Unfiltered with Jessica

The Hookup Culture Hangover
For years, casual sex was championed as the ultimate act of liberation. Platforms like OnlyFans were celebrated as empowering, and the old double standards between men and women were declared obsolete. I, like many others, bought into this. For a while, it seemed to work.

But here’s the truth: it’s all a lie.

At 27, I now see the wreckage. Friends who once proudly proclaimed their “sexual empowerment” are emotionally depleted, left with a void that no number of hookups can fill. This isn’t a victory for anyone. We traded one set of chains for another, treating intimacy like a handshake and believing we could remain unscathed. The emotional hangover is undeniable.

Definition and Prevalence
Hookup culture, in its most basic form, refers to a social environment where casual sexual encounters without long-term commitment are not just common—they’re celebrated. This shift in sexual norms has allowed both men and women to explore their sexuality outside the confines of traditional relationships.

The prevalence of hookup culture is everywhere—on college campuses, in social circles, and glorified across social media and the shows we watch. But while the numbers show how widespread it is, they don’t tell the whole story.
The real question I have isn’t how often people are hooking up; it’s why so many people feel more disconnected and disillusioned than ever.

The Disconnect Between Media Portrayal and Lived Experience
Here’s where the cognitive dissonance comes in. Look around at the media—films, TV shows, articles in Teen Vogue—all of them tell you the same story: casual sex is just part of modern life.

A viral TikTok post recently caught my attention, where a woman shared her overwhelming dread and anxiety leading up to a casual hookup—contrasting sharply with the media’s portrayal of these encounters as “fun.” I observed that the comments section was a flood of women echoing her feelings—guilt, shame, and emptiness after each encounter. This leaves me begging the question: if hookup culture leaves so many feeling miserable, why keep participating in it?

The Gendered Impact
Hookup culture is often portrayed as a paradise for men, offering endless options and no strings attached. Yet, the reality is that only about 5% of men truly benefit from this system (Daily Citizen Staff, 2024). These highly desirable men may enjoy an abundance of potential partners, but for the vast majority, the landscape is bleak. Most men are left on the sidelines, overlooked as women focus their attention on the select few, leaving them with limited options for both sexual and romantic relationships. This sense of exclusion fuels frustration and deepens feelings of isolation, widening the divide between men and women as resentment builds on both sides (Marano, 2024).

Moreover, the men who frequently engage in casual hookups often develop destructive behavioral patterns—becoming manipulative, emotionally detached, and fixated on short-term gratification.

In my experience, when speaking with my male friends, they express a deep desire for someone who wants a genuine connection. Yet, in a lot of their experiences, they feel invisible online, often overlooked in favor of the more conventionally attractive or charismatic men. This leads many men to resort to posting flashy images—like sports cars or expensive watches—hoping to catch attention. However, this strategy often backfires, creating an illusion that further distances them from authentic relationships.

Instead of attracting genuine interest, they may attract superficial attention, reinforcing the very isolation they seek to escape.

Adding to this complexity, many men who dislike dating apps in the first place feel pressured to create profiles, as their not sure how to approach women in person fearing they’ll come off as creepy. That’s probably a whole other topic for another time, but I hope it illustrates how deeply ingrained these issues are.

Effects on Women
For women, the reality of hookup culture is particularly intricate. While it promotes the tantalizing allure of sexual freedom, beneath its glossy facade lies a tangled web of emotional challenges that many are reluctant to address. Women yearning for lasting, meaningful connections often find themselves navigating a maze of casual encounters, where the men they engage with have scant incentive to commit.

It’s not merely about fleeting heartache; this pursuit of short-term pleasure can severely hinder emotional growth. Many women report feeling pressure to conform to societal expectations of being sexually liberated, often sacrificing their own desires for deeper connections. I sympathize with the struggle of finding the balance between being labeled a “prude” for wanting commitment or a “slut” for engaging in casual encounters. Studying psychology, I can’t help but question the ramifications of this dynamic, especially considering that women are already two to three times more likely to develop depression, with rising rates of anxiety and depression among young women.

The prevalence of hookup culture has been reshaping demographic trends. As women increasingly prioritize casual encounters over long-term relationships, many delay or forgo parenthood altogether. The cycle of short-term partners complicates the search for a suitable loving co-parent, resulting in missed opportunities to start families during peak fertility years. This trend, alongside career pressures and shifting societal norms, may significantly contribute to declining birth rates (Twenge, 2017).

The Role of Cultural Messaging
Enter dating apps—they’re designed as profit-driven ventures, not connection-makers. These platforms are masterful at keeping us hooked, ensnaring us in a relentless cycle of swiping and matching that often leaves us feeling more isolated than ever. It’s a system built on intermittent rewards, delivering occasional dopamine hits from matches and messages, much like gamblers at a slot machine. We keep coming back, convinced that this time it’ll be different. Even friends of mine in happily committed long-term relationships tell me they get tempted to get on dating apps again due to the entertainment and confidence boost alone.

The constant availability, the veil of anonymity, and the never-ending parade of potential matches all conspire to create superficial connections and a pervasive sense of emotional emptiness. In my own journey as a serial monogamist with limited experience on dating apps, I once dipped my toes into Tinder. The experience was hollow. After receiving a few creepy messages, I thought I’d add a bit of clarity by declaring, “I’m not looking for just a hookup” in my bio. It helped somewhat, but the conversations remained painfully shallow. In the end, I deleted the app, feeling no genuine connection despite the multitude of profiles.

The seductive promise of freedom conceals a much darker truth: we’re reducing each other—and ourselves—to mere objects in a game that offers no real liberation.

The Costs of Our “Freedom”
Yes, we tore down some of the old double standards which is great, but in doing so, it feels like we created new prisons. The best things in life don’t come easy, and no, that’s not an attack on women for being “too easy”—it goes both ways. True connection requires more than just a swipe or a one-night stand. It takes courage, vulnerability, and a willingness to engage in the messy, beautiful work of building real relationships. Maybe, just maybe, that’s the kind of liberation we should be striving for.

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References

• Daily Citizen Staff. New Research on the Damaging Fallout of the Hookup Culture. Daily Citizen.
• Marano, H. E. Do Dating Apps Want You to Stay Single? Psychology Today.

“True connection requires more than just a swipe or a one-night stand. It takes courage, vulnerability, and a willingness to engage in the messy, beautiful work of building real relationships. Maybe, just maybe, that’s the kind of liberation we should be striving for.”

-Jessica Arndt