Swipe Right On Monogamy
Hook ups are no longer progressive and exciting. Now, we’re all ready for more than just sex.
Neil Strauss was the canary in the coal mine, though I don’t blame those who ignored him. His memoir The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships, was marketed with all the finesse of his earlier hit, the brash, pick-up artist profile The Game. The book’s website opens with a facetious warning that “this book contains one of the most terrifying and obscene words in the English language” and even the title touts its own heretical power. The big reveal was that former serial cheater Strauss had come to see the appeal in sexual and emotional commitment — more specifically, in marriage and monogamy. This development would have been more shocking if so many hook up culture adherents hadn’t already arrived at similar conclusions: the path to happiness wasn’t paved with a string of flings. 2015 will forever be the year that the first generation of rabid swipe right-ers and avid GGG slam pieces went cold on casual sex.
This shift didn’t take place because casual sex is immoral or emotionally corrosive, though that myopic, regressive rhetoric continued to…
