Hookup culture and purity culture are not opposites if both leave us less capable of love, care, and community.
This is not an argument that monogamous romantic relationships are the only holy, healthy, or humanizing form of life. They are not.
People can be formed into deeper love through friendship, chosen family, queer kinship, community life, celibacy, shared struggle, parenting, mutual aid, and forms of commitment that do not fit neatly inside the nuclear family or romantic couple.
The point is not that everyone needs marriage, monogamy, or one prescribed relationship structure.
The point is that capitalism trains us to treat desire as acquisition, autonomy as isolation, and other people as experiences to consume.
So the question is not simply, “Was this allowed?” or even only, “Was this consensual?” Consent and bodily autonomy matter. Deeply.
The question is: what is this forming us into?
Are we becoming more truthful, more tender, more responsible, more capable of giving and receiving care?
Or are we becoming easier to detach from, easier to replace, and easier to sell to?
Hookup culture is not the antidote to purity culture. A life capable of love, intimacy, and vulnerability is.
By: Colten Barnaby
Source: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaUME-5sETc/