The strings attached to noncommital sex

Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both
By Laura Sessions Stepp
Riverhead, 278 pp., $24.95

It's time for parents who dismiss the hook-up phenomenon as media hype or opt for a variation of NIMBY with NMKY ("Not My Kid, Yet ") to come out from under their rocks. Reading "Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both " will help, although it might also traumatize. Laura Sessions Stepp does not sugar coat.

Stepp took a leave of absence from The Washington Post to follow three groups of teenagers for a year, one group at Duke University, another at George Washington University, and a third at a Washington, D.C., high school. She became part of their lives, lunching and shopping with them, hanging in the dorm s , and going to their parties (always after taking a nap). She learns what "sexiling" is -- when a girl is barred from her room because her roommate is using it for sex -- and that the reason there's a flurry of cellphone photo taking when it's last call at a bar is so the girls can remember whom they were with.

Stepp's explanation for why no-strings sex has come to define our teenagers' culture may not sit well with some readers. While no reviewers have questioned her reporting, some say her analysis is the product of an out-of-date, feminist-era perspective.

At the heart of her argument is the premise that girls today are raised by parents who lovingly enable them to be all that they can. The result, she writes, is that girls "have taken this message to heart, been roundly acclaimed for their good grades and trophies -- and carried the same attitude into the bedroom. . . . In order to accomplish the goals that their parents -- and by this time in their lives, they -- want, they believe they can't afford to invest time, energy and emotion in a deep relationship."

Commitment? Love? They're the new dirty words, not to mention messy and time-consuming. The hook-up is the way to have it all.

Except it isn't, of course. "A girl can tuck a Trojan into her purse on a Saturday night, but there is no such device to protect her heart," Stepp writes.

As an activity, hook-ups are ambiguous, covering anything from kissing to intercourse. All hook-ups have one thing in common, however: a lack of commitment. As a result, Stepp concludes, young women aren't only emotionally unhooked from their partner but also from themselves. She argues that young women who expect not to care in the morning about the guy with whom they shared some aspect of their body in the night are often disappointed, and that the experience does not, as the girls hope, make them feel powerful. Rather, it destroys their sense of self-worth and deprives them of the practical experiences they will need to someday make a relationship work. Because that's what the young women say they want. Some day. To be in love. To marry.

Stepp does not call for an end to hook-ups; she accepts that the culture is too far into it for that. What she hopes is for girls to be more thoughtful going in: Does hooking up help or hurt your ultimate goal of being a fulfilled woman? She also has a message for adults . "You may want to separate yourself from these women -- I know I did -- but you end up realizing you can't, because they and their partners are wrestling with the same needs and desires we all share at some level. Discussion over a period of time can help girls make wiser choices." In that vein, Stepp ends the book with "A Letter to Mothers and Daughters," with advice on how to spur conversation.

The book is bound to continue to cause controversy, not just among parents but on college campuses. Hopefully, it won't just be young women and their parents who read it. Young men are not the subject of this book, but it still takes two to tango.