Imagine this hypothetical situation in which you happen to have the opportunity of meeting me:
Hi, my name is Patrick. Yeah, I am that really attractive guy you see at the Sanderson in mismatched, perspiration-filled clothes. Do you want to have sex? Great!
Let’s return to reality, and even though I am not going to sleep with you (I would hate to break your heart after the best love making you will ever experience), my proposition of intercourse may have caught you off guard.
But with the Internet at our fingertips and a computer in almost every room we enter, that question might become the new norm.
With the rise of hook-up websites and apps, especially those aimed at students in college, our generation is quickly turning the age-old introduction “How do you do?” into “Let’s go back and screw… in those loose floor boards.”
Early last month, a group of University of Chicago students caused a media firestorm by beginning a website titled eduhookups.com,dedicated solely to letting its users meet others who are interested in having casual sex. Since its conception, the site has already added 10 other schools, some of which are Ivy League, to its membership and promises to keep growing due to user demand.
That’s right, no-strings-attached sex has permeated into our nation’s most prestigious academic halls and Mississippi State University cannot be far behind, or in front, depending on its Kama Sutra preferences.
Any type of need, fetish or double life can be achieved with just a few clicks. Do you like to dress as a stuffed animal or cheat on your significant other with a member of the same sex? You can find it in a matter of minutes online and will most likely find someone near who will knowingly comply.
Now, before you judge and think only that creepy guy you catch staring at you in biology would participate in such a site, think again. A quick search throughout these domains shows a participant very well could be your sorority sister or male roommate.
Even though the majority of the MSU student body has probably not solicited for sex through the Internet, it is apparent a major shift in attitudes pertaining to intercourse is taking place on the college level.
We have entered an era in which sex does not necessarily need to be with someone you had to buy dinner for, date and marry, but you just happened to be online simultaneously and horny.
Long gone are the formalities of getting to know someone, and before you can even learn his or her name, you’re naked.
Is that wrong? Well there’s a moral argument that can be made, but it definitely raises the question about whether we are truly ready to enter the stage of anonymous sex.
We all have needs and urges we want fulfilled as soon as possible, but the emptiness that follows such an encounter cannot be underestimated.
By allowing ourselves to partake in an impromptu hormone-fueled cyber romp, we are only giving ourselves a preview of the life we dream about. For those 30 sex-crazed minutes — and I am being generous in my time allotment — you get to satisfy your most secretive desires and then return to the life you dread.
Once the other person leaves, you are again left alone, wishing for the fulfillment that can only be achieved by finding someone with whom you connect. This presents a unique connundrum for our generation: in a world where we can find some easy tail in a matter of moments, all we really want is long-term happiness.
Perhaps our parents and even their parents had it right. Maybe just on this one issue we need to kick it old school and sleep with people we’ve actually taken the time to know.
Use the Internet for what it was created for: education, Facebook and porn.
The next time you get that urge for a little nookie on the side, log off and find happiness in your own company.
Afterall, no one knows your body better than yourself.
Patrick Young is a graduate student in public policy and administration. He can be contacted at opinion@reflector.msstate.edu.