Men Challenged to End Hook-Up Culture

Fr. Paul McNellis: Change Hook-Up Culture

Through the joint efforts of the Boston College Philosophy Association, the Sons of Saint Patrick and the Saint Thomas More Society, Fr. Paul McNellis, S.J., a professor in the philosophy department, recently addressed both male and female students in Cushing Hall. In his lecture, entitled, “The Hook-Up Culture: How Men Should Respond,” the Jesuit offered insight and advice specifically tailored toward men, because, as he joked, “Frankly, I find women deeply mysterious and I don’t understand them.”

McNellis maintained a light-hearted but reflective tone throughout the evening in discussing this topic, which he lamented, is “widespread in our culture” and engages in “terms that are used too broadly.”

The professor introduced his understanding of the cultural phenomenon by describing the images he originally associated with “hooking-up,” namely, fishing and railroad boxcars. Now, when McNellis pictures the modern use of the word, he views it as “the idea of putting on a Velcro-covered coat and going to Mary Ann’s or not to Mary Ann’s – I do have standards.” McNellis teased,” I believe no one should ever go into a building with no windows unless you’re trying to escape a rocket or a bomb. I also believe you should not patronize a place where you feet stick to the floor.”

More seriously, McNellis spoke about the broad “range” of relationship levels including “friends with benefits,” in which the communication between the persons involved “moves to texting” and “cohabitation,” which for students included a “shared room code” and after college, “shared rent.” In the hook-up scene, he explained, “There is movement between the levels of commitment, with or without some doubts.”

McNellis contrasted the hook-up culture with chastity and courage, which he believes “are particularly masculine virtues.” According to the speaker, “Chastity is a virtue and is defined as loving a person as they are in that state of life.” McNellis emphasized, “Hooking-up is not chastity. It is not saying, ‘You and you alone until death do us part.’”

Moreover, the rhetoric surrounding the hook-up culture is “deliberately vague. It expresses hope and potentiality as much as it does actuality.” McNellis declared, “Personally, I’m not in favor of it.”

McNellis believes the strongest reason students are involved in it because they assume there is no alternative and they are mistakenly led to think, “Hooking-up is what you do if you want a social life.” By engaging in the culture, however, McNellis says, “I presuppose what I do with my body has no effect on my soul and my spirit, which suggests that my body isn’t really me. I cannot do something without my body. I am a body. If I engage in hooking-up and then if I later want to do something with my body, it won’t mean anything anymore.”

“When a man hooks up, he convinces himself that she wants what he wants: sexual pleasure and nothing else, which is hardly ever the case,” McNellis argued. “Often,” he continued, “A man does not call the next day not because he is insensitive. Rather, he feels ashamed about what he has done.”

McNellis provided the example of a woman who had written about how she felt that no man would love her unless she had sex with him. “Any man who heard that his actions and words did that to a woman would feel deep, deep shame. A man is dishonorable if he did something like that to a woman.” After spending several years abroad, McNellis said that, upon returning to the States, he was “stunned about how little women expect of men. Men and women no long relate the way we once did. Hooking-up has primarily benefitted morally irresponsible men.” He argued that hooking-up allows such men to experience “arrested development and regression. It infantilizes them.”

McNellis also noted that he avoided using the “explosive” word, love, which is “avoided in the hook-up culture.” As a general principle, McNellis maintained, “Say it only if you mean it. Don’t lie to her. Be sure to back it up with deeds. To really love her, you need to love her enough to say no to most selfish parts of oneself.”

Furthermore, McNellis mentioned how he “intentionally left out ‘Catholic’ and ‘Church’” in his lecture in an effort to demonstrate “how far you can go on a reason alone. We also do not need relationship psychobabble. There is no reason to speak about relationship as if it is a third person.”

McNellis concluded, “Men need to give women a reason to hope again. We need to replace the hook-up culture with something better. Every man needs to treat every woman with the respect she deserves, even if she does not ask for it, because it is identified as your duty.”

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