condemns “hookup culture,” a mythical environment in which college students have an endless string of casual sexual partners. I left with both a general sense of urgency and an acute desire to cook dinner for my guy friends.”įor an excerpt, read my article at Salon or view the slideshow for more (warning: extreme cuteness): Wade shares about how my generation forms platonic attachments. “Adorable animals soften the uncomfortable truths Dr.

I review cultural messages about friendship and show how these messages intersect with an emphasis on heterosexual relationships in ways that undermine women’s ability to be friends with women, men’s ability to be friends with men, and men and women’s ability to befriend each other. I challenge the idea that forming healthy, supportive friendships is less important than finding Mr. In this talk - originally written and presented with my friend, Caroline Heldman - I offer a feminist defense of friendship. Research shows, however, that having non-romantic confidants is more strongly related to physical and mental health than romantic partnership. In American culture we tend to elevate family – both the kind we are born into and the kind we form through romantic relationships – above friendship.

This page includes abstracts and slideshows for talks concerning friendship, hookup culture, inequality and the body, sexuality and sexual pleasure, and the value of public sociology.

American hookup by lisa wade